WE HAVE become close friends with a well-read migrant couple who were leaders in their former country. My friend phoned and said he didn’t know how to vote because the compulsory preferential system in Australia incorrectly assumed he knew each candidate and what they stood for.
Compulsory voting is rare and is mostly found where dictatorships are common – South American countries, North Korea et cetera, but I can’t find anywhere else in the world that has compulsory preferential voting.
I explained how an amendment to the bill for compulsory preferential voting was introduced at 1am on July 17, 1998, by Messrs. Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley to stop One Nation’s Pauline Hanson being re-elected and to ensure some electoral funding, on votes received, went to the two major parties.
It worked, as Pauline Hanson was defeated in Blair despite getting 36 per cent of the primary vote. The winner was the Liberals with 22pc of the primary vote.
Now, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have stated that Ms Hanson is not welcome in Parliament. Apparently the two regard Parliament as a club. In a democracy it is the people who decide who sits in the Parliament. Turnbull and Shorten are there because the people voted them there (even if they had no choice in their blue ribbon electorates). Political journalists who talk of “populist” candidates and policies apparently haven’t consulted a dictionary. Populist means will of the people – ie. a democracy.
The two major parties are beholden to the supermarkets, banks and major processors. They have illustrated this during the past 40 years as they as they have smashed our people’s bank and agriculture. Control of the dairy, grain, sugar and meat industries were handed back to multinational corporations. The “Quisling” peak industry bodies in Canberra went along with it, as lucrative positions went to their leaders.
It was good to read the latest The Land editorial and letters on Cattle Council’s “sell out” of producers. Like most readers, I live in a blue ribbon electorate and my Lower House vote will have no effect. The sitting member, in the major party duopoly, will be re-elected, and will help ensure corporations continue to run the country.
However, my Senate vote will be a different matter. The House of Review needs reviewers who do their own thinking – not rubber stamping non-entities who are told how to vote by their party whip. A Senate with Nick Xenophon, Bob Day, John Madigan, Jacqui Lambie, Pauline Hanson, Ricky Muir, David Leyonhjelm, and others, having to be consulted by the government would be much more democratic.
Such independents represent ideas, are personally liable for their voting and can enable government to make lasting innovations. They don’t practice mindless party negativity. I will be voting below the line for twelve apostles for democracy.