Comments on: Vote now for radical reforms to Australia’s electoral system

By: Mark Duffett

Mark Duffett — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:16:26 +0000

Can’t see anything wrong with current representation in the Senate myself.

By: jeebus

jeebus — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:52:15 +0000

I like the idea of introducing voluntary voting for 16-17 year olds. This should be accompanied by a compulsory subject in high schools to educate students about how our political system works.

Any moves towards electronic voting should be based on open source or government owned software (not proprietary or secret code owned by a private company), and backed up by a paper trail i.e. printed receipts.

Restore election day enrollments and the voting rights of prisoners.

Compulsory voting is a great moderating influence on our political system. It keeps the fringe elements in check, and reduces the need for politicians to pander to special interest groups.

By: Andrew Howell

Andrew Howell — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:25:40 +0000

It’s absurd to say NSW people are under represented in the Senate. The senate is supposed to provide equal representation to each state as stated in the constitution.

By: deccles

deccles — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:11:21 +0000

Well I was thinking of the Telstra Call centres Harradine got for agreeing to the ‘partial’ privatisation of Telstra. I agree that his religion got in the way.

I agree that you have to be a citizen to be allowed to vote. If that means my ‘British subject’ brother in law has to go through a citizenship ceremony to vote, then so be it!

My concern is that if Senate voting becomes based on population, we’ll end up with all the pork barrelling going to NSW and to the lower house marginals and the rest of the country will go to rack and ruin starved of Federal funding.

I wish the Senators in Australia would be more like their American counterparts and not rusted on to toeing their party line at the expense of their constituents, but that’s la la land wishful thinking.

By: SusieQ

SusieQ — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:49:24 +0000

Agree with Deccles, except about Brian Harradine - I think, unfortunately he let his religious views get in the way too much.

Also, I disagree that non-Australian residents should be allowed to vote. If you live here and are not prepared to commit, then you shouldn’t be able to vote and this includes those Brits who now can - most countries allow duel citizenship now anyway, so whats the big deal?

And here’s me thinking we didn’t have ‘truth in advertising’ during election campaigns!!!! Not sure who polices this requirement, but it should be kept, even if its in principle only!!!!!!

Clearly some changes need to be made to ensure equal representation, but shouldn’t this happen through normal reviews of population patterns etc?

We should look carefully at electronic voting - look at the mess in the USA with all these different systems - I think the current system works well because it is uniform and easy.

By: deccles

deccles — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:18:29 +0000

The Australian Senate model reflects the US Senate. Both were about protecting States rights. Great idea until political parties came on the scene. The only Senator in recent time to look after his state was ret Senator Harradine. I disagreed with about every thing he stood for, but admired his ability to get the best for his state.

If you want to argue about disproportional voting, have a look at the 2 California Senators versus 2 Wisconsin Senators…

I’d really like it to be supported to number 1 …X above the line on Senate forms.

We should keep compulsory voting. If not for who you put first, but who you put last. I had friends who wouldn’t enrol to vote but would b-tch all the time about the governments. I wouldn’t listen to their arguments because they had surrendered their ability to do anything about it by not enrolling to vote.

Making voting non compulsory will create even further apathy about the political process.