The problem with democracy... ...It hasnt been very democratic lately.

[Thor.]

So how long do they stay in power for. Usually its 8 years but here its 4.

[brokenergy]

Unlimited years in power, ranging from 1-12 years for a PM. We also have no fixed terms, which really annoys people.

[Thor.]

Well here it is like a popularity system as i stated before, if the general public "likes" the premier he stays in after the election and he gets in, but if you does go that way the public will call for a election even though he was voted in in the first place.

 

in a since it could happen at any time.

 

He can get booted if they do then.

 

I've seen this happen before, i almost call it a threat when they do, especially if i voted for him in, But i didn't this time so I'm all for it if they do call for a election.

 

He can run for more time then he was elected for. every 4 years there is a election but it doesn't mean anything if the premier is popular.

 

General votes count more.

 

I thought i would add some colour to my post, seems like everyone one else is. err at least one person is. I thought i would join in.

Edited August 23, 2010 by Thor.

[SilverDNA]

Right Thor! The only sovereign in a democracy are the citizens!

Forgive me my little interruption but I'm having a little bit trouble digging something up.

As well forgive me my lack of knowledge but I have to ask a question for my better understanding.

 

Is the democratic system of Australia a direct or a representative system? (Some time ago i think, I read something about it but I lost the grasp of that knowledge, sorry)

[brokenergy]

Australia is a representative system like Britain. If fact, Australia's democratic system takes the American and British systems of government, with the Governor General, who represents the Queen, as the head of state. We don't do popularity contests, instead we look at the party's policies (both of the major parties are almost the same) and see which party is best to lead the nation.

[SilverDNA]

Thank you brokenergy!  :)

Exactly what I thought I knew, but was only uncertain of!  That explains a lot of this topic and of others side threats I read here about Australian politics!

I know a bit of it because I'm living myself in a representative democratic country.

Representative democrazy to be ruled out in a Oligarchic way and is prone to lobbing (often called "Lobbykratie" in my country) and corruption making it top heavy. Parties in such a system tend to enforce laws that strengthen all other parties as well with money ( all ways follow the money 1st in a representative system) I my country they do that with elections and a expenditure law for the cost of advertising of the parties expenses (I was in about the last two years voting for 5 times on 5 different elections now guess where the money went.) and the expenditure law is broken by all major parties every time, but the voters have no interest or knowledge or worse both to put this behavior down. The sugar on it all is that donations to parties are to the half from the tax deductible. I my country there we have no per-elections ( this is only within a party and the representative is goes to the public elections on a list. now funny to go up in the internal list politicians donate to their parties money to ensure they keep or get the office the want/have. Now remember that donations to political parties are half from the tax deductible! Because we have a law that donations to political parties have to show up in a register if the donation is above a certain sum the parties a good option  to wash the money even before it is even on the parties account.  Since we have no law that shows up the donations Foundations and each major party has one of them and  money transfers between the foundation and the parties aren't watched closely (because most officials form departments aren't looking well on to it, because it is good to be in a party for promotion for officials), well now guess where the money from companies that sponsor a certain party goes! 

Now I ask if there is a similar corrupt system in Australia to re-finance the parties? 

[brokenergy]

The Greens are actually trying to ban that (political donations from major donors) but basically the major donors depend on which side of politics you support. The Liberals donors are the Mining and Tobacco companies while Labor donors are mostly the Unions. However I don't think its like the lobby groups from America as I think that there are laws in which prohibited it (I don't actually remember exactly, Vin might help). Anyways Australian politicians don't really care about others interests and are more focused on polling and getting the winning lead.

[ginnyfizz]

Our Coalition over here in the UK is talking about banning political donations, but it has to be done fairly. If you ban the Conservatives from receiving donations from business, you have to ban the Labour Party from receiving donations from the trade unions. If you are a member of a trade union you may well pay part of your union subscription as a donation to the Labour Party, and they will never tell you that you have the option not to pay it. I opted out of it because I am a bloody minded Conservative.

 

I think the problem with democracy has manifested similarly with both the Australian and British General Elections this year. The electorate fed up of the party in power, but not fed up enough to do anything about it. And maybe because they think that democracy means having it all and are therefore scared to elect outright parties like our Conservatives who will swing the axe to tackle the deficit. In Oz I don't believe you have that kind of economic meltdown, however. But I understand that you DO have compulsory voting, which we don't in the UK. I wish we did. You see under our system those who don't vote can be whingeing Poms about whoever gets in "Well I never voted for this shower of *&!$..."

 

Mind you even the ones who do go to vote whinge. It is well known that for a UK General Election the polling stations are open 7am - 10pm. I work and I managed to get my ass down to vote before work that sunny May morning. Some people decided to leave it until the last minute and whinged when the electoral officers slammed the doors in their face on the stroke of 10pm. Quite right too. You can get postal votes quite easily. Make voting compulsory I say (but it doesn't mean that you will always get a decisive result, as the Australian election has proved.)

[brokenergy]

The difference between Britain and Australia is that the British Labour has been in power for over twelve years while ALP was in power during a bad time. People aren't really fed up with the Federal ALP more with the state ALP (mostly in the eastern states) but people usually (and the Coalition used this effectively) is they can't tell Federal and State apart so they turned to the Independences, Greens or Coalition. Another reason in which there was a big swing is the axing of the ETS scheme, which many young voters and green voters are in favour, the ousting of the previous PM and the mining tax (I could talk about this but I'll find something that can explain more, like this http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/02/2942840.htm) as part of the overhaul of the tax system. I could talk all about this but it is already went off topic from the OP's question.

[SilverDNA]

Thank you again for the quick reply brokenergy :)

 

In my country there was ma major scandal at the end of the millennial... well as a result 50.000 DM are still missing and it is confirmed that the money was given in a suitcase to Wolfgang Schäuble and then vanished to nobody knows. ( He's now Finance minister, what an irony!) That has sad tradition in my country and Judges and Prosecutors are always advised behind the backs of the public to not seriously prosecution higher members of the political parties. The parties tend to protect each others as long as it don't shows up in public and if, they tend to minimize the damage to their criminal doings and play it down. In my county the normal citizen are financially bleeding to the parties and the parties create diversions for the public here and there to let the citizen not look closer at this. The major press is advised the same as the Judges and Prosecutors to stay down, if they don't, no politician of the accused party will never speak with the journalist or the news agency again so they will be bordered out and lose money. Now guess for yourself what happens to those Judges and Prosecutors and Journalist if they don't stay down. (The fear of the sword in the scabbard is mightier as the pen and paper on the table.)

I' m trying to figure this out from the differences of my country to Australia, so I can see what miss-structure of representative government you have there. So if any of you can describe the structure more to me and point out similarities or differences I'm interested to read and learn something of it. I think it is important to learn of the failures of other countries and since Australia is a way of my political horizon (I apologize for that) I would like some first hand opinions on what you think is going wrong in common and in a closer look as well. You have a better focus of the politics there than I have.