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

[Balagor]

I stick with Thor´s opinion, the more parties, the better. In DK we have 12 parties at the moment, and new ones are forming all the time. That´s how we can secure "vox populi" in our goverment, wich is a kind of parlament. They can stay 4 years, then there´s an election. The same person can be Prime Minister for 2 rounds, that´s all. We do have a situation right now, when one of the smaller parties are in power. I find that´s good. It actually results in far more negotiation, in the parlament, instead off 2 party dictator ship.

[brokenergy]

Like I said in previous posts, Australia is kind of like the British and American systems combined. The lower house is elected around every four years as long as he/she desires to be in office while only half of the senate gets elected, unless if there is a double dissolution and both house of parliament will stand to be re-elected. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC for short) is responsible for political donations and voting attendance. While we have compulsory voting, I suspect that many people chose to "donkey vote" (I.E. throw the vote away) to send a message to both major parties. If there was some sort of corruption going on, the AEC will investigate and bring this issue to court but unlike our European and American counterparts, Australia has never had large scale corruption (at least none that I know off) in that scale. The only major political crisis that I know of is the 1975 constitutional crisis, where the Governor General ousted the PM of the time.

 

Edit: Please note that Australia has at least 12 different parties with five in-office. Most of these parties are in the senate but as the reason why the rest don't have more parties in Federal government is that people don't really know much about them or don't really trust them.

[JimboUK]

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.)

 

The expenses scandal didn't help, the electorate had a "plague on all your houses" attitude when going in to the election. The damage that the theft of taxpayers money has done to our democracy will last for a very long time.

[Vindekarr]

I've had a small issue offline, I'll be posting here in length eventualy, but that's gonna have to wait till tommorow because I've been really busy.

[brokenergy]

You better, it's getting lonesome here :biggrin: Jk, take your time, I suspect that you'll take a pass on me.

[grannywils]

You better, it's getting lonesome here :biggrin: Jk, take your time, I suspect that you'll take a pass on me.

 

 

Brokenergy: Let me say congratulations on your wonderful job of explaining your political system, at least to me. I know more now than I ever did. You are surely more knowledgable than most on the background and on where it stands today. And from what you have said, it sounds to me like unfortunately it is democracy in action. Not democracy's best face maybe; but with all of the past disillusionment for whatever reasons you seem to have been left with no majority of viable candidates, at least in the eyes of the voters, and now everyone is sort of standing around waiting for someone to blink.

[Chaosblade02]

The problem in the US is that we only have 2 legitimate parties, so most people find their choices for leaders, not based on who they agree with, but more or less, which is the lesser of 2 evils. Sure you might vote for them, but are you 100% satisfied with the choice you make, and the choices you were presented with?

[grannywils]

ChaosbladeII: Unfortunately I must agree with you. Although there are other parties, they are just not viable at this point. We are left with two from which to choose. And although I am registered with one of them, for the last several years I have felt that the two have pretty much merged into the Republicrat party. They are both more or less controlled in one way or another by corporate dollars and I'm not sure anymore how much we as Americans are really having a say in the Governance of our Country. So my response with respect to the title of this thread is yeah, democracy is not very democratic lately. But as I said earlier, I think there is a pendulum swing at work here, and we're at the bottom right now.

[brokenergy]

Brokenergy: Let me say congratulations on your wonderful job of explaining your political system, at least to me. I know more now than I ever did. You are surely more knowledgable than most on the background and on where it stands today. And from what you have said, it sounds to me like unfortunately it is democracy in action. Not democracy's best face maybe; but with all of the past disillusionment for whatever reasons you seem to have been left with no majority of viable candidates, at least in the eyes of the voters, and now everyone is sort of standing around waiting for someone to blink.

 

I try my best to clear the situation by writing in an objective view rather than a subjective view. It is easy to fall behind political lines and while I haven't spoke of my political affiliations, I try to give a clear, objective answer as best as I can. To be frank, I was hoping that Vin could help out (I'm sure he'll expand more about what I talked about), since he also lives in Australia and might add more to this discussion (there might be some things that I might of skipped). He lives in one of the more "government friendly" states (unlike me, who lives with the state government from hell. If you really want to learn more about the state government from hell, PM me or something and I'll post the details), as dubbed by the Australian media. To see this hung parliament is actually a fresh change as Australia didn't had an minority government since 1940. Kind of sums up Australian politics. So really I'm no hero, I'm just a Uni student who likes her politics. :biggrin:

[Vindekarr]

No such help hahaha.

 

I'm a political zealot.

 

As I see it, the problem here is that politics has become a game, a sport, not a council that guides and protects. We lie now at the mercy of inderpendant special interest men we elected because we had NO choice. If anything I think we need not a hung parliment, but a new parliment. The liberals just want to take down labour, labour have put aside everything they stood for so as to appeal to lib voters, Only the greens remain that which they used to be-a weak and powerless society of men and women with great ideas.. ...and no bravery to use them.

 

The problem with democracy as I see it right now is that you elect a man and he'll spend the entire term holding on to power and ensuring votes NEXT term. No policy is made, nothing, the nation stagnates around us! look at what the libarels, greens, inderpendants and labour have gotten us? a public health care system in ruins, an education system in ruins, and a damaged and unsustainable economy.

 

Gillard has absolutely no idea how to run a country, neither does abbot or brown. These people are our leaders, our elders, I am 19 years old and I know more about what is ailing the nation than they do,

 

We need a clean slate. To remove the fools and instate men and women who understand what must be done.