Seems to me that most elections in mature democracies are decided by the 5 - 10% of swing voters who sit on the fence for whatever reason. The politicians therefore spend all their time fighting for this non-partisan middle ground. The result of this is that they all end up sounding the same and taking the support of their ideological membership for granted and becoming uninteresting to a growing number of people, hence reducing turn out figures. I don't think forcing people to vote would make this situation any better as the whims of people would become even more influential.

The UK three party system nearly always means that the winning party and leader never has either a majority support of the population, nor even of those who bothered to vote.

I think it very advisable to restrict the powers of these people who are voted in on a whim by a minority of people.

Yes Irish. I wonder how things would go over there if everyone over 18 HAD to vote. It tends to bring out more parties and more issues. Shows up more in State voting. You get large swings from voters. If people are unhappy and becasue they have to vote they let the Govt know it.

Jseal,

The president is not only an elected official he is the head of state and can only be removed by resignation, death or after he has been impeached.

In Australia and the UK (Canda too I suspect), the prime minister who is the head of government is an elected member of the lower house (ie in US the house of Reps). A Prime Minister can be removed by his own party by electing another leader.

The President is not a member of either legislature to my knowledge.

There is a quite a different system in the US than in Australia or the UK.

The first past the post system, ie the person who get the most primary votes wins, is not a very good system if you have more than 2 candidates. if you had 6 or 7 candidates a person with 20% of the votes cast could win.

When Australia set up their constitution (adopted in 1900 or 1901) it was lucky to have different models to work from (especially the USA and Great Britain). It is how the Aussie houses of Parliament are the House of Reps and the Senate, it was adopted from the US Constitution. A preferntial system of voting was also adopted because to win a seat you have to get more than 50% of the vote. This is done by voting for candidates on the voting slip in order of your preference. after counting, the candidate with the lowest amount of votes is excluded and his preferences allocated to the other candidates, then the second lowest till one person has reached more than 50% of the votes. Any close results are automatically recounted.

I think that Australia was well served by the gentlemen who drafted the constitution. Very few amendments have been made.

To add to what Grumble has said. We will in time change from the Queen as head of State. What sort of republic we become only time will tell. I would hope people do not think we are like a Brazil or some other banana democracy. *hides his coffee & bananas*

Indeed. Nothing is a given. I recall when Clinton came out here and made a toast to our head of state Queen Liz and not a toast to Australia. The room went silent and even Howard didn't look to pleased.

Bilbo, I may be incorrect, but permit me to reference the relevant document:

The Constitution of Australia defines the Parliament as "the Queen, a Senate, and a House of Representatives" and vests the Federal legislative (law-making) power in the Parliament (section 1, Constitution).

The executive power (the governing and administrative power) of the Commonwealth of Australia is vested in the Queen (section 61, Constitution).

The Queen has the power to disallow any law within one year of it being made even after the Governor-General has given his assent (section 59, Constitution).

The Governor-General only holds office "during the Queen's pleasure" which means that the he can be dismissed by the Queen at any time (section 2, Constitution).

Sharni,

I may be incorrect, but a response to Bilbo’s response seemed to be in order. It follows the pattern of the thread, I thought.

I had posted what I thought accurately described the process of forming an Australian national government. His post, indicating that he was unpersuaded by my line of thought, justified my presenting the source document which I used to develop my idea.

Pantyfanatic,

While it is true that my post could not be characterized as a “one liner”, or “sound bite”, there are, I’m sure you’ll agree, issues which are not satisfactorily served by such brevity. A filibuster is a tool used to obstruct or delay a debate. Judging from the responses my post has elicited, I’d say that it has had the opposite result.

I do agree with you in regards the anachronism of the Electoral College, although we tend to express our opinions differently. As this process is written into the federal constitution, it is as close to having been carved in stone as a process here can be. Only by an amendment to the Constitution or a Constitutional Convention can the Electoral College be replaced, both of which are most unlikely, so I’ll bet you’re right about that also. It is a piece of rococo eighteenth century democracy which will outlast both of us.

Jseal,

I must commend you, you know more about the Australian Constitution than most Australians.

You are correct in that the Queen has the power to disallow laws and this is there to prevent a dictatorship or unconstitutional laws.

It has never been used and it is a precendent that the Governor General and the Queen accepts the advice of the Prime Minister of the day.

I do not know the actual words used when a successful Prime minister approaches the Governor General and presents his credentials.

Messrs. Howard and Blair then presented their credentials to their respective heads of state, who prudently entrusted the governance of the countries to the parties whose policies most closely matched those of the citizens.

I would think that Bilbo disagrees with "parties whose policies most closely matched those of the citizens"

I believe that the incoming Prime Minister informs the GG that he is able to form a government. (This would mean that the Goverment would command control of the parliament because they had the numbers to do so)

The constitution is not as simple as it seems and disputes on it are settled by the full bench of the High Court of Australia.

As you can see Aussies are good with politics and we are tanned and sexy. What catch! We can even eat meals without putting our elbows on the table! :)