> I'm from the US, and after visiting Australia, I've noticed that Australians really hate Australia(n government).... why? I suspect it's because we are all f

> I'm from the US, and after visiting Australia, I've noticed that Australians really hate Australia(n government).... why? I suspect it's because we are all forced to vote. Politicians spend most of the time pointing out the failures of their foes. One result of that is we we have a long list of reasons for thinking politicians from both sides are pathetic. So pathetic in fact that given a choice, we wouldn't vote for any of them. A lot of people choosing to not vote appears to be what happens in places that don't have compulsory voting. A wild guess is that means the people who do vote when they aren't forced to actually like and support the politician the vote for, actively campaign for them, and tell everyone else how great they are. The non-voters just ignore the political process and so don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, and worse probably don't feel they are entitled to one. But Australians have to vote so we engage more politically. That means we listen to what both sides are saying, and form solid opinions on the performance of our politicians. Given as I said the information you get about a politicians performance comes from other politicians, those opinions are never good. Ask us about it, and we will tell you very loudly all politicans just suck and despite that every 3 years we are forced to vote for one. It's a horrible process that forces us to choose the least worst. But nonetheless most Australian's think compulsory voting is a good thing. And there it is again - Australian's supporting a process that forces them do something they don't particularly like doing. That's because, the end result is, as you say, "It's great!". No politician can rely on someone blindly liking them. To stay in, they have to convince the votes they are less likely to fuck up than their opposition. If they do fuck up when in power, they're gone. And they know it.