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We can refer to both now as acts because — in what is an increasing trend in the Australian Parliament — the bills flew through both houses in a single day. Wh

We can refer to both now as acts because — in what is an increasing trend in the Australian Parliament — the bills flew through both houses in a single day. Why is this an increasing trend? Voting is mandatory…so are voters more trusting of their institutions or just apathetic? Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll, as well as for State and Territory elections. Australia enforces compulsory voting.[24] People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a fine of up to $170 is imposed,[25] and failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing and additional costs. About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote at most elections

mrslave 5y ago
Compulsory voting does not imply a politically engaged populace. I believe the majority of voters do not enjoy the requirement to attend on polling day, and treat the whole affair like supporting a football team. Except they care a lot less about the election results than their football team. Mandatory voting probably has the effect of protecting the two major parties more than anything else. There was a surge in minor parties in the Senate about a decade ago. In the (very large) Senate ballot you were able to vote for a single party, and their official preferences registered with the Electoral Commission were automatically applied to the entire form. Minor parties with similar policies were obviously preferencing each other, and preferencing major parties very low. (The whole point of a minor party, sometimes a single issue party, is a significant deviation from the uncontested policy agreed upon by both major parties). So the process was changed and now the voter has to manually nominate at least 6 parties on the Senate ballot form. The effect of this is even the motivated voter with interest in the policies of a minor party cannot usually name 6 that they prefer over the 2 major parties, and so one (if not both) will end up getting a reasonably high vote preference when the previous scheme would have seen them near the bottom. This further secured the position of the two major parties.
- user123456780 5y ago
  Even though people may not be engaged in politics mandatory voting is important. It reduces extremist politics and the constant need to be increasingly divisive. It forces regression to the mean. In non mandatory voting systems the politicians need to motivate people to the polls. The default of the population is apathy so to generate action you appeal to the extremes who are the most likely to act. The more people you can make act the more you can get to vote for you. But with mandatory voting the apathetic mass (who are most likely to be moderates as they don't really care but generally are reasonable educated people and don't agree with the extremist views) cast almost random votes which smoothes out the skew to the extremes non mandatory voting causes.
  - mrslave 5y ago
    Except this implies that disagreement on any policies agreed upon by the two major parties is extremist. What is the solution to issues where both parties perpetuate the status quo? I would suggest reversing the Senate ballot 6 votes rule. We can have status quo in the lower house, and negotiation with minor parties representing the population on issues they deem most important - and handled incorrectly by the major parties - in the Senate. It is important to note that you are making an argument for outcomes where the design of the system should be philosophical. What system best represents the will of the people? (Or whatever question best frames this problem. This is troublesome and often prejudicial.) It's the subsequent application of this system that is the people's voice. We should not be designing a system to get the political outcome you prefer.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    Seeing how this law was passed, maybe you should rethink your theory that you will get less extremist politics.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      It's not extremist politics. There was no TV marketing about how x group is the devil and they need this law to stop it. The government just passed quickly without much publicity. The average Australian is not radicalized like Americans are and they generally do not hate peoples existence based on how they vote / make their vote their identify. There is no such thing as "a group of liberal supporters protesting" like you see with trump and biden supporters.
- caf 5y ago
  There was a surge in minor parties in the Senate about a decade ago. In the (very large) Senate ballot you were able to vote for a single party, and their official preferences registered with the Electoral Commission were automatically applied to the entire form. Minor parties with similar policies were obviously preferencing each other, and preferencing major parties very low. (The whole point of a minor party, sometimes a single issue party, is a significant deviation from the uncontested policy agreed upon by both major parties). So the process was changed and now the voter has to manually nominate at least 6 parties on the Senate ballot form. The effect of this is even the motivated voter with interest in the policies of a minor party cannot usually name 6 that they prefer over the 2 major parties, and so one (if not both) will end up getting a reasonably high vote preference when the previous scheme would have seen them near the bottom. This further secured the position of the two major parties. The previous system was being actively gamed. Because the Group Ticket Votes flowed between candidates in unnaturally high proportions, it was possible to snowball your way to election from a very small number of initial votes. How small? Wayne Dropulich of the Sports Party initially won election with 0.2% of the initial first preference votes. This possibility meant that there was a large incentive to create a minor party and join a large preference-sharing network of parties which shared little in the way of ideology. No-one knew who was going to get the Senate seat when the music stopped, but it was a pretty good lottery to enter. You may remember Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, who won election based on above-the-line preference flows from these groups: Bank Reform Party, Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party, HEMP Party, Shooters and Fishers, Australian Stable Population Party, Senator Online, Building Australia Party, Family First Party, Bullet Train For Australia, Rise Up Australia Party, No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics, Citizens Electoral Council, Palmer United Party, Democratic Labour Party, Katter's Australian Party, Socialist Equality Party, Australian Sex Party, Australian Voice Party, Wikileaks Party, Drug Law Reform, Stop CSG, Animal Justice Party, and the Australian Independents Party. That's right, the vegans of the Animal Justice Party together with the Shooters and Fishers - I'm sure that's all about well-considered ideology? The problem was that the previous system gave you two choices - you could rank all of the candidates - often well over a hundred - or you could accept another party voting for you. The new system instead allows you to rank the groups, of which there is a far more manageable number (and the groups are far more recognisable to candidates in most instances than the candidates anyway) - or you can still rank all 100+ candidates, if you like - or as few as 6. The system after the abolition of group ticket voting more closely reflects voters democratic choices. The big parties get a lot of seats for the entirely unsurprising reason that a lot of people vote for them!
glenngillen 5y ago
We don't vote on every bill, we vote on preferred parties every 3 years. It's still a predominantly 2-party dominated system though, and there's basically zero difference between the two on issues like this.
- cottsak 5y ago
  This is an important point. How do we vote for and elect representatives in sufficient quantities that will throw out privacy and security overreaches like this? Very few of the representatives in both houses will understand the technical means, underpinnings, and exploit and overreach potential of these bills because they simply don't understand the technology in the middle. All a party/member needs to do is draft the bill and then cause enuf fear and panic in a sitting parliament for the large majority of representatives to pass it. Are these things even being challenged in parliament? Who objects to this who understands it?
  - rainonmoon 5y ago
    Empower third parties to hold the balance of power. We did it last century with the Democrats and it moved the needle on some vital issues. We can do it this century with the Greens.
  - glenngillen 5y ago
    Recent bias/availability heuristic being what it is this might not be a fair assessment: but my recollection is there has been 1 person ever who’s been able to engage on these topics. I thought it was an independent, but I also thought their name was Scott Ludlum. But a quick Google tells me he was the deputy leader of the Greens so my recollection is wrong on at least one of those fronts. Which is exactly the problem: A single example that is but a distant memory. No contemporaries that can challenge the status quo.
  - sbr464 5y ago
    I think one solution could be to vote in a faceless/anonymous type candidate that simply provides the context/details up for any vote, then votes based on the outcome of a live poll from their constituents. There would be several tech challenges, but it could provide a more pure form of the people’s will.
lettergram 5y ago
Consider what happens when you have a bunch of uninformed voters that are forced to vote... Imagine how elections would shift if only the elderly voted or middle age. Imagine if only those with children could vote (as they have a reason for the future). The voting base is important. Forcing people to vote sets up conditions where propaganda as opposed to an informed population is making the decisions. That’s what happened to Australia
- thisiswater 5y ago
  It also sets up conditions by which people have no choice but to make a choice which is in their own interest, rather than having a political process built on vote suppression, non-participation and the kind of clientelism which arises when politicians are more concerned with energizing their own base than expanding their appeal. Quoting political scientist Waleed Aly: "In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center... That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as vulnerable to demagogues" I think your point about compulsory voting creating ripe conditions for more propaganda is not borne out by reality - the USA is just as flooded with fake news as Australia.
  - lettergram 5y ago
    I enjoy the quote from a political scientist, while ignoring the reality. In Australia we have an example of what happens when you force everyone to vote. It’s not going well, they literally have concentration camps, ask for papers, don’t let you leave your homes, etc. > I think your point about compulsory voting creating ripe conditions for more propaganda is not borne out by reality - the USA is just as flooded with fake news as Australia. I think you assume what you see on TV is legit news. I agree, you see the same “fake news” everywhere. The problem, is those who believe fake news are often not those voting because they don’t do their own research, they aren’t engaged. You want the engaged going to vote, because they’re engaging with society. Forcing everyone to vote is basically a recipe for getting the candidate that “gifts” the most to the people. It’ll be the downfall of nations.
ben-gy 5y ago
IMO it’s the latter, plus a sprinkle of COVID-19 lockdown distraction (source: I’m Australian). We haven’t had a prime minister see through a full term in quite a while (they keep getting shuffled out mid-term), and right now everyone is so focussed on lockdowns impacting ~60% of the population that it’s hard to stay up to date and focussed on some of these more important bills being put through the system.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
shermozle 5y ago
The trend is that anything that invokes National Security or Think of Dah Children gets bipartisan support and flies through without comment.
discordance 5y ago
Issues around civil liberties don’t rank with Australians. They are captive to their housing investment debts, so political campaigns are decided on policies around that.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  This is pretty much it. It's not so much that people do not care about these issues, its that any time they feel spooked about their investment values or taxes, all other issues become irrelevant.
mdoms 5y ago
When it comes to authoritarianism Australians are either extremely apathetic or they are generally in favour of more government intervention in private life. Try having a calm and balanced discussion with an Australian about bicycle helmet laws for a wonderful example.
- bradrn 5y ago
  > Try having a calm and balanced discussion with an Australian about bicycle helmet laws for a wonderful example. As an Australian I’d be curious to know what the argument against them is? (Keeping in mind that most Australians don’t see ‘freedom’ as a terminal goal.)
  - zmmmmm 5y ago
    there's some research suggesting that bicycle helmets are harmful. In part because they are pretty useless at protecting against the type of accidents that actually cause severe head trauma, and then also because they seem to induce risky behaviour from both cyclists and cars around them. And then finally because they significantly reduce uptake of cycling which means people are doing other unhealthy things instead. (I'm not actually arguing a position here, just saying that this is not as clear cut as you might think).
  - astrange 5y ago
    They're actively harmful because they make it harder to ride a bike, so people don't adopt biking. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2014-5-september-october/green-life/why-danes-dont-need-bicycle-helmets https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2014-5-september-october/g...
- trainsplanes 5y ago
  Not Australian and never been to the continent, but... are bike helmet laws an actual example of authoritarianism? Like, I don't hear about the existence motorcyle helmet laws or seatbelt laws as proof of authoritarianism, aside from fringe groups of protestors (with several of them ironically dying from accidents that would've been survivable with proper safety measures).
zmmmmm 5y ago
> Why is this an increasing trend Because the lived experience of politicians on both sides is that the less time something spends in the limelight the less scrutiny it gets. Once something is determined to be supported by both parties (and almost universally when it involves increasing the power of government over citizens they are all in favor) it is not in anybody's interest to have it linger around for debate. Most Australian politics is cynically focused on controlling the debate rather than solving important issues. So both sides will usually pick strategically controversial but unimportant things that they think favor them and then focus exclusively on those. Everything else is dealt with as expeditiously and in the most minimalist fashion possible. It does have the upside that a lot of "good government" where both sides agree happens in the background without anybody realising.
christophilus 5y ago
Democracy fails if the majority is some combination of apathetic, uneducated, or incapable of critical thought. I don’t know about Australia, but the US is in serious trouble if that statement holds. We are a Republic, which probably buys us time. I’m amazed by how many voters I know personally who have never even read the US constitution or the bill of rights. It’s a real shame, and my guess is it won’t end well.

mrslave 5y ago

Compulsory voting does not imply a politically engaged populace. I believe the majority of voters do not enjoy the requirement to attend on polling day, and treat the whole affair like supporting a football team. Except they care a lot less about the election results than their football team. Mandatory voting probably has the effect of protecting the two major parties more than anything else. There was a surge in minor parties in the Senate about a decade ago. In the (very large) Senate ballot you were able to vote for a single party, and their official preferences registered with the Electoral Commission were automatically applied to the entire form. Minor parties with similar policies were obviously preferencing each other, and preferencing major parties very low. (The whole point of a minor party, sometimes a single issue party, is a significant deviation from the uncontested policy agreed upon by both major parties). So the process was changed and now the voter has to manually nominate at least 6 parties on the Senate ballot form. The effect of this is even the motivated voter with interest in the policies of a minor party cannot usually name 6 that they prefer over the 2 major parties, and so one (if not both) will end up getting a reasonably high vote preference when the previous scheme would have seen them near the bottom. This further secured the position of the two major parties.

user123456780 5y ago
Even though people may not be engaged in politics mandatory voting is important. It reduces extremist politics and the constant need to be increasingly divisive. It forces regression to the mean. In non mandatory voting systems the politicians need to motivate people to the polls. The default of the population is apathy so to generate action you appeal to the extremes who are the most likely to act. The more people you can make act the more you can get to vote for you. But with mandatory voting the apathetic mass (who are most likely to be moderates as they don't really care but generally are reasonable educated people and don't agree with the extremist views) cast almost random votes which smoothes out the skew to the extremes non mandatory voting causes.
- mrslave 5y ago
  Except this implies that disagreement on any policies agreed upon by the two major parties is extremist. What is the solution to issues where both parties perpetuate the status quo? I would suggest reversing the Senate ballot 6 votes rule. We can have status quo in the lower house, and negotiation with minor parties representing the population on issues they deem most important - and handled incorrectly by the major parties - in the Senate. It is important to note that you are making an argument for outcomes where the design of the system should be philosophical. What system best represents the will of the people? (Or whatever question best frames this problem. This is troublesome and often prejudicial.) It's the subsequent application of this system that is the people's voice. We should not be designing a system to get the political outcome you prefer.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Seeing how this law was passed, maybe you should rethink your theory that you will get less extremist politics.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    It's not extremist politics. There was no TV marketing about how x group is the devil and they need this law to stop it. The government just passed quickly without much publicity. The average Australian is not radicalized like Americans are and they generally do not hate peoples existence based on how they vote / make their vote their identify. There is no such thing as "a group of liberal supporters protesting" like you see with trump and biden supporters.
caf 5y ago
There was a surge in minor parties in the Senate about a decade ago. In the (very large) Senate ballot you were able to vote for a single party, and their official preferences registered with the Electoral Commission were automatically applied to the entire form. Minor parties with similar policies were obviously preferencing each other, and preferencing major parties very low. (The whole point of a minor party, sometimes a single issue party, is a significant deviation from the uncontested policy agreed upon by both major parties). So the process was changed and now the voter has to manually nominate at least 6 parties on the Senate ballot form. The effect of this is even the motivated voter with interest in the policies of a minor party cannot usually name 6 that they prefer over the 2 major parties, and so one (if not both) will end up getting a reasonably high vote preference when the previous scheme would have seen them near the bottom. This further secured the position of the two major parties. The previous system was being actively gamed. Because the Group Ticket Votes flowed between candidates in unnaturally high proportions, it was possible to snowball your way to election from a very small number of initial votes. How small? Wayne Dropulich of the Sports Party initially won election with 0.2% of the initial first preference votes. This possibility meant that there was a large incentive to create a minor party and join a large preference-sharing network of parties which shared little in the way of ideology. No-one knew who was going to get the Senate seat when the music stopped, but it was a pretty good lottery to enter. You may remember Ricky Muir of the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, who won election based on above-the-line preference flows from these groups: Bank Reform Party, Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party, HEMP Party, Shooters and Fishers, Australian Stable Population Party, Senator Online, Building Australia Party, Family First Party, Bullet Train For Australia, Rise Up Australia Party, No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics, Citizens Electoral Council, Palmer United Party, Democratic Labour Party, Katter's Australian Party, Socialist Equality Party, Australian Sex Party, Australian Voice Party, Wikileaks Party, Drug Law Reform, Stop CSG, Animal Justice Party, and the Australian Independents Party. That's right, the vegans of the Animal Justice Party together with the Shooters and Fishers - I'm sure that's all about well-considered ideology? The problem was that the previous system gave you two choices - you could rank all of the candidates - often well over a hundred - or you could accept another party voting for you. The new system instead allows you to rank the groups, of which there is a far more manageable number (and the groups are far more recognisable to candidates in most instances than the candidates anyway) - or you can still rank all 100+ candidates, if you like - or as few as 6. The system after the abolition of group ticket voting more closely reflects voters democratic choices. The big parties get a lot of seats for the entirely unsurprising reason that a lot of people vote for them!

glenngillen 5y ago

We don't vote on every bill, we vote on preferred parties every 3 years. It's still a predominantly 2-party dominated system though, and there's basically zero difference between the two on issues like this.

cottsak 5y ago
This is an important point. How do we vote for and elect representatives in sufficient quantities that will throw out privacy and security overreaches like this? Very few of the representatives in both houses will understand the technical means, underpinnings, and exploit and overreach potential of these bills because they simply don't understand the technology in the middle. All a party/member needs to do is draft the bill and then cause enuf fear and panic in a sitting parliament for the large majority of representatives to pass it. Are these things even being challenged in parliament? Who objects to this who understands it?
- rainonmoon 5y ago
  Empower third parties to hold the balance of power. We did it last century with the Democrats and it moved the needle on some vital issues. We can do it this century with the Greens.
- glenngillen 5y ago
  Recent bias/availability heuristic being what it is this might not be a fair assessment: but my recollection is there has been 1 person ever who’s been able to engage on these topics. I thought it was an independent, but I also thought their name was Scott Ludlum. But a quick Google tells me he was the deputy leader of the Greens so my recollection is wrong on at least one of those fronts. Which is exactly the problem: A single example that is but a distant memory. No contemporaries that can challenge the status quo.
- sbr464 5y ago
  I think one solution could be to vote in a faceless/anonymous type candidate that simply provides the context/details up for any vote, then votes based on the outcome of a live poll from their constituents. There would be several tech challenges, but it could provide a more pure form of the people’s will.

lettergram 5y ago

Consider what happens when you have a bunch of uninformed voters that are forced to vote... Imagine how elections would shift if only the elderly voted or middle age. Imagine if only those with children could vote (as they have a reason for the future). The voting base is important. Forcing people to vote sets up conditions where propaganda as opposed to an informed population is making the decisions. That’s what happened to Australia

thisiswater 5y ago
It also sets up conditions by which people have no choice but to make a choice which is in their own interest, rather than having a political process built on vote suppression, non-participation and the kind of clientelism which arises when politicians are more concerned with energizing their own base than expanding their appeal. Quoting political scientist Waleed Aly: "In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center... That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as vulnerable to demagogues" I think your point about compulsory voting creating ripe conditions for more propaganda is not borne out by reality - the USA is just as flooded with fake news as Australia.
- lettergram 5y ago
  I enjoy the quote from a political scientist, while ignoring the reality. In Australia we have an example of what happens when you force everyone to vote. It’s not going well, they literally have concentration camps, ask for papers, don’t let you leave your homes, etc. > I think your point about compulsory voting creating ripe conditions for more propaganda is not borne out by reality - the USA is just as flooded with fake news as Australia. I think you assume what you see on TV is legit news. I agree, you see the same “fake news” everywhere. The problem, is those who believe fake news are often not those voting because they don’t do their own research, they aren’t engaged. You want the engaged going to vote, because they’re engaging with society. Forcing everyone to vote is basically a recipe for getting the candidate that “gifts” the most to the people. It’ll be the downfall of nations.

ben-gy 5y ago

IMO it’s the latter, plus a sprinkle of COVID-19 lockdown distraction (source: I’m Australian). We haven’t had a prime minister see through a full term in quite a while (they keep getting shuffled out mid-term), and right now everyone is so focussed on lockdowns impacting ~60% of the population that it’s hard to stay up to date and focussed on some of these more important bills being put through the system.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

shermozle 5y ago

The trend is that anything that invokes National Security or Think of Dah Children gets bipartisan support and flies through without comment.

discordance 5y ago

Issues around civil liberties don’t rank with Australians. They are captive to their housing investment debts, so political campaigns are decided on policies around that.

SilverRed 5y ago
This is pretty much it. It's not so much that people do not care about these issues, its that any time they feel spooked about their investment values or taxes, all other issues become irrelevant.

mdoms 5y ago

When it comes to authoritarianism Australians are either extremely apathetic or they are generally in favour of more government intervention in private life. Try having a calm and balanced discussion with an Australian about bicycle helmet laws for a wonderful example.

bradrn 5y ago
> Try having a calm and balanced discussion with an Australian about bicycle helmet laws for a wonderful example. As an Australian I’d be curious to know what the argument against them is? (Keeping in mind that most Australians don’t see ‘freedom’ as a terminal goal.)
- zmmmmm 5y ago
  there's some research suggesting that bicycle helmets are harmful. In part because they are pretty useless at protecting against the type of accidents that actually cause severe head trauma, and then also because they seem to induce risky behaviour from both cyclists and cars around them. And then finally because they significantly reduce uptake of cycling which means people are doing other unhealthy things instead. (I'm not actually arguing a position here, just saying that this is not as clear cut as you might think).
- astrange 5y ago
  They're actively harmful because they make it harder to ride a bike, so people don't adopt biking. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2014-5-september-october/green-life/why-danes-dont-need-bicycle-helmets https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2014-5-september-october/g...
trainsplanes 5y ago
Not Australian and never been to the continent, but... are bike helmet laws an actual example of authoritarianism? Like, I don't hear about the existence motorcyle helmet laws or seatbelt laws as proof of authoritarianism, aside from fringe groups of protestors (with several of them ironically dying from accidents that would've been survivable with proper safety measures).

zmmmmm 5y ago

> Why is this an increasing trend Because the lived experience of politicians on both sides is that the less time something spends in the limelight the less scrutiny it gets. Once something is determined to be supported by both parties (and almost universally when it involves increasing the power of government over citizens they are all in favor) it is not in anybody's interest to have it linger around for debate. Most Australian politics is cynically focused on controlling the debate rather than solving important issues. So both sides will usually pick strategically controversial but unimportant things that they think favor them and then focus exclusively on those. Everything else is dealt with as expeditiously and in the most minimalist fashion possible. It does have the upside that a lot of "good government" where both sides agree happens in the background without anybody realising.

christophilus 5y ago

Democracy fails if the majority is some combination of apathetic, uneducated, or incapable of critical thought. I don’t know about Australia, but the US is in serious trouble if that statement holds. We are a Republic, which probably buys us time. I’m amazed by how many voters I know personally who have never even read the US constitution or the bill of rights. It’s a real shame, and my guess is it won’t end well.