Want an example of one of the few good Australian politicos?

Peter Andren. Independant for the Calare electorate, elected constantly. He's fought for the electorate, puts it infront of himself. Used to be a news announcer. And, I've met him, he's really a nice guy. I'd be happy to tell you what he's done, but I cant remember. Water, rates and stuff, i do remember. I'll see if I can find it. Meh. And I'd like to refer you to the paper comic about John Howard and his new senate majority. A rubber stamp with a little JOhnny picture on it, saying 'Approved!'

Poeter costello is the treasurer, but the PM has to have good economic smarts himnself.

John howard was the liberal treasurer before h became PM. He knows what he is doing, and as far as im concerned as ong as they do whatever they can to keep interest rates low, They are the lesser of 2 evils.

Funy coming from someone who was too lazy to vote

I hope that wasn't directed at me, Murphy. I had to enroll to vote twice. Once when I turned 18 which must have somehow got lost in the mail, and I enrolled again on election day because my name wasn't on the roll. I took it, take it and will continue to take it very seriously.
I only wish that I put some money on the election, so I could have still won on election day, even though Australia lost.

Yreal: Yeah, there need to be more Independents.

I'm just idly wondering.. What electorate are you in, and what is your member? I'm in Richmond (Lismore, Grafton (I think), Casino, Ninbin.. Not sure if Byron Bay is Richmond or Page) with a tool of a National guy.

America is not a two party system. Its just that two parties have dominated the electorate by sucking up the ideas and philosphies of the newer smaller parties as they pop up.

Unless your govenemernt gives out seats based on the percentage of votes gotten, rather than geographic representation, you are going to end up with two party domination.

I think it is very bad thinking to think that politicians do large public acts in order to line thier pockets later. It is much more profitable and easier to pull off, to bribe individuals in companies for minor contracts and get extra money that way, as all politicans that are corrupt have done in the past.

Large national actions are generally done for a larger cause. In this case, bringing democratic governments to the Middle east, along with reducing the infrastruction of terrorism.

It might be interesting to note, that since the Iraqi election, both Saudi Arabia and Lebanon have demanded and had elections in those countries, when such things (rigged or otherwise) never even existed before.

No it was directed at me, i forgot to vote this election, I was toobudy playing lusternia and I forgot about it. I'll just pay the $20 fine over the course of 3 years at 13c a week and be done with it.

If only people cared about the future.

America is known as a two party government, Dag. The Democrats or the Republicans are the only people who will ever get power.

Australia is the same, though on a different scale, only Labour or Liberal can hope to ever have a prime minisiter (though the Country party and Democrats can get close) a lot of small parties and independants can gain seats in the House of Reps.

Of course, the Senate is what everything is about and, until this last election, the Liberals didn't have a majority in the Senate, the Democrats did and the Democrats are opposed to most of the rubbish the Liberals spout out, the Liberals now have majority in the Senate and the House of Reps, meaning they can pass anything they want to.

Which is why I think its going to be a bad four years for Australia.

The Mayor in my city is offcially a Libretarian.

The only reason America is two parties is because of the politics and money, not the system.

Thats all I was trying to explain.

Actually it is the system. It's been mathematically proven that the plurality voting system will trend towards some two parties. It does not need to be the same two. Many attribute this property to why when the Whigs fell one and only one party replaced them, rather than multiple parties coming in to fill the vacuum. And also why the Whigs fell so quickly rather than there being a significant three party period of Whigs, Republicans, and Democrats. The Federalists that created the Constitution did not realize this or they probably would have changed it since one of the things they explicitly stated they were trying to stave off was extreme factionalism.

WAHOO! I achieved my goal of getting Roark to make a post!...
But anyways.. I would love to see some kind of legislation, in Australia more specifically, but in the US, UK and other places stuck in this two party rut, that would make it so one party can not have more than 33.3333...% of the seats, or atleast 40%.
Obviously, (in Australia) Labour and Liberal/National parties would most probably take up that 80% there easily, BUT, with the other 20%, there could be Greens, Democrats, Indipendants, My Future Party ... and thank the Gods that One Nation has died at last.

Mostly, what I've been saying all along, is that there needs to be a sure fire way to make sure one party (Really, the Libs and Nationals are one party) can't gain control of the Upper House. This all wouldn't work for the Lower House, since that's the way we work out who the PM is.

America, in the past, has had 3 major parties (the Proggresive era), the Progressive party, led by Theodore Roosevelt, also known as the Bull-Moose party, then the Democrats, led by Woodrow Wilson (winner), and then the Republicans, led by.. Warren G. Harding (?). I forget.

So, what caused the Progressive Party to vanish?

World War I, and the Democrats gave in to a lot of the Proggresive Party's demands (Women's suffrage for example).

That makes so much more sense now. I always wondered why democrats were dubbed progressives.

Its common for the parties to just suck up the ideals and positions of the powerfull third parties.

Considering there are one or two "independants" in the senate, and many more in the house, I don't understand why mathimatically it is a two party system?

If I'm not mistaken the whigs dissapeared because thier ideas no longer had any real support.

Its like how the republicans are now "right wing" but when they were founded they were "left wing"

There have certainly been influential parties. I think the Prohibition Party threw the presidential election twice by taking away votes from the Republicans. Suddenly the Republicans wanted to prohibition of alcohol. But there has never been a third party to have any real political dominance beyond pushing and shoving the two major parties into different directions like the socialists did to the Democrats, transforming them from a racist Jim Crow party into what you see today. That is certainly an amazing feat for those minor parties, but ultimately it's done in a sense like kamikazi since once the major parties adopt what you want then the minor party fizzles. For example, if the Republican Liberty Caucus ever becomes the dominate faction of the Republican Party then I predict that the Libertarian Party would dissolve. Ditto for the Green Party if the Democrats ever become dominated by the Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinnich groupies, which actually may happen since Dean has a solid chance at being the DNC chair. But their victory is in infiltrating a major party rather than becoming a viable independent new party.

But that's the point. If the difference between Liberals and Labor is.. 5 seats (I don't have exact numbers of how the Senate or House of Reps. is comprised after the last election), and there are two independants, then it makes no difference at all. My mathematical example, would mean that either party cannot have the number of seats, so that motions can pass without some kind of debate, compromise, or to outrightly stop the motion from going through.

Having one party able to make the motions, pass the motions into law, is not how the system should work. It is insane to allow a country to be run that way.

I actually predict that in the coming years, that the Democrat party will split over major issues and will form two parties, fear the Radical Democrats!

If, I believe it was Howard Taft did not, and the Republicans had choosen Roosevelt to run for President, then I do believe the Republicans would've won the election, and America would've gone into IWW sooner then Woodrow Wilson (The Republican/Progressive party had the majority of popular votes compared to Democrats, just the split). Also, Eugene Debs, Socialist Extraordinare (), if he had not run for President, then it could've been Woodrow Wilson who beat Roosevelt alone, assuming Taft didn't run.

It was 'Keeping the honest'. That reminds me, did ANYONE vote for Family First, or was it just four people and a bunch of preferences?

EDIT: Watch your language. ~Shiri~

I was going to ask the same thing.. Well, I was going to ask if anyone here voted for them.. but then I thought that Family First seem to be such die hard churchies (I love Achaea for giving me that term), that they would probably try to shut the IRE games down, rather than playing..

On the Daily show, everytime Jon Stewart mentions the Democratic party he makes a side comment like "Once a viable political party, now mainly consisting of morlochs and other creatures of shadow."

I love that man.