Erection Day 2013. 'Straya decides.

[Twangasaurus]

Actually, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Personally though, I haven't heard any well thought out policies/policies I can agree with/policies that will actually survive the election (realistically) and I'm sick of the cult of personality around these Fuckheads instead of a focus on realistic and progressive policies. Not shit that sets us back/or is blatantly fucking stupid. The preference system is nearly useless in a two party preferred system like ours. Its game theory.

I'm usually a swinging voter and it has actually taken a lot to get me to throw my vote away. I can see how that might piss you off, but in all honesty, I just don't feel like enough has been done to earn anyone's vote, let alone little ol me.

Ok, I'm done ranting now.

Fair enough, sounds like you had your reasons, but what you are saying about the preferential system is sillyness. Tell that to Adam Bandt, Andrew Wilkie and Bob Katter.

[goosekevin]

Urgh
Being 3 months too young to vote was really annoying


I am quite upset the liberals are in power
Labour are no saints but some of the liberal policies are utterly awful

I just can't wait for the old elite to die off and hopefully the greens/someone else will take power

[Genghis Kanye]

Public discourse in shitter. Apocalypse approaches. ABBBBBBBOTTTTTTTT.

[Iommic Pope]

Fair enough, sounds like you had your reasons, but what you are saying about the preferential system is sillyness. Tell that to Adam Bandt, Andrew Wilkie and Bob Katter.

Those guys own their electorates. They do what their locals want and are consistent. I don't agree with everything the independents do, or what they stand for, but I'm glad they've managed to make up more numbers in recent years and put the focus back on democracy to a degree. I'm gonna miss Nick Xenophon, even though he was a bit of a dick when it came to the healthcare reform stuff they tried to pass a little while back. I digress.
Point being, preference voting, at least the way its utilised in our system, is more or less throwing a vote away, unless you happen to live in an electorate with a demographic that is prepared to get away from conventional two party politics, as are the electorates those guys represent. Like I said, its game theory. When presented with two real options, there are only four possible outcomes. Whilst the presence of the other candidates seems like there are more options, unless the voting population/demographic for them is present (which in this country, with strong middle/working class political divides causing generations of family culture voting, and an ageing population, is unlikely in most areas) then the preference must ultimately get passed to one of the two majors, hence the minimising of outcomes into one of four.
Things will change though, and the presence of all these new parties, while creating a bit of a circus, does show that people are sick of the political landscape. I just think that we need to overhaul the system and get it to represent these changes more accurately. In particular the preference system. But that would involve large changes to the constitution as well...so probably not in my lifetime.
Maybe when someone comes up with a republican model that isn't a pile of shit.

Or maybe I'm just a bitter old fart. There's always that.
Nihilism. I'm comfortable with that.

listening to this on repeat right now. Guess kids are going to have to go back to gettingtheir education about our shameful history from anywhere other than their fucking teachers given what they wanna do to the national curriculum.

Fucking this.

Urgh
I just can't wait for the old elite to die off and hopefully the greens/someone else will take power

Fucking this.

Public discourse in shitter. Apocalypse approaches. ABBBBBBBOTTTTTTTT.

This!

[backwardsvoyager]

Public discourse in shitter. Apocalypse approaches. ABBBBBBBOTTTTTTTT.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayO1wtXbh_Q[/youtube]

[MEC]

I didn't know ANYTHING at all about Australian politics so I decided to do some research.

Here's what I've learned:

1) You guys have a politician named Peter Slipper (Which will be my porn name if I ever decide to go that route).

2) Abbott sounds like a douche but........ hot daughters are hot.

3) Double Dissolution sounds insane and awesome.


What else do I need to know?

[Twangasaurus]

Our system is loosely based on the Canadian one? Tasmania is pretty much Oregon except nobody has any money? We used to have a bunch of super racist policies based on eugenics? Bob Katter has a really big hat?

Stuff like that?

[morange]

Any country that didn't used to be racist probably still is. It's a human problem, we're so eager to define us and them.

[tuffteef]

hay neu! zealand

[JohnnyC]

im sick of all the negativity that elections bring.
will be glad to say its over...but sadly it aint.

this raises an eyebrow
http://wakeup-world.com/2012/11/09/are- ... orld-wide/

[Twangasaurus]

Any country that didn't used to be racist probably still is. It's a human problem, we're so eager to define us and them.

I just think it's really cool that our particular brand of racism was founded in psuedoscience. Am I allowed to say that?

EDIT: not to say that Eugenics is psuedoscience, even though it's generally not a nice thing to think about in practice. Eugenics based solely on race however is psuedoscience.

[alexa.]

"Nice Try Banning This Advert, Rupert Murdoch, But Australia Can Watch It Here Instead"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grqp-JQMFuM[/youtube]

Curious to hear opinions about this.

[Twangasaurus]

[youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=grqp-JQMFuM[/youtube]

Lolz, Getup is cool but they are just as biased as everyone else. All the way to the left. They were handing out "informational" pamphlets at election day with a star rating for how the parties did on key policy areas with small sentence description. The Greens got almost full stars on everything and the Libs got about 2. I agree with them but it was extremely subjective, especially when it comes to the greens tax policies.

Also, yeah, Rupert Murdoch controls a lot of the media over here and he was definitely running a campaign against the Labor party for his own personal gain. Nobody really denies it.

[Dogbrainz]

I voted for the first time in 12yrs. I felt more dirty than righteous