What if someone decided to invade Australia? Would you be happy to jail the politicians if they blew out the budget trying to defend the country?
Depends. i cant see that ever happening - the only ones invading us are assylum seekers, but thats our own fault for having a the dumbest dole system on earthwhich puts assylum seekers on welfare from day 1.
Stuff 'em they shot themselves in the foot with their pathetic gun buyback scheme. Australian military should be more like Swiss IE a militia with people able to keep their rifles at home.Also we need to procure a small number of nuclear weapons off either the US or UK in case China does ever decide to invade.China has nukes we don't that is a dangerous situation.
This is the problem with automatic sentences. There is no room for flexibility. Politicians on both sides have totally wasted the mining boom. The Libs with their massive middle class social welfare handouts and labor with their wasted stimulus and all their handouts.
So Swan once again makes a fatal error. All of his pompous bleating about the future strength of Australia's economy due to the mining boom lasting for many years to come was wrong. another epic failure from the Trade Union Party. Let's see how their class warfare and mining taxes work now. Idiots.
All the Chinese need do to invade us is to arrive by boat... we'll even put them on the dole as soon as they land and give 'em widescreen tv's and cushy places to stay etc.. They don't even need to bring weapons - just arrive and they'll be welcomed in their hundreds of millions. This is Stralia mate! We will share everything we've worked our entire lives for with anybody whose willing to arrive here by boat! oh yes... that's right ... they needn't actually even arrive by boat - just need a satelite phone and can call our navy and we'll even come pick em up in their own waters... The penis is mightier than the sword mate! no need for a rife... they'll just breed us into oblivion ... :lol:
It's illegal to encourage other people not to vote. That's fair dinkum if you can believe it. That being said. Come the next federal election I'll be morally free of the shackles. Like AusPM I do get my name marked off Comrade however no-one get's my vote anymore. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5gXRPXs0PQ[/youtube]
I've never voted. And I'm not registered to vote, so I never get bothered for not voting. I only wish I could do jury duty, but never get called.
I'm not arguing that point. I agree both parties suck hard. They both waste masses of money on pointless activities. Personally I think Gillard is the worst Aussie PM I've seen and probably the worst we've had. The Mad Monk will probably get the chance to top that record. I still think Labour would have been less of a bunch of warmongers although Beazley would have been up for it big time. I'm simply arguing against people claiming the Libs are somehow better and less wasteful than Labour. A poster made the point that about a few projects that Labour wasted money on. I agree they were dumb especially the fuel/grocery watch. God knows what Rudd was thinking when he came up with that. I responded by pointing out Libs can match or better them for waste. I think you misinterpret my criticism of Liberals as somehow being in favour of Labour. That would be a mistake on your part. As far as voting goes I've not voted since 1996. By accident I discovered how to disappear from the electoral roll. I moved for work and the gubermint somehow found out and took me off the roll. For some reason they did not seek to put me back on and I felt no inclination to change that position. They sent me letters for about 4 years advising nobody was registered at the address I live at. I binned them all and it would seem they have now totally forgotten about me. Which suits me. Even the census gets junked. They only ever seem to send a single reminder/threat which I can easily ignore. I might possibly consider actually participating if they did not see fit to threaten me for not filling it in. What a joke. They think they can fine me for not advising them of my private information. Not likely. I once had a census collector come round at 7pm on a Friday night just as I was heading out to the footy and actually had the gall to suggest I fill the form out while she waited. I mean really!
Likewise, I'm not registered to vote. I like waving to people on election day. In all honesty, my opinions are pretty much the same as auspm's.
Even though I know a few smart, rational people who passionately believe in donkeyinformal votes I just don't get it. Even if it is a choice between lesser of two evils wouldn't you still prefer that one? And if the choices are so massively horrible then form a new party or better yet, do what people like Turnbull did and run as a member for the party closest to your real views. As I said in earlier post Liberals aren't perfect but their constitution wins hands down compared to other majors so being pragmatic I'd be much happier running as a Lib candidate until such time that a breakaway/better party evolves. I don't see how a donkey helps change (unless you are talking huge percentages - in which case a new party should be much, much easier to start).
bordsilver - a constitution is one thing but you yourself mentioned the parties are not beholden to actually follow it and have not done so in the past. I get what you are saying but think it is more the ideal rather than what happens in real life. Personally I don't see it as a choice of lesser of two evils - just two different sets of evils neither better nor worse than each other. I think the form a new party line is a bit redundant. It's not really practical for most and the chances of swaying a disinterested population are slim at best.
I think there may be 'some' value in a donkey vote. At the end of the day, when the votes are counted, and they find out how many donkey votes there were, if the number increases enough, it sends a message. That message is 'people are unsatisfied with their voting choices'. Two things that can come from that are a) the two parties try a bit harder to get voter satisfaction, or b) minority parties, or prospective parties get a boost, as they can see that there are votes to be harnessed. For b), it would take time, but it's not so bad encouraging more parties to try to get into the game is it? If the Donkey vote got up to 10%, then there would be some serious votes to harness right there. Just a different perspective anyway.
I don't think you mean a "donkey" vote dogmatix. A "donkey" vote is a vote in order of the ballot paper 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. Do you mean informal votes where the ballot paper is filled out incorrectly or not at all? If you do, I don't think anyone cares, I have counted ballot papers in the past - all we did was look at numbers and made sure the ballot paper was filled in correctly, we didn't care about protest votes or donkey votes, they went in the "scrap" pile. And the scrutineers cared even less, all they cared about was whether their "man" got over the line or not. The last federal election had the most informal votes since the 1970's, but no one in power gave 2 bits of toad turd.
^^^ Sorry thanks shiney. My fault as well. Used donkey but really meant informal. Personally I don't really care if people do non-votes because they think it achieves something or makes sense somehow. Personally though I see more merit in still voting, making the party better by talking with the MPs etc (or even join) or, if you think there are enough others as disatisfied as you then start a new party.
