CCF – Voting
There are two things that many people believe stabilises the political system in Australia when we go to vote. These are compulsory voting and our preferential voting system. We’ve had preferential voting federally since 1918, and many of us view it as quite normal.
This week Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John announced that he will introduce a Private Members Bill in the Senate seeking to lower the age of voters for federal elections to 16.
People are looking at the size of the Senate crossbench and muttering about how the Senate reform didn’t work. But how do you define success?
Perhaps success depends on what it was hoped would be achieved by those members of Parliament who passed the legislation.
The election count goes on. It took eight long days to find out that the Coalition will form government. There are still one or two seats unconfirmed in the House of Representatives and the Senate count is likely to take a few more weeks.
Tomorrow we get to have the ultimate say about our preferred federal parliamentary representatives as each of us get one vote in the House of Representatives and one vote in the Senate.
The result of children not being taught the value of democracy in school is that only 50% of 18 year olds are enrolled to vote at this election.
Shortly after the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016 was legislated by the Parliament, South Australian Family First Senator Bob Day mounted a High Court challenge to test the constitutionality of the legislation.
As we discuss senate reform with CEFA supporters we are finding Australians are polarising between those that think the election of independents and minor party senators such as Ricky Muir has been beneficial to our democracy, versus those who were shocked and dismayed that some senators could b
When the Carbon Tax Repeal bill was defeated in the first vote by the Senate last year the Prime Minister described the Senate as “Situation Normal”. More recently after the University Deregulation Bill was defeated he described the Senate as “Feral”
