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So do people get paid to tow trailers about for the election or are they just passionate about it ?

 

Please excuse my naivety but US elections to the rest of the world are very different 

 

Paul 

Dont take this the wrong way, I cant imagine anyone in Australia doing that, we take politics very seriously but in a very different way than the US 

We may even take it a fare bit more seriously than America

Well it's not long now until your President knows his fate in politics 

Paul

4 hours ago, GA_Dave said:

Don't take this the wrong way, but the basis of our two Countries are completely different.  The US was established as a Constitutional Republic, governed by the Rule of Law.  Australia was established as subjects of the Queen. 

Almost correct, we are also governed by the rule of law

And that law is our own lawn written by us for us, not by the Queen or the King

 

 

Paul 

The Australian government is very loosely similar to the Westminster form of government of the UK, they are more like the US than you think.  Prime Minister and their cabinet (think President) a legislative branch called Parliament instead of "Congress" with an upper (Senate) and lower (House) and a judicial branch.  While the Governor-General is the "defacto" head of state and can exercise certain powers on behalf of the Monarch of England, or on their own, common practice is for them to act at the pleasure of the Prime Minister.  It has been 45 years since the Governor-General has acted independently of the Prime-Minister, and in that instance they did so independently of the Queen as well.

All in all, Australia and Canada, while "loyal" to the Queen, operate governments that are much more similar to the United States than most realize.

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Ed Smith

1957 B85F 1242 "The General Ike"

There are some differences between Aussie and US. We have many more than the 2 major parties as in US, that put themselves up for voting to get into parliament eg the Nationals (formerly Country party) Greens, Sex party (now renamed) which did get a seat in Victorian state parliament, Australia party, Shooters party, etc and also supposedly Independents - lone rangers.

Also our voting system has preference voting, whereby all the parties contesting the election do deals to give each other their votes, if their party does not win the majority of the votes. For example the Greens party directed it's votes to the Labour party in their respective seats, meaning if you vote for the Greens in your local seat, the greens votes add to 6% and Labour candidate gets 45%, then the greens 6% goes to the Labour candidate giving a total of 51% and the so the Labour candidate wins the seat. The Greens thereby gets no seat in parliament, but they have defeated the Liberals, or any other party contesting the seat, from winning the seat.

And a big difference but I may be wrong here, is in US each of the 51 states vote for a nominated candidate (Trump or Biden) to be the President for the next 4 years fixed, it is one or the other or some years ago 1 of 3 when Ross Perot ran for president. In Aussie we vote for a candidate of a Party in each seat, so the winning party forms govt and the party that wins the election selects the Prime Minister - usually the parliamentary party leader is the prime minster elect and is held during the election as the PM to take the leaders title. At the last Federal election, my vote was for the local candidate, I could not directly vote 1 for Scott Morrison to be the PM, whereas as I read you vote 1 Trump or 1 Biden to be President. For us it does not mean that person that becomes the PM will remain the PM until the next election. However, on the other hand, our PM has unlimited time in office if he decides to remain the PM, his party continues to win successive elections and his fellow party elected members of parliament vote him to be the PM.

As you know in recent years have had a revolving door of removing reigning PM's mainly because the Polls were bad, - Rudd was tossed out by his fellow Labour elected party parliamentarians, went onto the backbench, bid his time and then later the same Labour parliamentarians did a 180 about turn and voted him back to be PM once more. Or the PM whilst in office and before the next election, will retire and his party's parliamentary members will vote his replacement to be the new PM, but without a public election. Our States have similar voting and govt as the Federal system and regularly the State Premiers retire and hand over the batten to the chosen heirs, which must be sitting parliament members to be able to take over the Premier position, we call this sweet heart deals. 

Another factor in our voting system is that we have electoral boundaries which are being continually revised for each election, by the Electoral commission. It is a mystery how and why they keep moving the goal posts. This has resulted in seats that were say historical Liberal party held seats to become borderline and even a Labour seat, by moving the boundaries to bring a sizeable chunk of Labour voters. Hence why our former PM Howard lost his seat, his seat was altered to bring in big number of Labour voters, whereas his seat was rock solid with 65% of the votes.

Finally, by law voting is compulsory, for all 3 levels of govt, Federal, State and Local council, if not we are fined.

Our system is complicated and as we have experienced uncertain during the period 2009 to 2018, with revolving doors.

 

America has 50 states, not 51.  If you don't want to vote for trump or Biden you can write in whoever you want.  Mickey Mouse gets a vote or two frequently.  Politics is a dirty business of power hungry people trying to retain their seat so they can personally gain via loopholes.

The critical difference between America and every other government in the world: our government is established BY the people.  The people give the government their authority.  No king or queen, no communist dictator.  Our right to own guns is the last line of defence we have against tyranny.

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We aren't compelled to vote by the government because we established our government. It's ours to participate in or not.  My wife keeps showing me videos of people getting arrested in Australia for protesting the government.  What worth would a right to protest be if you can only protest what the government allows?  That isn't protest.  Here, we can protest the government to our hearts content with no fear of arrest, so long as we respect the rights of others. (I.e. not causing property or bodily harm to others)

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Sorry Joe your wife and you are a tad bit off

Nobody has been arrested for protesting the government in Australia and I think you will find almost all independent countries have established their own governments and made their own laws, they weren't simply given to them as you put it 

Yes by law you must vote in Australia and you will be fined if you dont 

You can cast a donkey vote (write whom ever you want on the ballot paper here as well) 

That donkey vote gets counted and goes to who ever wins

Voting is very important as the right to vote by all Australians of voting age was a very hard fought for privilege 

I am surprised Australian politics even makes into the U.S. media 

 

Paul

Don't think it does, I think it's coronavirus facebook videos she shows me.  Last one she showed me was a mom getting in trouble for not wearing a mask while holding a sign?  But people here are starting to get arrested in more liberal states for not wearing masks.  

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