[csaa-forum] the ongoing

[Dr Laurence James DUGGAN]

Meatloaf? What worries me is the resurgence of Dean Martin!

Seriously, some comments on the ongoing discussion: Firstly I'd say that non-compulsory voting is a very bad idea. I think it's partly this that has ensured that politics in the US has become strictly the business of the very rich. If people don't have to vote then you more or less have to buy their votes maybe even organise and bus them to the booths. The loony right and the fundamentalists have an obvious advantage here and, I'd say, age doesn't come into it.

Second point: What some commentators have suggested has happened in the last few years (re consumerism) is that an unprecedented number of people have been lured into home ownership through first homeowner deals &c. This means that they're locked into interest rates and terrified of any political swing that might alter these. They're hostages in effect to the liberal Party.

Third: Liberal Graham Morris made a very interesting observation on breakfast ABC last Monday. That the 'charter of budget honesty' makes it impossible for an opposition party to present their spending proposals too early since the incumbents can simply spend the money out from under them. So the Labor party is stuck with having to present everything too late (in the pre-election period) and with one policy rapdly following another things tend to get lost.

Laurie