Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by drenvuk 1943 days ago
As an American I'm standing in a glass house when I ask this question but how does an Australian end up voting for these politicians? How do they get elected? There have been a couple of baffling laws that have passed and I'm wondering if Australians by and large are ok with them.
2 comments
ajkdhcb2 1942 days ago
The party is elected, and then they can change the prime minister at will. The two major parties are almost exactly the same: they both vote to pass the worst laws like anything under the national security umbrella. There is no real constitution like USA has. The people are much less engaged with politics, will never do serious protests and care much less about their rights and freedoms.
link
wyqydsyq 1943 days ago
Like USA, Australia's politics are dominated by two major parties most people feel compelled to vote for, and even if you do vote for some independent third party, our preferential voting system ends in your votes going towards one of the two major parties when the independent you actually voted for gets "knocked out" anyway. The two major parties nominate whoever they like to lead them, generally their candidates are whoever will obediently follow the party line and be a good patsy.

So similarly to the USA, every election cycle is a meaningless facade where we pretend we still live in a democracy and that we have any control at all over who our "elected" leaders are. I'm sure the majority of Americans don't want Biden as their leader, but they're stuck with him because ultimately the two major parties gave the voters two bad choices. Oh you wanted a national leader who wasn't an out-of-touch old white man beholden to the desires of his lobbyist benefactors? Well bad luck, because your only two choices are out-of-touch old white men beholden to the desires of their lobbyist benefactors.

link
drenvuk 1943 days ago
Thank you for this.
link
thu2111 1943 days ago
In fairness to the USA, Biden was selected via the primary system. In fact voters very much did want 'out of touch old white men'. If the Democratic party had been able to simply pick the leader themselves it would be black women from here on out forever - see how Hillary ended up being nominated and losing to Trump for a taste of what the primary system usually manages to avoid.
link