[ern]

Compulsory voting means that a large part of the electorate that doesn’t pay attention to politics is easily frightened by scare campaigns.

An example of this is that Australia is sorely in need of tax reform, but any party that pushes for it at state or federal level is damaged at the polls, often fatally.

[jiggawatts]

Then how did John Howard get the GST passed?

[ern]

He lost a lot of seats in the 1998 election and suffered a big swing against him.