why the compulsion?

Why is voting compulsory in this country?

It is not in any other western country. Not the United States or Canada or Britain or across the ditch in New Zealand. Why here? Why are adult Australians treated like children?

The issue came up again this week with Senator Nick Minchin pushing for it but it has been buried yet again by the Howard Government.  They flirted with the idea of putting it to a referendum at the next federal election but then put it in the “too hard” basket.

Minchin says: “I will continue to argue the case for the Coalition to go to the next election  with a policy for ending compulsory voting.” I don’t like his chances even though our now veteran Prime Minister, John Howard, was against compulsory voting decades ago.

The issue has been around for about eighty years. Back in 1926 a member of the Socialist Labor Party tried to argue that he had not voted because all the candidates were advocating capitalism and that was against his socialist beliefs. It went all the way to the High Court where it was tossed out.

Compulsory voting, I believe, is undemocratic. And save yourself a postage stamp over the specious argument that voting is NOT compulsory. You just have to present yourself at the booth and have your name checked off.

It’s a canard that I have argued many times with former Liberal Party leader Andrew Peacock. And I see federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley was drinking at the same trough last week.

He said: “Voluntary voting exists now. When you go to the polling booth you get given a ballot paper and you’re ticked off the roll. If you choose to stick the ballot paper in your back pocket and walk out the door, nothing happens”.

Maybe somebody should explain the Electoral laws to the Bomber.  As I understand it, if you try to leave the precincts of a polling booth with a ballot paper you are committing a federal offence.

The leader of the National Party in the Senate, Ron Boswell, bought into the argument last week. He claimed that democracy demands compulsory voting. Duh!  He claimed compulsory voting provided a “clear connection between the people and the Parliament”.  Boswell claimed that voluntary voting would give a cynical public the option to “completely disconnect”.

And why shouldn’t they? What sort of democracy do we have if you force the donkey voters to vote?  Turn up, push a button, who cares?

We have had people fined for not voting in local council elections and then the State Government sacks the council. Where’s the democracy in that?

I have another personal reason for never voting but that has something to do with my job. I really do not believe that journalists and commentators should vote. Or if they do they should divulge their political leanings to the readers and viewers and listeners who follow their interrogations of our leaders vying for office. You should know the political loyalties of Hinch, Oakes, Martin, Munro, Negus and O’Brien. I could, and did, interview Hawke, Keating, Howard, Peacock, Hewson and Fraser after federal elections and they knew that I did not vote for them or against them.

At a local government level it gets even worse. Often voters do not even know that an election has been called. I have had umpteen callers on radio from people complaining that they either did not know the council elections had been held the previous Saturday. Or that they had no idea who the people were who were standing for office. Councils argue that they run notices in local and suburban newspapers but it might surprise them to know that many people toss all junk mail (including suburban papers) into the garbage bin without even opening it.

And speaking of elections, a bi-partisan parliamentary committee has come up with an issue on elections that has been close to my heart for years.

The officious-sounding Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has recommended that federal parliamentary terms be extended to four years. And they recommended that that be put in a referendum at the next federal poll in 2007.

I agree. But I don’t think they go far enough. They talk about a “flexible” four-year term.

I believe it should be set in stone. Why not follow the American presidential idea and have a fixed date. Their’s is on the first Tuesday in November. Actually, to be technical, the first Tuesday after the first Monday.

Why not set a date on the last Saturday in November. Or would the Melbourne Cup Spring Carnival get in the way of campaigning? Or the last Saturday in September. Whatever.

In Victoria we now have a four-year term. Voters here know they will go to the polls on the last Saturday in November. That’s Saturday November 25, 2006 Maybe you could combine the state and federal date on the same day.

One thing I don’t agree with is a government proposal to freeze the electoral rolls the minute an election is called. I think you should, be given a week or two to enrol when an election prompts your memory.

I initially opposed another Government plan to ban prisoners in jail from voting. And then I thought of the sadistic, brutal rapist killers of Anita Cobby and  thought what right do they have to have any say in our government.

But, getting back to the issue that Senator Minchin has pushed strongly, but unsuccessfully:  voluntary voting. It IS, it must be, a democratic right, in a democracy.  And how come we are the only western democracy “in step”.

Our political system is based on the Westminster system. Voting is not compulsory there. It is not, as I said, in Canada or the United States or New Zealand. And across the ditch they get between an 80% and 90% voluntary turnout.  Australians are being treated like children.

October 9, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005