Your views: carbon tax and compulsory voting
Readers’ views on compulsory voting and Labor MP Nick Champion’s view that Labor should let the Coalition scrap the carbon tax.
J. MELBOURNE: Why is compulsory voting seen by some to be a forced activity we should not have to be involved in? Surely the occasional attendance at a polling booth is not too much to ask, after all you can do an ‘early vote’ or a ‘postal vote’ or even an ‘absentee vote’ to make things simpler. Shouldn’t people show some interest now and then in how this wonderful country is run? I would hate to see various political parties engineering the vote by branch stacking – surely with non-compulsory voting this latter practice would rear its head time and time again?
JAMES BOTTEN: The comment made by Nick Champion – “it’s not our job to save the Liberal Party from bad policy and it’s not our job to save the Australian people from bad policy if that’s what they choose and vote for in an election” – is breathtaking in its arrogance, and downright insulting (Let Abbott scrap carbon tax: Champion, InDaily, September 11, 2013).
If these things do not in essence constitute Labor’s “job”, then what on earth does? Are not all politicians, regardless of political leaning, meant to be serving the Australian people by seeking and pushing for good policy?
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Comments such as these, while appalling, are at least useful in revealing politicians’ true motivations – for Nick it’s all about getting Labor back into power. I would suggest however that insulting a significant proportion of the voting public is not the best way to go about it.
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