If you could change one law in your country, what would it be?

Legalize marijuana.

i would change the law that allows new laws to be made, we have enough already. or, barring that i would change the law that makes it legal for the law to be enforced.

"to choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. but to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder."

I would change the preferential voting system to a 'first past the post' system. Preferential voting favours major political parties which is why they initiated it.

The law that says abortions are illegal. Women should have the right to choose here, too.

"First past the post"? I've never head of that, could you explain it?

I'd like to enforce the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Then any law that applies to a specific subset of the population or that holds some group exempt from the law would be found null and void.

LEGALIZE MARIJUANA!!!!!!!!

I would legalize gay marriage, because I want to marry my girlfriend. We share our lives the way a married couple would, but we miss out on all the benefits of being married.

"First past the post" (FPTP) is the type of voting system used in the UK and the US. You vote for just one of the candidates on the ballot, and the one that gets the most votes wins.

What benefits are there of getting married?

I would legalize same sex marriages.
Then I'd get married!

Sodomy laws. What a fudging crock. You know oral sex is illegal in some states under these laws? What two (or more) consenting adults do on their own time, sexuall speaking, should be none of our fudging business. These laws were only started as an excuse to lock up homosexuals.

Legalise marijuana!

How would they propose to police an oral or anal sex law???

I don't think I wanna know.

Two actually:

-abortion should be made illegal in all states
-no capital punishment

repeal all sodomy laws and make all marriage and partnerships equal under the law!

health care benefits, tax benefits, if i died my partner would just get "my stuff" instead of us having to have specific paperwork drawn up to that effect, adoption rights, even the benefit of visiting your partner in some hospitals(if you are not a blood relative), hmmm, let's see what else............ i could go on but it depends on the state you live in, in the US.

yes!!!!!

yes!!! would we all be invited to the ceremony???

I would revoke the law allowing homosexual marriages.
(Sorry guys)

What jettles said, and more specifically for us: Mandy could be on my health insurance if we were married, I'd have an easier time as a step-parent explaining my relationship to Mandy's daughter when I am helping to parent her, accompanying her to school functions, etc. We could buy a family pass that would keep us from waiting in long lines at the border when visiting Canada. We hope to buy a house together soon, and I have a feeling that may be complicated by the fact that we're not married. The list goes on...

Of course you'd be invited!!

BTW, did you and Beth buy a house together? Did you have any trouble getting a mortgage in both your names?

I would probably make the same assault and harassment laws that apply to adults apply to children as well. Or is it already the same?

It's like what former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau once said " The goverment has no busness in the bedrooms of the nation" (or something like that).

First past the post is where the person with the most votes wins the seat. In Australia voters are forced to vote for EVERY candidate by numbering candidates from 1 to say 7 if there are 7 candidates. If the candidate with the most votes fails to gain 50% or more of the vote, ALL of their primary votes are distributed to the candidates numbered 2 on ballot papers. This continues until the distribution of preferences gets someone over 50%. In the last State election (Queensland) there was a seat near me where the person with the most votes only got 37%. After preferences were distributed, some guy with only 11% of the vote actually ended up winning the seat. Of course he was a member of one of the two major parties.

The only one that comes to mind at the moment is legalizing pot, but i have plans for campaign finance reform and public disclosure on the drawing board.

In the US we had a two party system (there are more parties, but most people consider them throwing your vote away) in which you voted during the primary for your choice within your party, and in the secondaries you vote between the top contendors from the different parties. Now many states have a 'fake' open primary in which peoples actual preference (again, discounting that many will still not throw away their vote on third party) is made public record but practically ignored because the parties are still free to discard or redistribute votes for their candidates to their top contender. One parties campaign team suggested I follow through on my idea to form a third party coalition in which all third parties form a single party with multiple factions and distribute their primary votes to the top faction. The negotiations might entail putting assigning competitive 3rd party factions into cabinet roles. It's the only way I see of breaking the two party system.

Sounds like a good idea if the motivation is to topple the two party system, but in practice it would mean getting together all minor parties and independents from the entire political spectrum. I know for sure that the party I support would never get into bed with the socialists or greens because these parties are seen as knee jerk reactionaries whose policies attack freedom and the very system that allowed their parties to form. This is what the major parties rely on. Both major parties are not that different from each other. Each knows that if they screw up they will be back in parliament every other election because the 'third party' vote is so divided.

I realize those concessions across the spectrum they would have to set aside for the possibility of getting their own party into office some day. In the mean time, if the green party candidate was appointed secretary of interior, the natural law party to the FDA & agriculture dept, peace & freedom to the dept of defense, libertarians to the dept of commerce, etc. my god, we'd have sweeping revisionism.

Repeal death taxes. What a crock they even tax you when you die.

Legalizing marijuana. I don't it, and probably wouldn't in any case, but I'm still a legalization advocate.

I always thought the system you describe for Australia would allow other parties to gain more of a foothold. Apparently not but I'll report that the "first past the post" doesn't either.

That only native born US citizens may run for president.

My son's are foreign born, but US citizens. Why should they be limited? Or more specifically, why limit the US from the benefit of their talents?

Whatever happens, the greens should be kept out of energy policy, I mean look what they've done to California. That state is the laughing stock of America and much of the world. We've seen news of kids sitting in the dark trying to learn because the power supply has not kept pace with population growth. I admit there does need to be revisionism, but there has to be a happy medium between gas guzzling (if you'll excuse the term) "Yank tanks" and returning to the dark ages - literally! Appointing pacifists to the defense dept wouldn't do much for the security of your country. There also needs to be a moderate approach to defense where the interests of our countries are defended (within reason) but aggressive acts are frowned upon. I see nothing wrong with arming our countries, but when your CIA or my ASIO start fudging with other countries... I dunno.

I would rather vote for only one candidate. Even if they don't win, at least I know some butt-hole I put last on my list didn't end up with my vote. We get parties buying preferences and paying each other off with brown paper bags full of money. We get parties (usually the leftist Labor party) printing fake "how to vote cards" so that people think their own party has suggested they put Labor second. The whole thing stinks of corruption. The Labor party was recently found enrolling cats to vote, then voting for then during the election!

To Legalize Marijuana,I haven't smoked pot in 28 years but,I still think that it's a stupid law.
So many others like the drinking,the gay marriage, the age to enlist for the service.etc......too many to mention.

It sounds pretty grim. I'd like to tell you that we don't have such stories over here, but it wouldn't be true.

You've got a good point about having to vote for people you don't want in office though. That's pretty bad. Of course that's what most people here do anyway since they think the must choose one of the two major party candidates. Maybe if you were allowed to rank only the ones you wanted and then stop. If no-one got more then 50%, then leave the office vacant for that term. I always liked the idea of a "none of the above" option on ballots.

Yeah, most people vote for the least objectionable candidate, or vote against someone not for someone.

I'd change the domestic violence laws to make recognition of verbal abuse a little easier.

I don't know. It really depends on what laws are federal and what laws are provincial. It is usually the province that screws things up. Although, if the federal government could give my province a *little* more money from that whole gas thing, I might not have to listen to people whine about it.

aaaahhhh, i moved here about a year before beth and we kept a long distance relationship. when she was ready to leave NY, she moved as well. i bought the house and we are about to go about putting her name put on the mortgage as well. she had some prior debts that she felt she needed to settle/complete before she put her name on new paperwork. i don't think we will have trouble with it but who knows. we will fight to have both our names on the mortgage if we have to.............
can i bring a guest??

Thanks for the info! I hope I wasn't too forward asking. I've just been thinking about it a lot lately, and wondered if we would have any difficulties. Maybe it won't be so bad after all.

Of course you could bring a guest! Who would you bring?

Make abortion illegal.

What does ASIO stand for? Aussie Secret Intelligence Operatives?

Close! The Australian Security Intelligence Organization. There is another organization to do with defense that I can't think of. I know there is an A and a D in the acronym.

lol lol
nope not too forward!!

Remove freedom of religion. Outlaw it altogether. Make abortion a woman's right which no one can deny. Allow gay marriages. Outlaw vouchers. Make only those people with children pay school taxes. Fine those who have more than one child.

Remove freedom of religion? You've got to be kidding. Is philosophy and art next? It was originally written to prevent everyone having to Anglican or something. Only hitler (who was a closet mysticist) and russia really tried denying it, with horrible outcomes. I think the majority of people on the planet have some sort of non-scientific notion about the universe. Would you censor all the books and conversations they have?

changing one law would probably not do it, because the legal system is so entangled, at various levels of government and with various overlapping and conflicting laws

anyway, I'd legalize drugs.

All drugs or just certain ones?

certainly marijuana and the psychedelics, to start with. Possibly others, I'd need to do more research to decide.

Don't you think that with the legalization the government would want some money and inflate the costs considerably?

yeah they'd probably tax it to hell...

I agree with Krystal_Rose. Also: Why fine people who have more than one child?

And people would continue to sell it illegally, import it illegally and things would be as messed up as they are now.

I don't think that's necessarily so. I think that legalization would improve the situation, and regulation would help improve the quality. Also if the stigma were gone people could learn more easily how to use drugs responsibly.

As far as I know, inner city drug crime doesn't currently involve tobacco or alcohol, both of which are legal and taxed. I think that legalization could help quite a bit with this problem.

That's wierd... my understanding of the preferential voting system is that it makes people more likely to vote for the minor parties. Since I was living in the US during the last presidential "election", it was fairly obvious in that situation that Nader would have received a lot more votes if the preferential system was used there, because people wouldn't have had to worry about Bush coming into power nor would there have been any suggestion of a "wasted vote".

It's entirely possible the price would drop. If it were legal to smoke it would be legal to grow. You could grow your own or at least you would not have to import it. Think of the tax paying citizens it would produce. I think that any initial increase would almost certainly be temporary.

So instead of tobacco farmers there would be weed farmers? That would be cool I wanna be a weed farmer What do you do for a living? I grow pot! lol

Me too. It would be a big industry.

Yes sir how may I help you? I'll have one pack of One hit wonder please

Legalize a women's right to go topless in public, like it is in some parts of Europe. I think if people got used to this, it wouldn't be that big a deal, and hopefullly it would lead to a healthier, more natural way of living.

I think people think of preferential voting as a wasted vote, especially when you know that unless the minor party you vote for gets over 50% of the primary vote, all those votes go to the next most popular candidate who invariably belongs to one of the two major parties. The majors know this, and that's why they ask for second preferences if you're going to vote for a minor party because they're going to end up with that vote anyway.

Do you have to give a preference ranking to every candidate or could you, for example, vote for only first and second choice in a five person race?

I would de-criminalize marijuana completely.

In Federal elections we used to be able to vote 1 for only one candidate, but the two major parties changed the voting system and only votes that number every candidate are valid. One guy went to a lawyer to so he would be allowed to vote 1 then 2's for every other candidate meaning he had shown his choice and numbered all candidates but they changed the law again to ensure every candidate is ranked. In State elections I think it's the same for every state except my home state - Queensland, where we have optional preferential voting which allows us to number all candidates, or just vote 1, or just 1 and 2 or however many you wish to rank, and leave the others blank.

The minor party does not need to get over 50% of the primary vote! It is the winner that needs to get over 50% of the vote AFTER preferences have been distributed (if the result is not clear on the first count). It is the votes for the LEAST popular candidate that are redistributed. If you look at the web site for the Australian Electoral Council it will be a lot easier to understand. I really recommend reading it.
http://www.eca.gov.au/systems/single/by_category/preferential.htm

Hi daver, you might want to check out the preferential voting site as well. It explains the Australian system very clearly.
http://www.eca.gov.au/systems/single/by_category/preferential.htm

Thanks. I'm not really keen on the idea that one must completely fill the ballot but I do like it better than the US system.

It's funny, because I really LIKE filling out the whole ballot. There's something very satisfying about giving someone your lowest preference!
Maybe it's just me.

I consider it a disservice to vote on races that I haven't reseached simply on the basis of liking someone's name or the branch of employment they currently have. I also think we should limit campaigning entirely to volunteer efforts (leaflet spreading and word of mouth) and non-proactive information (any tv ad would have to give equal time to all candidates, and preferably only give out web addresses and phone numbers for info to be sent to you). That way campaigning would not be an economic competiton.

I absolutely agree with you there. It bothers me that a candidate has to have a lot of money to get enough exposure to win an election. I also get really sick of seeing the ads over and over at election time, especially the negative campaigning. It's almost enough to make me swear off TV before the elections.

Especially since they contain little real information. Nor do the things in the mail. One (winning) candidate was caught after the election on (mistakenly {yeah right, maybe}) having substituted her picture in a black neighborhood with that resembling a popular black candidate. I'm sure nothing came of it.

I know, but because minor parties rarely get over 50% of the primary vote, even if they do get the majority of primary votes. This is why it is so difficult for a minor party to gain a seat, even if they get the majority of primary votes.

There are some potential problems with that: you must (by necessity) curtail the free speech rights of candidates; you give disproportionate power to: organizations (such as labor unions) that have a ready supply of "volunteers"; celebrities who already have a soapbox; incumbents.
There are known problems with the current system, too: we give disproportionate power to those with cash to buy commercials. I don't see an easy fix; I don't think that removing paid advertisements will make things equal: rather, it'll just favor a different group.

yAY "W" made my wish come true

but if the minor party has the most votes, then the preferences from the major parties will go to them, not the other way. The liberal party is not going to give their preferences to labor!

true enough, i'll have to adapt new strategies.

Yes they have. Labor has also given their preferences to the Liberals in order to keep One Nation out. I guess both major parties are scared of what their string pullers in big business will think if they let One Nation have a say. I don't know what your politics are, but how can the two major parties be in opposition when they help each other win seats?

It seems to be one party here in the US too. No one debates whethar we want to put the nation on medications, instead they jump directly to debating the most effective way to accomplish it. Scarier are things like Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was working on all sorts of serious issues like privacy of information, yet the public let him do whatever legislation he wanted to run through, because they were too concerned with blow jobs. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole incident was fabricated.

Ahhh... they can be in opposition but united against one party. I think the case of One Nation was particularly rare. You know what I think of One Nation... so I'm not as annoyed about that. Certainly, if they had done the same thing to the Greens, I would be just as outraged. This is not a problem of the preferential system though, it's a problem of the two major parties being more similar than their initial platforms suggested they should be. It's something that's happening all over the world, including the US, and I don't think it relates specifically to preferential voting.

If the Greens had been given the same treatment as One Nation I would be just as furious even though I believe much of what they come out with is scaremongering and downright lies. It's all about democracy and free speech. If we start saying it's Ok to destroy an entire political party because some of what they say might not appeal to everyone then we're fudgeed. I think it says a lot about the left wing who stood by and were even pleased to see the raids on One Nation headquarters and the seizure of membership records. Preferential voting was definitely used by the other parties to try to leave more than 1 million people unrepresented in parliament. The hypocrisy of these parties who all took One Nation preferences is incredible, especially when you consider the racist record of Labor, Liberal and all the other holier than now liars who think Aboriginal people are incapable of achieving by their own merits.

Can you imagine if the Greens got 49% of the primary vote but because each of the other parties were too scared of bad publicity they gave no preferences to them which resulted in some Liberal member who got 11% winning? Then can you imagine that all these political parties who shut out the Greens actually had adopted many Green policies while at the same time ridiculing the Green party for their policies? Then can you imagine the ALP accusing the Greens of being environmental vandals with their environmental history? If you can, then you have a small insight into the frustration and disillusionment of all those One Nation voters who no longer believe Australia is a truly democratic nation and blame preferential voting for much of it. Let's face it, if you feel there would be something sus about a similar attack on the Greens using preferential voting then there is something wrong about using these tactics on any political party.

Well everyone knew the US bombing of those African Asprin factories were all about diverting attention from 'Blow-Gate'. These people in Government (all countries) are some of the most deceitful, nasty people on the face of the Earth. They are crooks who are with it enough to position themselves as lawmakers who can sleaze their way out of most things, even the killing of innocent people because they get sick of people talking about how they got some head. I often imagine these scum sitting around big tables deciding what small country they're going to fudge with in order to increase their re-election chances. I bet they laugh as they talk about fixing elections and bombing third world countries. I fudging hate them.

I didn't know we bombed any place in africa, nor have I heard of 'blow-gate'. If we did, it sounds like we had to control a monopoly on on Aids drug production. Desert storm and kosovo are the only involvement I've seen in the news.

It was only in the news long enough to serve as a distraction from a particularly juicy moment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Was that really it's timing?

That was the effect; I can't really speak to whether or not that was the intent.

The other reason why the two major parties encouraged their voters to put One Nation last was because One Nation had encouraged THEIR voters to put the major parties last. Lets not pretend that One Nation was the victim of totally unjust discrimination. It's a bit of bewb for tat.

I've drawn my own conclusions.

You've got that the other way around. One Nation did not decide to put all sitting members (not just from the major parties) last until they were put last by every other party. What else could they do? Sit back and be destroyed?

Blow-gate =Monica. The US bombed several places that had nothing to do with Bin-Ladin after your embassies were bombed. Everyone I spoke to took it as a given that it was done to distract attention away from Monica and had nothing to do with punishing the terrorists.

I've been looking everywhere and I can't find an unbiased report about what happened at that election. When you say every other party, I presume you are including the other minor parties in those ones who put One Nation last? My understanding was that it was the Greens who called on other parties to put One Nation last. It would also have cost the major parties a lot of votes if they had not put One Nation last. As someone who doesn't support One Nation, I would have put any party that put One Nation before another major party last. And I did put the Democrats last when they put One Nation before the Liberals.

All this to say that I still don't see how the preferential voting system benefits the major parties, except in this rare situation where all parties were given an advantage over one minor party.

I still don't think it is democratic to force people to vote for every party when there is the possibility that a party you absolutely do not want to get your vote (in my case Labor and the Greens)may end up with it. I guess that unless the Greens received the same treatment as One Nation did you won't understand why I feel my vote was stolen.

Ah yes, it's coming back to me. Would you blow up a neighbors car to escape attention from a fart? I probably wouldn't like his reason, but I hope or give him credit that he did have one.

The question is, would you fart to distract attention from an explosion!

(and natsim): When you're talking about putting a party last, this is a party encouraging (or exhorting) its voters to put candidates of that party last, right? Do voters usually go with the party line on such things?

Unfortunately most voters do exactly what the party they decide to put first tells them to do. As you enter a polling place, people stand outside and hand out "how-to-vote cards" which show a copy of the ballot papers and the preferred order of candidates numbered. People pretty much do follow what the how to vote cards say. I've scrutinized the counting of ballots in several elections and most people do stick with the cards.