And this is a great addition to the topic:
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Not gonna work, but an indication of feelings:
This could have gone on the climate change thread, but it covers many topics of this one.
One has to wonder whether, if the petition attracted more than 50% of registered voters, there is any legal precedent that might permit the Governor General to recall the Parliament. I suspect not, and so my views of âdemocracy as implementedâ would remain unchanged.
I see from that article:
This year the Queensland government criminalised certain forms of nonviolent protest involving the self-immobilisation of protesters.
Who says history never repeats? I just finished a book titled The Hillbilly Dictator, about a former Queensland premier who effectively banned protest and wanted his state to secede from Australia (but would not have known the word âsecedeâ).
Democracy is fragile, and appears to be facing enormous threats not just here but internationally. Terms such as âthe Canberra Bubbleâ and âfake newsâ are used to remove our right to know, while people are killed in our name but without our knowledge and definitely without our consent.
Iâm too old for this s***.
Edited because a word I used got through the CHOICE filter for some reason.
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Not the one who actively supported the creator of the water powered car and the unqualified, criminal, cancer curing non-doctor? They donât make gerrymanders like they used to.
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Strangely, they were not the focus of the book. It was more about how the state became a leader in franchising corruption.
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Still a often commented on feature of US democracy and politics today.
The Queensland version was actually created by a State Labour led government, as was the elimination of the upper house in the state parliament.
The gerrymander is now a distant memory, put to the sword by the 1989 elected State Labour led government.
The lack of an upper house in Qld is perhaps a double edged sword for democracy. It saves the costs and pain of all those extra hangers on in the political system. Although the preferential vote counting does not necessarily return true proportional representation in the state parliament. Aptly demonstrated by the 2012 State win to the LNP with 78 out of 89 seats won on just 49.7% of the primary vote or 63% TPP.
The first Bejelke Petersen Country Party led 1969 Government had just 21.02% of the vote.
Itâs worth looking to recent history as to how the two extremes of political fortune played out for the community. Some would say they were the best years, others the opposite. Enterprise under both appeared to be greatly favoured. Each had their own versions of what they would tolerate from the community in respect of criticism.
âNow donât you worry about thatâ.
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Yes, I am still trying to get my head around how it works. Apparently setting electoral boundaries within States is in the hands of the current government of that State but affects both State and Federal elections. They do not seem to have any equivalent to the Electoral Commision(s) that is independent and has strict guidelines for its operation built into law in most States.
There is a parallel with the reluctance of Oz political parties to implement comprehensive and real-time donation reporting. Both sides know it is anti-democratic and that they will likely suffer for it when out of office but both sides keep the current system in the hope of taking advantage of it while in office.
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There is no precedent for that but it could be within the GGâs powers. If it ever happened, it would make The Dismissal look like kindergarten. 
I am not convinced that we really want ârecall electionsâ (US style). Governments think short term enough as it is.
In the Federal sphere the constitution itself has some requirements that help to ensure fairness (for the House of Reps), as well as the Commonwealth Electoral Act.
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Not quite sure if this belongs here, but - More cause for concern.
[edit]
Sadly, we (as a nation) voted for the downgrade.
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How have we ended up with a totalitarian capitalist authoritarian theocrat in the Lodge?
Which, to bring this back on-topic, has profoundly affected Australian consumers. Power prices come to mind.
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Relative to the time, there never has been to speak of ⊠the only semblance of privacy we have is that which remains within the boundaries of our skull and probably not for much longer, if itâs even still true 
These things, privacy, secrecy, security ⊠rights ⊠really just concepts that make the masses feel better if they believe âŠ
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If you use the internet, a mobile phone, a computer, you have no privacy. But you should at least make an effort to protect yourself from hackers. The government is a whole nother issue.
I can do a search on my name and turn up links to really really OLD posts I made in email groups before the web even existed, when I was at university. There are many other links too, but those old ones still persist.
I use a VPN sometimes (it would be permanently if I had the right kind of router/modem) and I am slowly moving my email to protonmail. well, the email that matters. At some point I might pay for the basic service (likewise their VPN) I find, generally, that icloud is pretty good too.
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Thatâs the real point here. A massive government database of faces, whether scraped from Facebook, or from drivers licences, or from passports, or ⊠and real-time tracking of everyoneâs movements using an ever growing network of government surveillance cameras.
Only Facebook (social media generally) relates to the internet. You can opt out of social media. It is harder to opt out of drivers licence or passport.
The government will do it unless they are persuaded not to. Vote the lot of 'em out!!!
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There are settings, but how effective are they? How many people know about them? How many use them?
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