TheBig3

Yeah I mean as far as how it pertains to Australia, I wouldn't think I could comment. We're designed in America to embrace individualism and freedom, so i think we're naturally inclined to make decisions moving toward no political ties.

That being said, if nothing will change, then why not stand alone? Does becoming a Republican change any internal political processes?

As far as how the American Presidency works, they basically control the military and can veto legislation, but Congress (senators included) creates legislation. The president requires the house of Congress to do anything.

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mr dave

can't comment for other Commonwealth nations but in Canada i think that would cause a major issue due to the members of the Senate being appointed until they hit 75.

if there's one thing that needs a bigger reform than the Governor General's role it's the Senate. no election, no public consideration, just a short list of names and a stamp of approval from the GG's office.

take the GG out of the picture and it's a short list written by AND approved by, the Prime Minister, with no real opportunity to question the selections. the current process allows final arbitration by the GG's office. as such most nominations are sensible but i wouldn't doubt for a minute that without an outside authority it would be packed with hard line cronies (not that it doesn't already happen).

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TheBig3

You know I'm not very savvy when it comes to Parliament but what you're describing right here sounds horrifying.

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mr dave

most of it is ceremonial for now, but yeah, it's got all sorts of Orwellian potential.

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Ronnie Jane Devo

Would you mind explaining what "works well" about your government? I've heard some bad things about Australia regarding telecommunications privacy, censorship laws and the public transport system, so I have a feeling there's quite a lot of room for improvement.

Funny, this actually sounds potentially better than the situation we have in the U.S. where a lot of Congressmen get elected and then do jack shit in office so they can avoid controversy and keep voters appeased enough to get re-elected because they're doing "well enough". I really think there should just be no re-elections allowed and let "career politicians" rotate through different offices in the government if they really want to stay in. Not that it's ever going to happen that way.

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Astronomer

I didn't necessarily mean that our actual laws were good, but I meant the way our constitution operates and how the government is elected works well. I think our constitution is fair and allows for freedom of the people and of opinions. I'm definitely not saying that other countries who are republics don't have this fairness and freedom, I'm just saying that since we have it, why change it?

What more specific bad things have you heard about Australia? Because I can't really relate to any of what you have said as being bad for me personally. Some bad decisions have been made in our laws, in which people have complained about, so the government has then tried to rectify their decision. I think this shows that the way our constitution works is fair. Like I said, I wasn't talking about specific laws but more so the way our government operates.

The fact that several of our cities (and NZ's cities to be fair) beat any places from the US or the UK into the list of the world's most livable cities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's...livable_cities) shows that we have a good system in place as these surveys take into account: safety, hygiene, public transport, education, recreation, availability of goods and services, low personal risk, effective infrastructure, crime, tolerance, pro-active policy developments, and healthcare. I really don't think there is anything bad about our society and government and how they operate and this should act as a reference to show this. I consider myself very lucky and really don't want to change something that is already great.

I've heard much worse things about the rest of the world, where things like the healthcare system and education system (which are much more important IMO than public transport and telecommunications) get a lot of criticism and I know I would certainly prefer Australia's system.

There is nothing wrong with how our constitution operates, so why change it. We are a happy, free, and fair country, so why try to fix anything that's not 'broken'? That's all I'm saying.

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Ronnie Jane Devo

Yeah, Australia really does seem like a great place overall, and the U.S. probably is a political shithole in comparison, I just wanted to challenge you a bit on your "works well" claim since there didn't seem to be a lot of justification behind it at first. Now to explain my statements:

The censorship thing I'd heard about from someone else, and only now just read up on it here. It's really pretty minor as it currently stands, but still the government has no business banning works of art.

The public transport issue I heard about from a guy on another forum who lives in Melbourne and described the situation there as "fucking terrible" and "getting worse every year due to population increase in the inner city and poorly managed privatisation". Here's what he said about it:

The telecom privacy thing was also hearsay, and I haven't actually found any texts online to back it up, so I guess never mind that.

So yeah, certainly some room for improvement, but hardly a big deal compared to problems in the rest of the world.

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Barnard17

Well, no. Executive Orders essentially act as laws until they're either deemed by the Supreme Court to be complicit with existing legislation (which requires someone to take the Executive Order to court) or to be ratified/denied by both houses of Congress in a relevant bill (by my understanding) each of which takes time. So although functionally in recent times there hasn't been a problem that doesn't mean the potential doesn't exist. There's also the subject of the wide rein of power that can be exerted by cabinet officials (such as this recent climate change being a health issue and the openings that creates for Obama without having to go through Congress) although that's equally available to the Parliamentary system.

This is irrelevant to the Parliamentary system and could equally exist in a Presidential state (although with slight alterations but nothing significant). Parliamentary system essentially means that the leading executive figure is selected from the majority party in whichever house is deemed to be preferential (often lower, obviously irrelevant to a unicameral system), rather than separately elected, and generally maintains a presence in both the executive and legislative branches of Government.

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TheBig3

What Lateralus is concerned with is that the President would be elected Ayatollah and that isn't the case. Executive orders, in the past, have been enforcement of the existing law.

If they ever had done anything overreaching Congress would eliminate any threat, their poll numbers would plummet, and the congress could open the trial of impeachment.

An American President is not a king. But about Australia...

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Barnard17

Executive Orders?

That said, in the Parliamentary system the Prime Minister has arguably greater powers with arguably weaker democratic mandate so Lateralus' criticism isn't necessarily an accurate one.

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