Side note: As an Australian, it absolutely blows my mind that voting is not compulsory in more countries. I have no idea why voting isn't compulsory, like taxes.
Do you have any insight as to why this is? Do people just not mark more than one or two preferences, given that they have more choices? I understand the "big" parties work hard to get there, and they'll work even in the limits of a system to stay on top.
I also had Australians tell me about the "top" and "bottom" of the ballot. The bottom can have a long scrolling amount of entries, and Australians who care will go to various websites where they can input their issues, get a list of which MPs agree, print out this list and take it into a voting booth to see which parties they should vote for. O_o I've been told most Australians only fill out the top.
So what ends up happening is instead of a diversified senate with plenty of conflicting opinions and a broad knowledge base acting as the gatekeepers of whatever ridiculous legislation the lower house can dream up, we end up with the two major parties controlling the whole senate.
And whenever that's not the case (which sometimes happens due to the preferential voting) the media runs a huge billion dollar campaign about how the entire country is going to stagnate into a giant flaming pile of shit unless one of the major parties gets a majority in the senate and is allowed to push all their horseshit through unopposed. Then next election the uneducated masses vote against their best interests in droves once again.
The system is fucked. I don't see an easy solution, it's not like forcing below the line voting would be any better because then all the braindead racist bigots like Pauline Hanson would be voted in in a landslide due to sheer media coverage and we'd lose any lesser named senators that managed to grab an infinitesimal piece of power by aligning themselves with a major party.
Maybe if someone has a good solution they could enlighten me, I'd love to hear it.
EDIT: I should mention, if you elect to vote below the line you have to literally number every senate candidate, which is generally 50-100 boxes. The system itself is imposing a huge barrier to the average person placing an educated vote.