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Comment by cabalamat | Hacker News Reader

> As a citizen, this is impossible to fight.

There are several ways you can fight it.

1. Voting. If you live in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria or Tasmania, you can vote for the Pirate Party in the Senate on Saturday. If you live in NSW, Victoria or Western Australia, you can vote for the Wikileaks Party. Live anywhere, and you can vote for the Sex Party or the Greens.

2. Activism. Join one or more of these parties.

3. Software. Write software that circumvents the censorship.

> This issue is regularly floated by both "sides" of politics

People who think there are only two sides are wrong.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to say it is impossible to fight. In the sense that I could fight Mike Tyson, or Don Quixote could fight a windmill, obviously it can be fought.

I meant to say that as a citizen, this is impossible to stop. I say that as someone who will vote Wikileaks on Saturday. But in realistic terms, unfortunately there are only two viable sides in the legislative house. Polls (and consequently betting markets) don't even anticipate a single seat going to a minor party at this election.

> Sorry, I didn't mean to say it is impossible to fight. In the sense that I could fight Mike Tyson, or Don Quixote could fight a windmill, obviously it can be fought.

It is possible to win. We blocked SOPA and ACTA. The vote to partially defund the NSA was only lost by a narrow margin. There are Pirates in the European Parliament (and will probably be more next year). There is more awareness of digital rights than there ever has been before, and importantly for the future it's higher amoung younger voters.

This is a fight that can be won.

Perhaps at the grand old age of 32, I am becoming bitter and jaded but after SOPA and ACTA was blocked, they are just going to come around and try again and again and again. This is exactly what has happened in Australia with this damn internet filter.

I remember what it was like to dial into BBS's when I was in high school. The freedoms we had online then were incredible compared to what we have today.

The fight we are fighting is not one to win new territory or new freedoms - its one to protect what we already have. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. But we have to win all the time just to keep things where they are today. All it takes is one loss and something is irrevocably gone...

Take a look at china. All this means is that ordinary people will have proxy education in their teenage years.

And the artists of the world can have a fresh supply of human skulls -- with the unfortunate defect that there is a bullet hole through them. But that just makes them a bargain.

Don't feel bad. It just means the family of the deviant hacker criminal won't have to pay the bill for the bullet.

Or in other words: Yeah, china. There's an ideal to aspire to.

I meant to say that as a citizen, this is impossible to stop.

Of course it's not. People forget that the NBN cost the Liberal party the last election. People care about "this stuff" now

Polls (and consequently betting markets) don't even anticipate a single seat going to a minor party at this election.

That isn't true. Brandt (Greens) is the favourite in Melbourne[1] and Wilkie is favourite in Denison[2]. There's also a conservative independent who is favourite to win a seat in Victoria but I can't find her name or the reference at the moment.

[1] http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2...

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/denison-hold-for-wedne...

RE: #3, I feel compelled to repeat myself:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6138515

In a nutshell -- resorting to technical fixes treats the symptom and not the disease, and leaves behind the majority of the population.

The senate is it though. If you live in a safe seat like me you have no influence on who gets into government, only wrecking things when they are in.

One good thing about the House of Representatives is that, because it uses AV, you can give your higher preferences to the smaller parties without it being a a wasted vote.

Most states have Liberal Democrat senate candidates, for those of a more libertarian bent.

There will always be only 2 relevant sides in politics.

If there were 3 or more, then it means that one sides vote is split, and so will not get a majority.

Unless of course you have some wacky proportional representation system.

In Australia we have a wacky proportional representation system.

Handing seats over to the greens and independents is pretty much why we had a minority government though. The system works on a seat by seat basis, but it doesn't seem to work when forming a government.

Though this election is going to be a landslide for the Libs, and split votes aren't going to have much impact.

The system has almost always worked as intended: the Government is formed in the House, which has the monopoly on questions of supply. Because the House is single-member electorates, there has been a clear majority in every election except for 2, including this outgoing Parliament.

The Senate doesn't form the government and cannot originate supply bills, but otherwise has coequal legislative powers. It is elected on a proportional basis.

The system works well because a government can normally form quickly and govern stably, but in order to pass legislation it must give consideration to minority parties in the Senate. You get an Executive that can execute but which must nevertheless be prepared to compromise.

Good points, thanks for that. I guess I have thought about the minority government a little too much when it is an anomaly.

I have no problems with the senate. I vote for minority parties (Sex Party last election and this one) because I want protection from the government when required.

I basically miss the Democrats. It's a pity that Stott-Despoja killed them by zagging left.

"The Democrats died because they zagging left" narrative is one I've heard before, but it doesn't match the facts.

The fall of the Democrat vote mirrors the rise of the Greens vote, and the Greens are way more left leaning than the Democrats ever were.

I think their demise had more to do with internal infighting and the Andrew Bartlett drunk in the senate debacle.

But yes, I miss them too - they were basically a sensible party who wouldn't do stupid things.

When she took the party left, the Greens were already outflanking them.

Zagging left cost them the votes they got from Liberal voters.

And that was that.

I'm not sure I understand your point.

Doesn't the fact we had greens and independents win lower-house seats prove that there are other options beside the 2 major parties?

Doesn't the current minority government - along with numerous examples of senates where the balance of power wasn't held by the major parties - prove that these parties can have significant influence?

The libs will probably win the lower house easily (although I suspect the Greens will hold Melbourne and Wilkie will hold in Tasmania). But I think the senate will be interesting.

Yes, there are other valid options beside the 2 major parties. Having them win individual seats in the lower house shows that the system works. But my argument was that it harms the major party they are most closest to at the macro level.

If there were 100 seats and 50 went to the libs, but labor and the greens split 30-20, the libs are (most likely) going to form government even though the people voting greens would prefer a labor government.

They get their local representative, but ultimately it means nothing, because the government that forms is on the political opposite of the spectrum. As pointed out in a sister comment though, this has only happened twice in our history, so I'm probably making a bigger deal than is appropriate.

Agree that the senate is going to be interesting though.

Yes that's a fair point.

But it's worth noting that the conservative side of politics in Australia has had this problem for a while, and has a perfectly workable solution.

The Liberal/National coalition has often held power, and yet Liberals & Nationals run against each other in elections.

There are similar examples in other countries too.

Coalitions are interesting because once the minor party has a role in government their views cannot be ignored so easily.

And I think the only sensible course of action is for the greens and labor to form a similar coalition, or have some kind of agreement that the greens will always support labor in a minority government.

The agreement that no minority government (by both the libs and labor) would be formed this election cycle could only of helped the liberals - not that they needed it.

I think this could be quite off-putting for some Labor voters and that the very loose alliance is best kept as an unspoken or informal one for that reason.

There is a very strong anti-Greens sentiment in places and Labor could not risk being entirely tarred with that brush.

It could be argued that all democracies, by definition, use PR.

Australia has Instant-Runoff Voting for the House of Representatives, and a somewhat more crazy scheme in the senate.

So yes, we have historically had "3rd" parties quite often, from the Australian Democrats in the 90's through to the Australian Greens now.

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