My vote is on compulsion

From Colin Clarke.

IT would appear that we are hurtling inexorably towards yet another opportunity for the great and the good to exercise their franchise.

After our illustrious leaders have sorted out how the make-up of the States Chamber is going to be organised, we will be invited to rush down to the polling booth, and get the crayons out.

The trouble is…most of us won’t bother. To use modern football parlance, our current crop of elected worthies have ‘lost the dressing room.’ We don’t trust them and in spite of their protestations to the contrary, they think we are fairly average, and would ship us out on a free transfer given half a chance.

We have a fairly large number of people elected by a fairly small number of people. This means that if a small pressure group have a particular bee in their collective bonnets, and approach one of elected representative, to ask him ‘what he proposes to do about it’, he would be well advised to take notice, however bizarre their particular bee may appear to be.

Pressure groups usually consist of people who are politically active and rather like the sound of their own voice. At the moment, these appear to make up a large part of the people who actually turn out to vote, usually for the bloke who has promised ‘to do something about it’.

So what to do to even things up a bit? A blindingly obvious solution would appear to be obvious to anyone reading this who is of an Australian persuasion. ‘Down Under’, voting is compulsory, and has been for many years. Of course, this won’t go down too well with a number of our elected brethren, who would then have to take into consideration the views of the hitherto silent majority, but it would make a novel change.

Unfortunately, to enact my devastatingly cunning plan, I might have to form a pressure group.