By my understanding, "implied right to political communication" is an incorrect rewording of the right.
The phrase Brennan J used in Australian Capital Television was "freedom of political communication." The usage of "right" instead of "freedom" is not uncommon. I wasn't quoting, and I'm not sure that the use of 'right' in place of 'freedom' has the legal effect you seem to think it does (though I would not be so bold as to state it has none). Since most legal 'rights' are negative.
... you have the right to protection from the government interference of your political speech. You do not have protection from non-government interests
Did I say you did?
It's an implied constitutional right/freedom. The Constitution provides the framework for the C'th government's legislative power, not (at least not directly), the power of private individuals to broadcast (though it gives the parliament the power to legislate with respect to such broadcasts). Arguable even the State legislatures would not be subject to this "freedom" section 109 notwithstanding. From memory that may even have been argued in Lange, but I don't think it was determined, since the majority there prefered to cast the case in terms of an expanded version of the traditional 'duty to communicate - right to receive' defence to defamation. You'll forgive me if my memory is a little hazy, it's been some time since I have read this series of cases.
HOWEVER, since we are dealing here with something the C'th government is doing, I'm at a loss to understand the relevance of your post.
Who do you mean by "most Australians"?... I wouldn't mind the filtering of extreme things such as child pornography.
I mean "most Australians," including you clearly. Some generalisations can be made without recorse to stats, surely. "Most Australians think child pornography should not be freely available," are you in all seriousness demanding I prove that with stats? C'mon.
As an Australian, I am opposed to the filter on several points.
As an Australian, I am opposed to the filter on several points.
I am not under the delusion that it can be filtered effectively.
I am not under the delusion that it can be filtered 100% effectively.
And all it takes is a single false positive to ruin it in my eyes.
False positives should be minimised, but that's just being unrealistic. In any case I'm much more concerned about true positives.:)
The government needs to make the list secret because it can be circumvented so easy... On the other hand, making the list secret removes accountability.
That is the reason the list is to be secret, but with a bit of technical nouse they could make circumvention non-trivial and perhaps more importantly, detectable (eg. by being the suppliers of the Tor gateways etc). But the issue remains that the list cannot possibly be comprehensive. The lack of accountability, obviously, is of especial concern to me.
But aside from any filters being useless, they will cripple the performance of the internet.... So no, I don't support any internet censorship.
I wouldn't go so far as "any", but for all the reasons you mention, I would not support this scheme. I'm sorry if anything I wrote made anyone think anything else.
Here's an idea - how about the government gets gets on with the job of catching the people making child porn etc and gets the fuck out of my life. I don't need you to decide what is good for me and my family.
If the government "gets on with the job of catching the people makind child porn" they are deciding what's good for your and your family. What's this about me deciding? Do you think child pornography should be freely available in Australia, whether on the net or elsewhere.
I've been well able to do that myself for many years. If I want a filtered feed, I will filter it.
That's pretty much how I feel about it to. But if the government is going to filter your feed, wouldn't you like to know how it's being filtered?
Indeed, the kids' computers are filtered with K9, which seems to be working quite well thank you very much.
Or direct supervision im my case. Anyway may 7 yr old is too busy in the dungeons of Angaband to worry much about the net.
The obvious objection here, is that it's all very fine, you and I being responsible, but not all other parents are (well in my experience hardly any are). If their kids come across some random website that turns them into instant serial killers, why should you have to wear the fact that your kid got killed because of some other parent's lack of control? That's a hyperbolic example, to be sure, but the point is that our decisions affect more than just us or our own families.
But returning to reality... I think your missing something here. This isn't just (or even mainly) about what our kids get to see. This is about what you and I get to see!
Thats why I quoted those three pieces of text in my comment.
But in a misleading way that made it look like your comment "you should decide" was fair. Clearly I was agreeing that in focusing on the potential for political censorship the OP had hit the nail on the head. Given the logically garbled nature of your post it hardly falls to your to be that persnickety. For instance, I didn't point out that the UK parliament no longer governs Australia, there being of course no "Labour party" in Australia (or at least not one of sufficient importance for me to have noticed).
Regardless of how closely they may be linked, they are two separate issues.
As I said "If they are separate, they are at least inseparable." Clearly, as I wrote, the secrecy is of "greatest concern." Our ability to determine what information is being kept from us, and consequently to object, rests largely upon the contents of the list. Specifically the right to political communication (ie. to receive as well as publish), which is the only free speech/information right guaranteed (and that's probably overstating it) to Australians requires transparency in the excercise of censorship, at least on the recipient side.
Except, of course, you can't [block access to child porn]
You are not seriously suggesting that the amount of child pornography available in this country is as high as it would be in the absence of legislation proscribing it and of vigorous law enforcement? Again this is not saying that the current legislative framework is optimal. In some way current law sees things in the same simple black and white terms that you do (if on the opposite polarity), which in effect hampers policing. The heavy handedness of the law means the members of the public are less likely to come forward with information for fear of their own liability. All this can be tempered. If you mean that the blocking cannot be 100% effective... well duh!
If you think there's any way for you or the Government or anyone else to effectively manage a list to block every single site on the Internet which contains material which is illegal in Australia, you're deluded.
Hey, you're the deluded one here, OK;) Of course, I don't think anyone could block "every single site" containing illegal material. I'm not the one in this discussion who thinks in absolutes.
What I think is that the government would probably be able effectively to stop me from accessing specific (not every single) sites I might want to visit and/or site that I currently do visit and/or site I would not even know exist. I would like to have access to their list to know exactly what is being kept from my view and why, to know whether they have overstepped their power and I have any legal or political recourse to object. I want to limit censorship to areas where there is wide (not merely majority) public agreement that materials ought to be censored, and to make such censorship that occurs completely transparent.
And quite apart from that I don't want some lame-brained filtering regimen to slow my download speeds:)
Well thats your opinion and you're entitled to it... I'll be voicing my opinion at the protest in Brisbane on Saturday.
Why bother, if the government can't block your access, manage a list, not organise their way out of a paper bag?
Seriously though, we're not entirely on different sides here. I'm not sure about the rallies, I worried the lack of attendance will merely embolden the government. I hope to be proven wrong about attendance. I think that we've got Save the Children on side counts for much more actually.
And don't write what I said off merely as "my opinion," it's political reality, which as an "insider" you should realise. You are, of course, entitled to indulge in some adolescent libertarian fantasy, but seriously, you may as well join GetUp. Until you develop slightly more realistic and nuanced arguments, your voice will remain marginalised.
You should decide which one is the biggest concern, because they are seperate things. If the greatest concern is that the blacklist is secret, then you're saying that if the Labour party just came out and said "we censored euthanasia page waystodie.com, because we felt like it", you would be okay with that?
Firstly, don't put words into my mouth, "the biggest concern" line was a previous poster. Nor does it the "then you are saying" follow from anything I wrote. It's just possible that if I knew they were banning a pro- or anti-euthanisia site, I might not be OK with that. If I don't know what they are banning, I don't even have the opportunity of knowing if I'm OK with it or not. Dig?
Secondly, if they are separate, the are at least inseparable. Take your example. Since euthansia is arguably a subject of political debate, anyone who knows their "political communication" with regard to it is being banned, can take the government to court. If they don't know they are being banned, how could they establish a cause of action?
My greatest concern is that no other person should not be controlling what I can and cannot see on the internet, or anywhere else for that matter. [My emphasis]
Without wanting to put words into your mouth, I'm guessing you meant to write is that no other person should be able to censor information flowing to you. Sadly for you, you are in a very small minority and Australia is a democracy, we will be blocking your access to child porn (and note I'm not saying you want to access it) inter alia, on the Internet, or anywhere else.
If your concern really is that simplistic you are essentially excluding yourself from the serious debate on this issue. In Australia censorship is a given. The question is how to limit its excercise and how to ensure that executive government is accountable to us in what it chooses to censor. If we are kept in ignorance even about what is being censored we can do neither.
In fact, they've already indicated that they're looking to ban illegal but morally grey information...
Of the greatest concern is that the list of what is blocked is secret. Most Australians, myself included, would not disagree with censorship to some degree. However this is a power which in the hand of executive government (or indeed a private organisation) has a great potential for abuse. Consequently what is required is complete transperancy. The secrecy of current plan achieves the opposite of what our system of government requires.
The biggest concern, of course, is the potential censoring of political speech.
Exactly! And given the decisions of the High Court regarding the "implied right to political communication," inherent in the Constitution, it is also beyond the power of government to do so. If, however, we are to be kept in the dark as to what is being banned, how can we have any confidence a government is not indulging in such unconstitutional behaviour?
It was a test?! Do I get a prize, an onlineDiploma, or something?;) Don't worry, I stuffed up with the next comment I posted on this story. %/
Your mistake did teach me one thing though, the dangers of forgetting those damn parens are not limited to raising a SyntaxError. A TypeError in that kind of context might be fairly confusing if it occured at the wrong time in the caffeine ingestion cycle.
Doh! Should have read the docs before posting. OK, % will be depricated in 3.1 and removed at some time in the future. So it is a replacement. Better start learning the new way.
Take the new string formatting, for instance. It's *much* easier to migrate existing software from C to Python using the old % format.
Calm down. The new string formatting is an addition not a replacement. AFAIK printf style placeholders still work as they always have done, even though print is now a function. e.g.
"Sorry, just ranting... I really do use and like it, just some of it seems so anal retentive to me [forced indentation]..."
I ranted about that too when I first started using Python. But when I noticed how nice it was to read other peoples' code, I concluded that it was a good thing.
Since we all indent our code nicely in any language we use, I don't even know how people notice that Python enforces indentation.;) Yeah I thought it was stupid too when I first used python, now I cuss when I have to use curly braces, not to mention end lines with a semi-colon and a return, Sheesh!
p> The thing a lot of the people making a big deal about our convicts forget is: we let them go when their term was up and their children were born free.
Ah but it's all in the poluted blood see! What Americans who say this forget is the they were only sent here after they had their revolution and wouldn't take any themselves. And what most everyone forgets is that 'Australia' (as a political rather than geographical entity) did not exist until the first day of the C20th (1901-01-01), by which time transportation was a distant memory.
If you came out in '71 you'd be in the majority of Australians who are or descend form post WWII migrants. I'm old school, my family are post WWI migrants.:)
I'm both as it happens, German father, Australian mother, actually I'm something like 7th or 8th gen born OS... I'm being ironic calling myself a reffo. Mind I've been asked "how do you like it here" by someone who wasn't even born in 1971! "Well mate, it was a great place in the 70s. but it's really went to the dogs in the 80s...;)"
I remember being forced to do scripture classes in primary school. We always wondered about the kids who went elsewhere during those classes and that's got to be a problem. The only things I learned from that class are: "You reap what you sew" and don't trust priests.
Things have changed. This is part of a battle within the Anglican/Episcopalian church between liberals and evangelicals. Jensen (Sydney Archbishop and along with Nigeria on the extreme fundie wing) has explictly singled out scripture teaching in public schools as one of the battle fronts. The children are the pawns in this theological war.
When deciding whether to allow them to have access to my first kid I bought their course materials. I have no problem at all with kids learning bible stories (I'm a amateur wannabe bible scholar myself), or being taught to be kind to one and other (in fact if the catholics we here I might let him go). But that is not what is being taught. The course has been cleverly designed to inculcate the kids with fear and an unshakeble belief in God as the evangelists see him (complete with creationism).
It reminds me of the psychology experiment with the fluffy bunny and the gong, where they induced a fluffy bunny phobia in a baby. It looks like some atheists decided, how can we condition children to make them believe in God. After all, if they had faith, it would hardly seem necessary to manipulate the minds little children, God would be powerful enough to make Himself known if he wanted, surely. The truth is, one way or another, these guys just can't leave little kids alone.
Oh please! Australia's convict legacy, (along with Australia's image of itself located in the bush or the outback, the bushranger rebel etc) is just over-romanticised nonesense. The fact is only NSW and Van Diemens Land (as it then was) were founded as convict colonies. The other states were founded by free settlers. And even in NSW and Tasmania the contribution of convicts to the population is insignificant (say compared to the fossickers who came during the 1850s and 60s). Let's stop pulling our collective dicks about that one. The truth is that Australia is, and has always been, a highly urbanised country made up in the made of staid townsfolk.
There really is no need for 'repressive' authoritarianism. The Australian population are docile with not the least streak of the convict or the rebel in us. Freedom of speech, separation of church and state etc. as abstract civil liberties have no resonance for Australians as they do for people who actually had to fight to gain independence and liberty.
A few will jump up and down, but on the whole 'we' will simply sit back and let the govt get about its business do this. And then just quietly use proxy servers to get our pr0n. And the govt, having satisfied the "fundametalist luddites" (read: FamilyFirst(tm)) won't care (unless the fundies grow a brain and want anonymisers blacklisted too). Tell me it isn't so.
Sorry, but having to fight to keep my kids out of scripture classes at our local public school (NB: we have almost the same provision against establishing religion in our constitution that makes this illegal in the US... but no one gives a shit) against the apathy of other "atheist" parents who can't see anything wrong with the school turning their kids over to evangelicals who employ "the latest developements in developmental and cognitive psychology" (from the course materials) to indoctrinate defenceless 5 year olds, has left me with no illusions that Australians actually care... about anything other than sport that is. (Actually I've only been here since '71 so maybe it's just my crazy reffo way of thinking). I'll get off the soapbox now.
The Finnish system for counting votes is very similar to yours (down to the local school, in fact): the people supervising the voting and counting the votes are set by the parties (and other groups) participating, thus casting the vulture eyes on every ballot and each other
For this reason alone, you should vocally oppose electronic voting. Forget about the 2% informality rate, you can live with that. But those "vulture eyes" you can't live without!
Every time I see someone comparing Australia to some other western country I kinda laugh, you act like you're Americans (with the "my country and outlook is the only one that exists" thing)
I am not saying that the Australian system is perfect. I could give a number of examples where I think it could be made more so. I also happen to be a Canadian and a German citizen, and I've resided on 3 continents (Nth America, Europe and Australia), so don't presume that my outlook is insular.
you come from a tiny mostly-deserted prison-camp of an island.
Everytime I see some pig ignorant shit like you repeat this myth, I cringe. I suppose you think I'm a nazi because I'm German too?
There is also the issue that there are many situations where filling in the ballot paper according to the rules does not reflect what they want to happen.
What I "want to happen" is for someone to hand me a cheque for $10million. What this has to do with filling out an electoral ballot I do not understand.
One of the people on the ballot will be elected. As a voter you are being asked who you think is going to hurt you the least. In a preferential system you get to rank them in order of 'hurt you the least' to 'hurt you the most'. Can you give me a number (>1) of examples where this ranking does not reflect how the voter wants to rank the candidates? And how does the only viable alternative, allowing either no preferences at all, or only limited preferences, reflect any better, how the voter ranks the candidates.
The reality of Australian politics is that in 99% of cases one of the major parties candidates ie. Labor (sic) (the social democrats) or Liberal/National (the conservatives) will be elected. But you get to vote for the Greens, or Fundagelicals first, and then still get your vote counted in the real two-horse race. This sends a message about what your actual preference is, without being excluded from the actual decision. Over time, if enough people put the minor party first, they might even get elected.
Unfortunately the reality is also that the idea of ranking candidates in preference is too difficult for many voters to grok, and they simply vote along the lines of the major party's (or even the minor party's) "how-to-vote" leaflets. Actually the political parties have been quite successful in mystifying the process in their highly publicised negotiations of "exchanging prefernces" with other parties (which in reality only means exchanging preferences on how-to-vote leaflets). This leaves many (if not most) voters thinking their preferences are not a decision for them to make, but are instead negotiated by the political parties. When you ask them what the numbers they put on the ballot actually mean they go into trance. At least we don't have Condorcet voting.
Thus they can either break the rules and risk having their ballot ignored (once there are more than a certain proportion of "spoilt ballots" someone is going to look at "bending" said rules) or follow the rules with the risk of voting for someone they don't want to.
Well I'm being told that 5% is "ridiculous"... one wonders what that proportion would have to be?
I still don't follow what you mean by "voting for someone they don't want to." You simply put the candidate you dislike the least first, and the candidate you dislike the most last, and everyone else in between. No matter whom you vote for, you'll get a politician, can't be helped.
Using a machine is likely to mean that only the latter is possible.
Not voting is equivalent to giving every candidate an equal level of support -- something that the Australian voting system doesn't directly allow.
Sure it does, you just turn up and write "I can't decide between them, they're both politicians" on your ballot. However, it would be a morally culpable thing to do, as any legislation passed by the resulting parliament might (if there were enough such malfeasants) not command, whether directly or in distilled form, the sovereign power of at least a majority of eligible voters (ie adult citizens). Such legislation would constitute an oppression by a minority on the whole of society and is inimical to democracy.
That pretty much rules out using an exhaustive preferential system. Throwing out 5% of votes is just ridiculous.
Consider this situation. We'll use American parties since we all know more about them, than they know about us:)
You have for candidates and before the distribution of preferences they get the following results:
Republican 40%
Democrat 30%
Green 20%
Libertn 10%
If you don't have preferntial voting (exhaustive or otherwise) you are throwing out 30% of votes. Your basis for throwing those votes out is that these voters are not conforming to the two party system. IMHO this is a far worse result than throwing out 5% of votes on the basis that people either didn't want to, or were too incompetent to vote. YMMV.
So there are costs associated with preferential voting, but I think the benefits outweight them. I do smirk, however,
when I see proponents of Condorcet voting systems claim that they are not complicated. If 5% percent of the population can't even manage to write number from say 1 to 5... well.
I belive the AEC are counting what are known as donkey votes
They have to count votes that are formally cast. In actual fact there is no such thing as a donkey vote (sorry I didn't look up the Wikipedia link, is there
anything there I need to correct:P), in the sense that you can hold a cast ballot in your hand and determine that it is a donkey vote rather than a vote
genuinely cast in that order of preference (you can't disenfrancise me merely because my preference coincidentally corresponds to the ballot
order). Rather 'the donkey vote' is a statistical tendency by which the candidate on the top of the ballot is favoured.
That being said I don't understand the point you are trying to make in raising this.
"Tell Diebold they're dreaminn...". You said it mate. I even cringe now when I have to use one of their ATMs. To reiterate from the summary you quote:
... the easily understood, publicly and politically accepted efficient, transparent paper ballot system that currently exists.
Elections are held on a Saturday and normally the loser concedes during the Sunday morning breakfast shows, not a bad effort when you consider the logistics
involved
Nope, ususally the loser conceedes on the night of the election. You are clearly not an election junkie like me;) I can't off-hand recall the last time we had to wait till the next day. In any case your point stands. A very good effort given the logistics involved. In other words, the "great acceleration" electronic voting promises is about as useful as tits on a bull.
As anecdotal evidence I recieved my first fine in error back in the early 80's. I rang the "pay by credit card" number and started explaining the error, the guy on the other end cut me off and said: "Just ignore it mate, everybody else does".
I got fined ($10) for failing to vote in a local council elections. Now if it was a state of federal election (like that would happen) I would have worn it, after all I would have failed to live up to my duty towards my fellow Australians, but council elections... you're kidding me?! So I just chucked it in the bin... end of the matter.
IMHO the explaination for the acceptance of compulsory voting is that most Aussie's see compulsory voting in the same way they see compulsory education/
vaccination. In fact I'd go as far as saying the vast majority of Aussies consider people who deliberately don't vote as lazy and/or stupid.
There is greater acceptance of compulsory voting than there is vaccination (which is not compulsory). But yes, you are right. And not only do the vast
majority consider people who deliberately don't vote (are there such people?!) as lazy/stupid, if they did deliberatly not vote they would be lazy and stupid!;) (Religious objections to voting, however, are the accepted.) Moreover, most people I know regard the fact that in certain other countries less than half the people vote as nothing short of scandalous.
I saw a poster above saying we are "forced" to vote. We are no more "forced" to vote than we are "forced" not to masturbate in public. And if you masturbate in public you will be fined tooi (and they'll make sure you pay it).
In Australia we have formal rights and duties. I can't recite them off-hand, but I was them listed on someones naturalisation papers once. I noted that 'voting' was listed as both a right and a duty. Whether most Australians realise we have this formal duty, we instinctively act upon it.
The combination of compulsory voting and exhaustive preferential voting (where you vote ends up finally either with the winner or the runner-up
in any electorate (again for simplicity I'm leaving upper house voting out of the picture) ensures that we are subject to laws democratically enacted. Consider that every citizen holds a quantum of sovereign power. Our voting system (subject only to informality or criminality ie. not voting), ensures that each
representative goes to parliament with an absolute majority of sovereign power of the electorate that member represents.
A majority of these representatives then form the government. As it happens the government usually also enjoys the support of an absolute majority of
citizens. So either in the distillied form, or the direct form, our parliament passes laws bearing the power of an absolute majority of the sovereign power
of the land. In countries which lack either compulsory, or exhaustive preferential voting the people are oppressed in being subject to laws imposed upon them
by a minority of citizens.
That's the theory. The practice is that we don't have to put up the kind of shit they do in countries where voting is not mandatory. Eg. The old trick in the UK
where a political party hires a bus, goes to an old folks home and takes all to poor old people out on an excursion to the local voting station, with the
understanding that the grateful inmates will vote for the
Voting is not compulsory in Finland. We don't get those Soviet-style 99.9% turnouts.
Nor do you get Australian style 99.99% turnouts, but if you want to be snide...
This means that you could potentially have a government get into power which enjoyed less than the support of at least 50% of the citizens! That situation would be intolerable in a democracy such as Australia. Besides which, compulsory voting eliminates many of the abuses of the electoral processes parties otherwise engage in.
Electronic voting and tabulation (incorporating a paper trail for random validation and mandated recounts) would greatly accellerate the counting process.
It would, but it would also lack the human oversight necessary to establishing trust in the process. And that trust is so very much more important than having to wait a few hours. We know the winner by the time we go to bed (at least those of use who stay up until we know the winner).:)
Besides which it would be really really boring if we know the results 5 minutes after the polls closed. No more election night parties? No more joy as you're getting progressively more tipsy as the results come in bit by bit and you begin to realise that, yes, we really have managed to get rid of the tories after more than a decade!... Nah fuck that!
Surely you don't have 5% of votes where you cannot figure out what the voter wanted.
Well you don't have to take my word for it, you could check out the link I provided.
Besides which it isn't so much a matter of figuring out what the voter wanted as figuring out whether they cast a vote which satisfies the formal legal requirements. This means (for simplicity I'll restrict this to lower house elections) that the voter numbered all squares next to the candidates names in a sequential order. If a voter puts a cross or a tick in the box, or leaves a number out of any of the boxes, etc that vote of course spoilt and must be discarded. Bear in mind we have exhaustive preferential voting. That is why I pointed to our exhaustive preferential system as a probable cause of the greater informality rate.
Actually ministry of justice itself described 2% failure rate as "very high" compared to ordinary paper ballot. In Finland an ordinary failure rate for paper ballots cast would afaik be around 0,5% and that includes Donald Duck and offensive drawings, which are not available to evoters.
Only half of 1%?! Wow. Finnish voters must be much more careful (or draw less Donald Ducks) than Australian voters then. Or perhaps, it's the result of compulsory voting, or that our exhaustive preferential system is a little more complicated. We get informal voting rates around the order of 5% (historical data here), so 2% looks pretty low to me.
One of the pro-evoting arguments was that we get significantly _lower_ failure rates compared to paper ballots.
Informality (failure) seems a far lesser problem than trust to me. We have a paper ballot (but are experimenting with evoting for the blind). The ballot boxes are not transported, but counted at the voting place (usually the local school), and while the votes are counted 'scrutineers' from each party stand over the shoulder of each vote counter casting an eagle eye on every vote counted, noting what the counter writes down and disputing any suspect votes for the other side. Perhaps Finland doesn't do this , which would account for our higher informality rates.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL, but URN12
Well I am actually.
By my understanding, "implied right to political communication" is an incorrect rewording of the right.
The phrase Brennan J used in Australian Capital Television was "freedom of political communication." The usage of "right" instead of "freedom" is not uncommon. I wasn't quoting, and I'm not sure that the use of 'right' in place of 'freedom' has the legal effect you seem to think it does (though I would not be so bold as to state it has none). Since most legal 'rights' are negative.
Did I say you did?
It's an implied constitutional right/freedom. The Constitution provides the framework for the C'th government's legislative power, not (at least not directly), the power of private individuals to broadcast (though it gives the parliament the power to legislate with respect to such broadcasts). Arguable even the State legislatures would not be subject to this "freedom" section 109 notwithstanding. From memory that may even have been argued in Lange, but I don't think it was determined, since the majority there prefered to cast the case in terms of an expanded version of the traditional 'duty to communicate - right to receive' defence to defamation. You'll forgive me if my memory is a little hazy, it's been some time since I have read this series of cases.
HOWEVER, since we are dealing here with something the C'th government is doing, I'm at a loss to understand the relevance of your post.
Who do you mean by "most Australians"? ... I wouldn't mind the filtering of extreme things such as child pornography.
I mean "most Australians," including you clearly. Some generalisations can be made without recorse to stats, surely. "Most Australians think child pornography should not be freely available," are you in all seriousness demanding I prove that with stats? C'mon.
As an Australian, I am opposed to the filter on several points.
As an Australian, I am opposed to the filter on several points.
I am not under the delusion that it can be filtered effectively.
I am not under the delusion that it can be filtered 100% effectively.
And all it takes is a single false positive to ruin it in my eyes.
False positives should be minimised, but that's just being unrealistic. In any case I'm much more concerned about true positives. :)
The government needs to make the list secret because it can be circumvented so easy ... On the other hand, making the list secret removes accountability.
That is the reason the list is to be secret, but with a bit of technical nouse they could make circumvention non-trivial and perhaps more importantly, detectable (eg. by being the suppliers of the Tor gateways etc). But the issue remains that the list cannot possibly be comprehensive. The lack of accountability, obviously, is of especial concern to me.
But aside from any filters being useless, they will cripple the performance of the internet. ... So no, I don't support any internet censorship.
I wouldn't go so far as "any", but for all the reasons you mention, I would not support this scheme. I'm sorry if anything I wrote made anyone think anything else.
Here's an idea - how about the government gets gets on with the job of catching the people making child porn etc and gets the fuck out of my life. I don't need you to decide what is good for me and my family.
If the government "gets on with the job of catching the people makind child porn" they are deciding what's good for your and your family. What's this about me deciding? Do you think child pornography should be freely available in Australia, whether on the net or elsewhere.
I've been well able to do that myself for many years. If I want a filtered feed, I will filter it.
That's pretty much how I feel about it to. But if the government is going to filter your feed, wouldn't you like to know how it's being filtered?
Indeed, the kids' computers are filtered with K9, which seems to be working quite well thank you very much.
Or direct supervision im my case. Anyway may 7 yr old is too busy in the dungeons of Angaband to worry much about the net.
The obvious objection here, is that it's all very fine, you and I being responsible, but not all other parents are (well in my experience hardly any are). If their kids come across some random website that turns them into instant serial killers, why should you have to wear the fact that your kid got killed because of some other parent's lack of control? That's a hyperbolic example, to be sure, but the point is that our decisions affect more than just us or our own families.
But returning to reality ... I think your missing something here. This isn't just (or even mainly) about what our kids get to see. This is about what you and I get to see!
Thats why I quoted those three pieces of text in my comment.
But in a misleading way that made it look like your comment "you should decide" was fair. Clearly I was agreeing that in focusing on the potential for political censorship the OP had hit the nail on the head. Given the logically garbled nature of your post it hardly falls to your to be that persnickety. For instance, I didn't point out that the UK parliament no longer governs Australia, there being of course no "Labour party" in Australia (or at least not one of sufficient importance for me to have noticed).
Regardless of how closely they may be linked, they are two separate issues.
As I said "If they are separate, they are at least inseparable." Clearly, as I wrote, the secrecy is of "greatest concern." Our ability to determine what information is being kept from us, and consequently to object, rests largely upon the contents of the list. Specifically the right to political communication (ie. to receive as well as publish), which is the only free speech/information right guaranteed (and that's probably overstating it) to Australians requires transparency in the excercise of censorship, at least on the recipient side.
Except, of course, you can't [block access to child porn]
You are not seriously suggesting that the amount of child pornography available in this country is as high as it would be in the absence of legislation proscribing it and of vigorous law enforcement? Again this is not saying that the current legislative framework is optimal. In some way current law sees things in the same simple black and white terms that you do (if on the opposite polarity), which in effect hampers policing. The heavy handedness of the law means the members of the public are less likely to come forward with information for fear of their own liability. All this can be tempered. If you mean that the blocking cannot be 100% effective ... well duh!
If you think there's any way for you or the Government or anyone else to effectively manage a list to block every single site on the Internet which contains material which is illegal in Australia, you're deluded.
Hey, you're the deluded one here, OK ;) Of course, I don't think anyone could block "every single site" containing illegal material. I'm not the one in this discussion who thinks in absolutes.
What I think is that the government would probably be able effectively to stop me from accessing specific (not every single) sites I might want to visit and/or site that I currently do visit and/or site I would not even know exist. I would like to have access to their list to know exactly what is being kept from my view and why, to know whether they have overstepped their power and I have any legal or political recourse to object. I want to limit censorship to areas where there is wide (not merely majority) public agreement that materials ought to be censored, and to make such censorship that occurs completely transparent.
And quite apart from that I don't want some lame-brained filtering regimen to slow my download speeds :)
Well thats your opinion and you're entitled to it ... I'll be voicing my opinion at the protest in Brisbane on Saturday.
Why bother, if the government can't block your access, manage a list, not organise their way out of a paper bag?
Seriously though, we're not entirely on different sides here. I'm not sure about the rallies, I worried the lack of attendance will merely embolden the government. I hope to be proven wrong about attendance. I think that we've got Save the Children on side counts for much more actually.
And don't write what I said off merely as "my opinion," it's political reality, which as an "insider" you should realise. You are, of course, entitled to indulge in some adolescent libertarian fantasy, but seriously, you may as well join GetUp. Until you develop slightly more realistic and nuanced arguments, your voice will remain marginalised.
You should decide which one is the biggest concern, because they are seperate things. If the greatest concern is that the blacklist is secret, then you're saying that if the Labour party just came out and said "we censored euthanasia page waystodie.com, because we felt like it", you would be okay with that?
Firstly, don't put words into my mouth, "the biggest concern" line was a previous poster. Nor does it the "then you are saying" follow from anything I wrote. It's just possible that if I knew they were banning a pro- or anti-euthanisia site, I might not be OK with that. If I don't know what they are banning, I don't even have the opportunity of knowing if I'm OK with it or not. Dig?
Secondly, if they are separate, the are at least inseparable. Take your example. Since euthansia is arguably a subject of political debate, anyone who knows their "political communication" with regard to it is being banned, can take the government to court. If they don't know they are being banned, how could they establish a cause of action?
My greatest concern is that no other person should not be controlling what I can and cannot see on the internet, or anywhere else for that matter. [My emphasis]
Without wanting to put words into your mouth, I'm guessing you meant to write is that no other person should be able to censor information flowing to you. Sadly for you, you are in a very small minority and Australia is a democracy, we will be blocking your access to child porn (and note I'm not saying you want to access it) inter alia, on the Internet, or anywhere else.
If your concern really is that simplistic you are essentially excluding yourself from the serious debate on this issue. In Australia censorship is a given. The question is how to limit its excercise and how to ensure that executive government is accountable to us in what it chooses to censor. If we are kept in ignorance even about what is being censored we can do neither.
In fact, they've already indicated that they're looking to ban illegal but morally grey information ...
Of the greatest concern is that the list of what is blocked is secret. Most Australians, myself included, would not disagree with censorship to some degree. However this is a power which in the hand of executive government (or indeed a private organisation) has a great potential for abuse. Consequently what is required is complete transperancy. The secrecy of current plan achieves the opposite of what our system of government requires.
The biggest concern, of course, is the potential censoring of political speech.
Exactly! And given the decisions of the High Court regarding the "implied right to political communication," inherent in the Constitution, it is also beyond the power of government to do so. If, however, we are to be kept in the dark as to what is being banned, how can we have any confidence a government is not indulging in such unconstitutional behaviour?
It's scary to code something while drunk then come back the next day and think "god, whoever wrote this is clever".
I don't even need to be drunk! That happens to me regularly ... ah the ageing process.
congrats, you passed the test
It was a test?! Do I get a prize, an onlineDiploma, or something? ;) Don't worry, I stuffed up with the next comment I posted on this story. %/
Your mistake did teach me one thing though, the dangers of forgetting those damn parens are not limited to raising a SyntaxError. A TypeError in that kind of context might be fairly confusing if it occured at the wrong time in the caffeine ingestion cycle.
Doh! Should have read the docs before posting. OK, % will be depricated in 3.1 and removed at some time in the future. So it is a replacement. Better start learning the new way.
Take the new string formatting, for instance. It's *much* easier to migrate existing software from C to Python using the old % format.
Calm down. The new string formatting is an addition not a replacement. AFAIK printf style placeholders still work as they always have done, even though print is now a function. e.g.
from math import pi;print('%.3f' % pi) => 3.142
"Sorry, just ranting... I really do use and like it, just some of it seems so anal retentive to me [forced indentation]..."
I ranted about that too when I first started using Python. But when I noticed how nice it was to read other peoples' code, I concluded that it was a good thing.
Since we all indent our code nicely in any language we use, I don't even know how people notice that Python enforces indentation. ;) Yeah I thought it was stupid too when I first used python, now I cuss when I have to use curly braces, not to mention end lines with a semi-colon and a return, Sheesh!
Do over.... (shoulda installed Python 3 and tried it! oh well) I think this version might work a little better...
You really should have. I haven't installed yet, but your code, even the corrected version, should raise a TypeError since print(arg) returns None.
Was that not "Esc :wq!" Just a though
Like God wasn't already in command mode ... duh!
Ah but it's all in the poluted blood see! What Americans who say this forget is the they were only sent here after they had their revolution and wouldn't take any themselves. And what most everyone forgets is that 'Australia' (as a political rather than geographical entity) did not exist until the first day of the C20th (1901-01-01), by which time transportation was a distant memory.
If you came out in '71 you'd be in the majority of Australians who are or descend form post WWII migrants. I'm old school, my family are post WWI migrants. :)
I'm both as it happens, German father, Australian mother, actually I'm something like 7th or 8th gen born OS ... I'm being ironic calling myself a reffo. Mind I've been asked "how do you like it here" by someone who wasn't even born in 1971! "Well mate, it was a great place in the 70s. but it's really went to the dogs in the 80s ... ;)"
I remember being forced to do scripture classes in primary school. We always wondered about the kids who went elsewhere during those classes and that's got to be a problem. The only things I learned from that class are: "You reap what you sew" and don't trust priests.
Things have changed. This is part of a battle within the Anglican/Episcopalian church between liberals and evangelicals. Jensen (Sydney Archbishop and along with Nigeria on the extreme fundie wing) has explictly singled out scripture teaching in public schools as one of the battle fronts. The children are the pawns in this theological war.
When deciding whether to allow them to have access to my first kid I bought their course materials. I have no problem at all with kids learning bible stories (I'm a amateur wannabe bible scholar myself), or being taught to be kind to one and other (in fact if the catholics we here I might let him go). But that is not what is being taught. The course has been cleverly designed to inculcate the kids with fear and an unshakeble belief in God as the evangelists see him (complete with creationism).
It reminds me of the psychology experiment with the fluffy bunny and the gong, where they induced a fluffy bunny phobia in a baby. It looks like some atheists decided, how can we condition children to make them believe in God. After all, if they had faith, it would hardly seem necessary to manipulate the minds little children, God would be powerful enough to make Himself known if he wanted, surely. The truth is, one way or another, these guys just can't leave little kids alone.
Oh please! Australia's convict legacy, (along with Australia's image of itself located in the bush or the outback, the bushranger rebel etc) is just over-romanticised nonesense. The fact is only NSW and Van Diemens Land (as it then was) were founded as convict colonies. The other states were founded by free settlers. And even in NSW and Tasmania the contribution of convicts to the population is insignificant (say compared to the fossickers who came during the 1850s and 60s). Let's stop pulling our collective dicks about that one. The truth is that Australia is, and has always been, a highly urbanised country made up in the made of staid townsfolk.
There really is no need for 'repressive' authoritarianism. The Australian population are docile with not the least streak of the convict or the rebel in us. Freedom of speech, separation of church and state etc. as abstract civil liberties have no resonance for Australians as they do for people who actually had to fight to gain independence and liberty.
A few will jump up and down, but on the whole 'we' will simply sit back and let the govt get about its business do this. And then just quietly use proxy servers to get our pr0n. And the govt, having satisfied the "fundametalist luddites" (read: FamilyFirst(tm)) won't care (unless the fundies grow a brain and want anonymisers blacklisted too). Tell me it isn't so.
Sorry, but having to fight to keep my kids out of scripture classes at our local public school (NB: we have almost the same provision against establishing religion in our constitution that makes this illegal in the US ... but no one gives a shit) against the apathy of other "atheist" parents who can't see anything wrong with the school turning their kids over to evangelicals who employ "the latest developements in developmental and cognitive psychology" (from the course materials) to indoctrinate defenceless 5 year olds, has left me with no illusions that Australians actually care ... about anything other than sport that is. (Actually I've only been here since '71 so maybe it's just my crazy reffo way of thinking). I'll get off the soapbox now.
The Finnish system for counting votes is very similar to yours (down to the local school, in fact): the people supervising the voting and counting the votes are set by the parties (and other groups) participating, thus casting the vulture eyes on every ballot and each other
For this reason alone, you should vocally oppose electronic voting. Forget about the 2% informality rate, you can live with that. But those "vulture eyes" you can't live without!
Every time I see someone comparing Australia to some other western country I kinda laugh, you act like you're Americans (with the "my country and outlook is the only one that exists" thing)
I am not saying that the Australian system is perfect. I could give a number of examples where I think it could be made more so. I also happen to be a Canadian and a German citizen, and I've resided on 3 continents (Nth America, Europe and Australia), so don't presume that my outlook is insular.
you come from a tiny mostly-deserted prison-camp of an island.
Everytime I see some pig ignorant shit like you repeat this myth, I cringe. I suppose you think I'm a nazi because I'm German too?
There is also the issue that there are many situations where filling in the ballot paper according to the rules does not reflect what they want to happen.
What I "want to happen" is for someone to hand me a cheque for $10million. What this has to do with filling out an electoral ballot I do not understand.
One of the people on the ballot will be elected. As a voter you are being asked who you think is going to hurt you the least. In a preferential system you get to rank them in order of 'hurt you the least' to 'hurt you the most'. Can you give me a number (>1) of examples where this ranking does not reflect how the voter wants to rank the candidates? And how does the only viable alternative, allowing either no preferences at all, or only limited preferences, reflect any better, how the voter ranks the candidates.
The reality of Australian politics is that in 99% of cases one of the major parties candidates ie. Labor (sic) (the social democrats) or Liberal/National (the conservatives) will be elected. But you get to vote for the Greens, or Fundagelicals first, and then still get your vote counted in the real two-horse race. This sends a message about what your actual preference is, without being excluded from the actual decision. Over time, if enough people put the minor party first, they might even get elected.
Unfortunately the reality is also that the idea of ranking candidates in preference is too difficult for many voters to grok, and they simply vote along the lines of the major party's (or even the minor party's) "how-to-vote" leaflets. Actually the political parties have been quite successful in mystifying the process in their highly publicised negotiations of "exchanging prefernces" with other parties (which in reality only means exchanging preferences on how-to-vote leaflets). This leaves many (if not most) voters thinking their preferences are not a decision for them to make, but are instead negotiated by the political parties. When you ask them what the numbers they put on the ballot actually mean they go into trance. At least we don't have Condorcet voting.
Thus they can either break the rules and risk having their ballot ignored (once there are more than a certain proportion of "spoilt ballots" someone is going to look at "bending" said rules) or follow the rules with the risk of voting for someone they don't want to.
Well I'm being told that 5% is "ridiculous" ... one wonders what that proportion would have to be?
I still don't follow what you mean by "voting for someone they don't want to." You simply put the candidate you dislike the least first, and the candidate you dislike the most last, and everyone else in between. No matter whom you vote for, you'll get a politician, can't be helped.
Using a machine is likely to mean that only the latter is possible.
Good point.
Not voting is equivalent to giving every candidate an equal level of support -- something that the Australian voting system doesn't directly allow.
Sure it does, you just turn up and write "I can't decide between them, they're both politicians" on your ballot. However, it would be a morally culpable thing to do, as any legislation passed by the resulting parliament might (if there were enough such malfeasants) not command, whether directly or in distilled form, the sovereign power of at least a majority of eligible voters (ie adult citizens). Such legislation would constitute an oppression by a minority on the whole of society and is inimical to democracy.
That pretty much rules out using an exhaustive preferential system. Throwing out 5% of votes is just ridiculous.
Consider this situation. We'll use American parties since we all know more about them, than they know about us :)
You have for candidates and before the distribution of preferences they get the following results:
Republican 40%
Democrat 30%
Green 20%
Libertn 10%
If you don't have preferntial voting (exhaustive or otherwise) you are throwing out 30% of votes. Your basis for throwing those votes out is that these voters are not conforming to the two party system. IMHO this is a far worse result than throwing out 5% of votes on the basis that people either didn't want to, or were too incompetent to vote. YMMV.
So there are costs associated with preferential voting, but I think the benefits outweight them. I do smirk, however, when I see proponents of Condorcet voting systems claim that they are not complicated. If 5% percent of the population can't even manage to write number from say 1 to 5 ... well.
I belive the AEC are counting what are known as donkey votes
They have to count votes that are formally cast. In actual fact there is no such thing as a donkey vote (sorry I didn't look up the Wikipedia link, is there anything there I need to correct :P), in the sense that you can hold a cast ballot in your hand and determine that it is a donkey vote rather than a vote
genuinely cast in that order of preference (you can't disenfrancise me merely because my preference coincidentally corresponds to the ballot
order). Rather 'the donkey vote' is a statistical tendency by which the candidate on the top of the ballot is favoured.
That being said I don't understand the point you are trying to make in raising this.
"Tell Diebold they're dreaminn...". You said it mate. I even cringe now when I have to use one of their ATMs. To reiterate from the summary you quote:
... the easily understood, publicly and politically accepted efficient, transparent paper ballot system that currently exists.
Hear, hear!
Electronic Voting? No Thanks!
Elections are held on a Saturday and normally the loser concedes during the Sunday morning breakfast shows, not a bad effort when you consider the logistics involved
Nope, ususally the loser conceedes on the night of the election. You are clearly not an election junkie like me ;) I can't off-hand recall the last time we had to wait till the next day. In any case your point stands. A very good effort given the logistics involved. In other words, the "great acceleration" electronic voting promises is about as useful as tits on a bull.
As anecdotal evidence I recieved my first fine in error back in the early 80's. I rang the "pay by credit card" number and started explaining the error, the guy on the other end cut me off and said: "Just ignore it mate, everybody else does".
I got fined ($10) for failing to vote in a local council elections. Now if it was a state of federal election (like that would happen) I would have worn it, after all I would have failed to live up to my duty towards my fellow Australians, but council elections ... you're kidding me?! So I just chucked it in the bin ... end of the matter.
IMHO the explaination for the acceptance of compulsory voting is that most Aussie's see compulsory voting in the same way they see compulsory education/ vaccination. In fact I'd go as far as saying the vast majority of Aussies consider people who deliberately don't vote as lazy and/or stupid.
There is greater acceptance of compulsory voting than there is vaccination (which is not compulsory). But yes, you are right. And not only do the vast majority consider people who deliberately don't vote (are there such people?!) as lazy/stupid, if they did deliberatly not vote they would be lazy and stupid! ;) (Religious objections to voting, however, are the accepted.) Moreover, most people I know regard the fact that in certain other countries less than half the people vote as nothing short of scandalous.
I saw a poster above saying we are "forced" to vote. We are no more "forced" to vote than we are "forced" not to masturbate in public. And if you masturbate in public you will be fined tooi (and they'll make sure you pay it).
In Australia we have formal rights and duties. I can't recite them off-hand, but I was them listed on someones naturalisation papers once. I noted that 'voting' was listed as both a right and a duty. Whether most Australians realise we have this formal duty, we instinctively act upon it.
The combination of compulsory voting and exhaustive preferential voting (where you vote ends up finally either with the winner or the runner-up in any electorate (again for simplicity I'm leaving upper house voting out of the picture) ensures that we are subject to laws democratically enacted. Consider that every citizen holds a quantum of sovereign power. Our voting system (subject only to informality or criminality ie. not voting), ensures that each representative goes to parliament with an absolute majority of sovereign power of the electorate that member represents. A majority of these representatives then form the government. As it happens the government usually also enjoys the support of an absolute majority of citizens. So either in the distillied form, or the direct form, our parliament passes laws bearing the power of an absolute majority of the sovereign power of the land. In countries which lack either compulsory, or exhaustive preferential voting the people are oppressed in being subject to laws imposed upon them by a minority of citizens.
That's the theory. The practice is that we don't have to put up the kind of shit they do in countries where voting is not mandatory. Eg. The old trick in the UK where a political party hires a bus, goes to an old folks home and takes all to poor old people out on an excursion to the local voting station, with the understanding that the grateful inmates will vote for the
Voting is not compulsory in Finland. We don't get those Soviet-style 99.9% turnouts.
Nor do you get Australian style 99.99% turnouts, but if you want to be snide ...
This means that you could potentially have a government get into power which enjoyed less than the support of at least 50% of the citizens! That situation would be intolerable in a democracy such as Australia. Besides which, compulsory voting eliminates many of the abuses of the electoral processes parties otherwise engage in.
Electronic voting and tabulation (incorporating a paper trail for random validation and mandated recounts) would greatly accellerate the counting process.
It would, but it would also lack the human oversight necessary to establishing trust in the process. And that trust is so very much more important than having to wait a few hours. We know the winner by the time we go to bed (at least those of use who stay up until we know the winner). :)
Besides which it would be really really boring if we know the results 5 minutes after the polls closed. No more election night parties? No more joy as you're getting progressively more tipsy as the results come in bit by bit and you begin to realise that, yes, we really have managed to get rid of the tories after more than a decade! ... Nah fuck that!
Surely you don't have 5% of votes where you cannot figure out what the voter wanted.
Well you don't have to take my word for it, you could check out the link I provided.
Besides which it isn't so much a matter of figuring out what the voter wanted as figuring out whether they cast a vote which satisfies the formal legal requirements. This means (for simplicity I'll restrict this to lower house elections) that the voter numbered all squares next to the candidates names in a sequential order. If a voter puts a cross or a tick in the box, or leaves a number out of any of the boxes, etc that vote of course spoilt and must be discarded. Bear in mind we have exhaustive preferential voting. That is why I pointed to our exhaustive preferential system as a probable cause of the greater informality rate.
Actually ministry of justice itself described 2% failure rate as "very high" compared to ordinary paper ballot. In Finland an ordinary failure rate for paper ballots cast would afaik be around 0,5% and that includes Donald Duck and offensive drawings, which are not available to evoters.
Only half of 1%?! Wow. Finnish voters must be much more careful (or draw less Donald Ducks) than Australian voters then. Or perhaps, it's the result of compulsory voting, or that our exhaustive preferential system is a little more complicated. We get informal voting rates around the order of 5% (historical data here), so 2% looks pretty low to me.
One of the pro-evoting arguments was that we get significantly _lower_ failure rates compared to paper ballots.
Informality (failure) seems a far lesser problem than trust to me. We have a paper ballot (but are experimenting with evoting for the blind). The ballot boxes are not transported, but counted at the voting place (usually the local school), and while the votes are counted 'scrutineers' from each party stand over the shoulder of each vote counter casting an eagle eye on every vote counted, noting what the counter writes down and disputing any suspect votes for the other side. Perhaps Finland doesn't do this , which would account for our higher informality rates.