Another stone in the yellow-brick road

Tony Smith is trying to drag up the old "compulsory vote" issue in Australia again. Either he has been reading my blog (hence this subtly bracketed mention in passing ~ we have an invisible site meter which tells us a little about our visitors. For blogger safety) or he is just wetting himself about Iraq's election boycotters and is trying to defuse any kind of "situation" in case the trend catches on over here in AUS. Which means that those election boycotters in Iraq, hmm, may hold some weight.

Compulsory voting back on political agenda

ABC Saturday 12 February 2005
Louise Yaxley and Elizabeth Jackson

The scrapping of compulsory voting is back on the political agenda now the Government has been re-elected for a fourth time.

The chairman of Parliament's committee on electoral matters, Liberal backbencher, Tony Smith, is encouraging a wide-ranging debate on whether to scrap the law that forces people to turn up at the polling booth.

Mr Smith says there should be a right not to vote as well.

Anyway. Smith just doesn't geddit. For one thing, not-voters will not-vote whether voting is compulsory or is not. That's just the way not-voters are. Independent. For another thing, it's so irrelevant. There are more pressing issues at hand. Like the treatment of asylum seekers in Australia, f'rinstance.

So was Smith reading my blog, or was I just being premonitional again? Maybe I could focus more on building up an oracular repertoire here. Then again, nobody likes hearing that they're going to marry a toad or that their car will break down in peak hour traffic next week. One cannot chose one's visions. One can only pass some of them on.