Funny how 67%of Australians think Australia should be a world leader in finding solutions to climate change and 66% of Australians think the Australian Government should stop new coal mines but our government does the opposite. It's like maybe our representative democracy isn't that democratic and only representative of the extraction industries.
The fossil fuel industry pays for access to politicians that we don't have.
Who cares what Australians say they "think" when their behaviour suggests the complete opposite? People keep voting for these dogshit major parties because, deep down, they don't actually care as much as they pretend to in anonymous polls and surveys.
Or maybe preferential voting just makes even a protest vote work for the red and blue team? Maybe Compulsory voting makes the 30+% of politically illiterate people swing the whole system towards the main 2 parties? Maybe we only have dogshit parties to vote for because of the significant amount of money required to run a successful campaign?
But no of course it is the fault of individuals for voting for shitty parties... because they have so many other options.
For decades we've had a third party with green colours, green in their name, that goes to every election with policies based largely around climate change and puts up a candidate in every seat. At the most recent election, only 12% of voters put them first on the ballot. You can piss your pants and cry about how rigged "the system" is, or pretend that 88% of Australian voters are removed, or you can just accept reality. People really don't care as much as they pretend to and when they are given an opportunity every three years to prove otherwise, they fail spectacularly.
If 30% of voters didn't vote because they don't care the majority of them would not be greens voters. so that would have the all the other parties splitting 58% of the vote vs the greens 12%. Then you factor in how many of the minor parties would out due their local red/blue regular because his support has dipped 30%.
You end up with a green party that is on par with the reds and blues and a gaggle of minor parties/independents without even fixing the preferential system or the fucked up donation laws.
The system is the problem not the people.
