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- Written by: George Christensen
- Hits: 700
National First looks into how compulsory voting shackles true democracy.
Australia likes to pat itself on the back for being a model democracy. But there’s something deeply wrong about a system that punishes you for not voting. Worse still, that very system is dragging our politics into a swamp of apathy, bribery, and hollow promises.
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Forcing Australians to vote is undemocratic and breeds political apathy. 
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It props up a broken system where major parties bribe disengaged voters. 
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Real debate is stifled, and genuine alternatives are crushed. 
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The media and institutions steer the public toward the same old choices. 
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Removing penalties for not voting could finally shake things up. 
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- Written by: Op-Ed Shaydee Lane
- Hits: 717
Read more: Children and Innocence - Bangles Beads and Broken Promises
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- Written by: Op-Ed Shaydee Lane
- Hits: 677
While the new aces argue about the runway, the old crew still knows how to land a plane.
What if you could hold one single moment from your entire life, just one, to carry with you forever? Which one would it be? The answer may tell us more about who we are than any story we tell ourselves.
There’s a photograph in your mind, faded, perhaps, but alive...a moment from your past that never quite lets go. Maybe it’s the day you first rode a bike, the night you whispered secrets to a friend, or the first time you saw your newborn child. Why do these moments cling, while others vanish without a trace?
What moments shape us, and what will our children and grandchildren hold onto in a noisy world?
That is my question today. What memories are we leaving to our new generation? Lockdowns? Climate Change? Global Warming? Guilt? What have we allowed to happen?
Read more: The Flight of the Navigator - Old Pilots, New Aces, and Why Childhood Matters
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- Written by: Op-Ed Monty
- Hits: 773
When a lifetime isn’t enough to be believed
I know a person... in her older years. She has a smartphone. She knows how to use it, She tries to keep up with the modern world..even when it changes faster than her knees can carry her. She can type faster than me and while she is drop dead gorgeous in my eyes, you can tell she is not 18 anymore.
She’s not stubborn. She’s not lost in the past.She’s just… older.
And this week, standing at her front door, she was asked to prove how old she was. Yes, by a delivery driver from the local adult beverage shop...... with a bottle of Irish whiskey I had ordered for her. What happened next was shocking. Welcome to E- Australia...
Read more: Expired IDs, Expired Lives? What turns older People into In Valids?
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- Written by: Op-Ed Ratty News
- Hits: 640
RATTY NEWS SPECIAL BULLETIN
By Roderick “Whiskers” McNibble, Editor-in-Cheese
It has been a busy week here in Dusty Gulch.
It all began with a report I filed a few days ago but held back from publishing due to rising duck-threat levels and escalating biscuit security.
But now, with the town in open uproar and the smell of conspiracy wafting stronger than Maude Elphinstone’s curried egg sandwiches, I can at last reveal the events that have shaken Dusty Gulch to its very poultry-plucked core:
“Mayor Abduckted!”
Read more: DUCKS, DECEIT & DUSTY McFOOKIT: The Marmalade Coup
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