Recommendation: This was recommended to me, I recommend it to you
Read with: A sausage sizzle, obviously
In brief: As the title suggests, From Secret Ballot charts the development of the hallmarks of Australian democracy – the secret ballot, preferential voting and, most notably, compulsory voting. Clocking in at a slim 200 pages, it is both a fun read and a rumination on the distinct and indispensable quirks in our democratic system. There is an extract in The Conversation if you fancy a gander before committing.
Australia is one of the few countries in the world where it is compulsory to vote in elections. There are plenty of arguments against this, largely centred on the infringement on individual liberty and the problem of the “lazy” vote. Brett argues, however, that compulsory voting is not only consistent with our political traditions and history, it is an essential contributor to the health of our system, relative stability and comparatively high faith in our political institutions. Other features of the Australian system are preferential voting (as opposed to proportional representation or first-past-the-post), the secret ballot, voting on a Saturday, public funding for elections and the independent supervision of our elections and electoral roll by the AEC.
One of the remarkable things about this is list is how early in our modern history these features started to develop. Almost all were in operation in some form or other in at least one of the States at Federation and politicians showed a distinct willingness to tinker with the system in the early decades. As a result, the narrative essentially stops in the 20s, before a couple of whistle-stop chapters on the introduction of preferential voting in the Senate and the Howard Government’s abortive attempts to can compulsory voting. There is also an excellent and salutary chapter on the unedifying history of racial discrimination in our electoral system.
Brett deliberately keeps the focus off politicians and political parties however the rise of Labor and then the Country Party are unavoidable parts of the narrative – both legislated or demanded changes to accommodate their likely voters, both were met with changes designed to weaken them. For all this, the heroes and heroines in the story are the various obscure public servants, campaigners and even the odd politician who developed fairer systems, fought to broaden the suffrage and built a political culture in which the collective good has generally been prioritised over a US-style fetish for individual rights.
There are drawbacks to our system however Brett makes a fierce and profoundly patriotic argument for these exceptional foundations of Australian democracy. In short:
Bookshelves & Bourbon 