Failure to pass the Gay Marriage legislation by the Federal Parliament and now the withdrawal of the proposed Referendum on removal of race clauses in the Constitution suggests gross failure of governance systems at the national level.
The Gay Marriage legislation is clearly supported by a majority of Australians. The Constitutional Referendum is withdrawn because the Federal Government has failed to publicise this important proposal sufficiently. The former failure is due to the fact that the national parliament is simply not representative of our diverse society. This requires a major change to the electoral system to proportional representation which would end the two party tyranny and the negative, adversarial culture in which the unrepresentative major parties are caught. In the case of the Constitutional Referendum this can be rectified by the Gillard government immediately – and it should do that. If, as Reconciliation Australia has indicated, only 39 percent of the population have heard about it, an advertising campaign is required. I would think that over 80 percent of voters would want to see the race clauses removed from the Constitution, as soon as possible.
Klaas Woldring,
Pearl Beach
