The Age online polls
My favorite online newspaper is The Age. It gives a good snapshot of the day’s main stories, with links to breaking news. Important events are posted as they happen.
It’s so good in fact that I don’t buy The Age any more, except on Saturdays. That says something, doesn’t it? How much longer can newspapers survive in their current form? I can’t see the kids of today reading newsprint when they’re my age.
Online subscription services will continue to evolve, also wiki-type sites where readers post news. In regional areas I think this would be a good thing. I’ve tried to create interest in the concept here, but without some serious promotional dollars it won’t get off the ground.
All that doesn’t relate to the headline of this topic, and I may write more about those matters some other time.
While browsing The Age online today I noticed for the first time that they have a daily poll. The question that pricked my interest is whether voting should be compulsory.
Of course it shouldn’t. It’s a contradiction. Australia is one of the few countries in the world that forces its citizens to vote. Not only once, but at all three levels of government.
The main political parties all support compulsory voting. The backroom strategists are comfortable with what they know. It would be much harder for them to devise campaigns that actually motivate people not only to vote for their party, but to also turn out and cast that vote.
The party view seems to prevail in the community for no reasons that leap at me. With more than 3500 electronic votes, The Age poll shows only 32 percent support for voluntary voting.
Some of the past polls are interesting.
ALP leadership: Should Kim Beazley lead Labor into the next general election? Yes 28%, no 72%.
Nuclear power: In light of the ‘climate crisis’, should we consider adopting nuclear power? Yes 53%, no 47%.
I'm a 41-year-old father of four working as a newspaper editor at Mount Gambier in South Australia.
