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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Also, as Australian citizens they are obliged to vote at Federal elections, for their one (soon to be two) federal representative in the lower house and two senators.
Do you have any idea why a government that denied Aborigines the right to vote until 1967 should deny its citizens the right not to vote, if that is their wish?
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enthusiast
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> our "artificial" capital Canberra to sit on "neutral" ground).> Might you explain the quotes for the uninformed?Sorry for the obscurity, Jazzo. I wondered at the time if I should have explained it, but I've been trying to keep my posts shorter. Now I get to bump my stats up with another post. In 1901 the states were federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia, and it was deemed necessary to have a national capital city. The two most populous cities Sydney and Melbourne were intense rivals for the prestigious title. However, in order to settle the argument without alienating a large part of the fledgling country's population, the powers that be decided to build a brand new city called Canberra in the middle of nowhere (between Sydney and Melbourne, inland). As I said in my previous post, an area of land surrounding the new city was cut from the middle of New South Wales to form the "Australian Capital Territory". A Chicago architect called Walter Burley Griffin won an international competition for the rare opportunity of creating a design for a major city on what was essentially a "greenfield" site. Further details at: http://www.tomw.net.au/cnbst1.htmland in particular at http://www.tomw.net.au/cnbst3.html
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>Do you have any idea why a government that denied Aborigines the right to vote until 1967 should deny its citizens the right not to vote, if that is their wish?
You're asking me to explain what goes on in politicians' brains (as if that's not an oxymoron)? If I'd known it was going to be Australian political history week at AWADtalk, I would have exercised my right not to log in. Nah, just joshing.
Funny, but it's one of those things that I've just grown up with and accepted. I suppose I put it in the same basket as teachers decreeing that you have to study a particular subject "because it's good for you". I'd probably be too apathetic to vote if not required to, but curiously enough, when forced, I don't resent having a say in who governs the state or country.
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old hand
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old hand
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a brand new city called Canberra
Any special reason that they chose that as the name?
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enthusiast
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a brand new city called Canberra
Any special reason that they chose that as the name?
From "Yesterday's Canberra" link in my post above:
KAMBERRA - this Aboriginal word, spoken by tribes on the Limestone Plains, meant 'a meeting place' either of rivers or of tribes joining together to feast on Bogong Moths in mountains to the south.
From what I can gather, white settlers had already applied the name to the village and surrounding agricultural district before the major city was developed there.
P.S. Bogong moths shot from obscurity to international stardom during the Sydney Olympics. Did you see them?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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>From "Yesterday's Canberra" link in my post above:
KAMBERRA
I had read that there had been so many possibilties for a name and so much discussion, that the name was kept secret until the opening ceremony.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Re: Voting in Northern Territory
Thanks Marty, this is probably where the confusion lay:
"At the next general election for the House of Representatives there will be provision for 2 members of the House of Representatives to be elected for 2 Northern Territory electorates. For some years prior to an amendment of the Act in 1959 the member had no vote in the House, although the member could take part in debates in the House. Amendments passed in 1959 gave the member limited voting rights in respect of matters which related to the Northern Territory. The Act was further amended in 1968 and the member representing the Northern Territory now has the same voting rights as other members of the House of Representatives."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ventura
The three lines representing, I assume, the stretch of the arm down to the bottom of the barrel. Or cesspool?
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>How can a country call itself a democracy, and yet attempt to compel its citizens, under threat of sanction, to vote?
And how can the same country come together for one shining moment and enact a country-wide vey strict ban on guns? Perhaps because everyone voted.
My fondest dream is to have a national referendum here in the US on the question of whether we should amend the Constitution to clarify whether Americans do or do not have the right to own more than one gun per capita.
We could do this by having Congress propose a Constitutional amendment which would require that each state hold a referendum on the matter and if 3/4ths of the states voted to change the Constitution, perhaps we could stop being a country where murder is a way of death.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Teacher, teacher! I know this one.
For some reason known only to Australians, there was a list put forth and the wife of the Australian head of state (not the monarch head of state, but I cannot remember whether it was then called prime minister) somehow was granted the right to choose. She chose Canberra, which I think derives from an aboriginal word for convocation or meeting place, something like that.
I will probably be corrected by about 11 antipodeans, but I learned that many years ago while in Canberra. If memory serves me correctly that story came from the docent who was taking us through the exhibit for the new Parliament House, which was then under construction in Canberra. I'd certainly like to go back and see how it turned out, the plans and mockups were awesome.
TEd
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