Malcolm Turnbull flags postal survey for Australian republic, page-88

Rather than being successful, I thought the marriage survey was a quite dangerous initative in terms of undermining our system of government. And this idea being pushed that it was a success, so that now it could be repeated, shows why.

In this country we have quite robust electoral processes overseen by an independent agency so that everyone respects the outcome. Major issues of policy, particularly something as serious as changing the constitution go to referendums, again overseen by the electoral commission. If Australians are conservative, so that few referendums get up, well so be it. Make a better argument.

That stupid survey was sent out on black and white paper that could be photocopied or otherwise fraudulently printed in large runs. You could have picked them from apartment letterboxes and sent them on behalf of neighbours. You could ring up and just say you lost yours and get sent another to vote twice. There were no effective controls at all. The process wouldnt stand up to scrutiny as a polling technique, any sort of scientific survey and certaintly not as a voting mechanism of any integrity.

And yet we had all these people and media running around saying Australians "voted", as if it was some kind of robust process. That exercise really just undermined our democrarcy. I'm surprised they didn't get over 100% of survey forms returned.

And now the vacuous egotist running our country thinks he can manipulate the outcome on an issue again by raising this survey bullshit.

I support a republic if set up appropriately, but dont trust Malcolm or anyone in government not to balls up our consistution in pursuing it. There are no statesmen in sight.