Today the electors of Ryan, in suburban Brisbane, are due to vote to fill a vacancy in the House of Representatives. John Moore, the former defence minister, could have seen out his parliamentary term on the Government backbenches and stepped down at the Federal election due late this year, thus avoiding a distracting, and costly, by-election. But Moore refused to do the right thing. So tonight's results will give some idea about the Coalition's and John Howard's standing in the electorate. And no doubt the vote will be used to measure the level of alienation from, and disillusionment with, the Australian political system.
Democracy remains a popular concept.
Representative government, however, is under strain. Not only in Australia, but also in large parts of Europe and the Americas. It's just that some electors do not believe that our system of representative government is democratic enough. Moreover, we all now know so much about our elected leaders. In the past, the electorate was not aware of Winston Churchill's drinking problem, or John F. Kennedy's serial womanising, or Alfred Deakin's infatuation with the occult.