Scene 5: The same classroom…

‘Class, some of you have told me that you weren’t happy with my rules about the vote. You think it’s unfair, that it’s not democratic.’ (‘That’s for sure!’)

‘Let’s try again.’ (Cheers)

‘This time, everybody — all 1s, 2s and 3s — are able to vote and I will not be watching how you vote. Instead voting will be secret and all your votes will be put in a special secure voting box.’ (More cheers, ‘Hooray’).

‘But one more thing. From now on when important matters like this need to be decided I’m going to make voting compulsory. That means that you must vote and you’ll be punished if you don’t. Some of you might think you should have a choice about whether to vote or not, but I think you also have a responsibility to your classmates to have your say on things that affect all of us. So this time anyone who doesn’t vote will have to stay in at lunchtime and look after the pet.’ (A mixture of views … ‘That sounds fair’, ‘I’m OK with it’, ‘You can’t tell me what to do!’

These situations might sound ridiculous but something like them really did happen in Australia!

You’ve identified a lot of problems with the voting systems you tried. But you’ve finally reached a good voting system: a democratic system, with…

• all people able to vote
• all people able to vote free from somebody’s unfair influence.

When Australia was first colonised by the British, nobody had a vote. The Governor made all the rules.

Then only men got the vote. But voting was in the open, so people could try and force men to vote in a particular way.

This system was changed so that people voted in secret and nobody could influence or bully them.

Eventually the vote was given to everyone and it was made compulsory.

And that’s what we have today.