Australians have an unusual habit of celebrating public policies that the rest of the world politely declines to imitate. It is regularly claimed, for example, that Australia’s compulsory superannuation system is the envy of the world. Yet despite the fanfare, no other country seems eager to replicate this innovation.

Another proudly touted but globally unadopted Australian practice is the peculiar pairing of compulsory voting and compulsory preferential voting. Nothing quite encapsulates a liberal democracy more than having compulsion at its core.

At first glance, compulsory voting appears compelling. What could better ensure a robust and representative democracy than requiring everyone to cast a ballot? But compelling someone to vote does not make them engaged.

Too many Australians head to the polls not with a sense of civic purpose, but with the determination to avoid a fine. This is not democratic enthusiasm. It is bureaucratic obedience confusing activity with engagement.

Merely voting is also not sufficient. At federal elections, voters must also rank every single candidate in order of preference. Under this system, a straightforward ‘no thanks’ to a candidate is transformed into an elaborate exercise in electoral Sudoku.

If you skip anyone, your vote does not count. Every preference must be listed, even if your genuine choices are exhausted well before the list of candidates is.

Then there is the bewildering opacity of Senate preference flows. Ask the average voter how their fifth or sixth preference helped elect someone they have never heard of, and you will likely receive a puzzled look. Minor and micro-parties exploit this confusion, gaming group voting tickets and orchestrating backroom preference deals to serendipitously ride into parliament.

Defenders of compulsory voting and compulsory preferencing argue these features ‘moderate’ Australian politics, pushing campaigns toward the centre and away from the fringes. Yet never is the evidence provided. It is a claim endlessly repeated by those who benefit most from the status quo: the major parties and the machinery that supports them.

The results of the most recent federal election highlight the story. With just 35 per cent of the primary vote, the Labor party secured 62 per cent of the seats in the House of Representatives. That means nearly two-thirds of voters preferred something other than Labor. Together, Labor and the Coalition received just 67 per cent of the primary vote yet captured 91 per cent of lower house seats.

Such results are not electoral accidents.  The are carefully engineered outcomes. Australia’s dual electoral compulsions are part of a growing anti-democratic framework constructed and maintained by Labor and the Coalition for their mutual benefit.

For the sceptical, consider the admission by Labor Senator Don Farrell, the architect of the most recent batch of electoral reforms which will take effect next election and were designed to make it even more difficult for small parties and independent candidates to compete in the political marketplace. Farrell stated plainly, ‘The Westminster system provides for a two-party operation.’ In other words, a duopoly. Backed by the Coalition, these reforms will further entrench the dominance of the two major parties and raise the bar for anyone daring to compete.

The convergence of policies across Labor and the Coalition is no coincidence. It is the logical outcome of cartel politics. Just as duopolies in business breed stagnation, so too do dupopolies in politics. Why bother innovating when replicating is good enough.

American writer James Bovard once remarked, ‘Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.’ In Australia, the major parties are the wolves, and the electorate are the sheep, forced not just to vote, but to pretend that the choice between two increasingly indistinguishable options amounts to democratic freedom.

The push for fixed four-year terms is simply a continuum in this effort to reduce political competition. That such a change requires a constitutional amendment is the only reason it has not already been imposed. When Australians were asked in a 1988 referendum whether they wanted fixed four-year terms, more than two-thirds said no. Meanwhile, reforms that would expand democratic competition, such as term limits, recall elections, or citizen-initiated referenda, are never considered.

The most recent federal election laid bare the moral, intellectual, and policy bankruptcy of Australia’s major parties. They piled ever more spending onto an already staggering near-$1 trillion debt pile that was essentially nil 18 years ago. They mumbled platitudes about the next generation while offering nothing but higher taxes, more debt, declining productivity and deepening security risks.

At the 2025 election, Australians were once again forced to choose between two parties that offered the same recycled policies dressed up in slightly different colours. The wolves continue to write the rules. And the sheep continue to line up, compelled by law, to vote between two variations of the same raw deal.

Australia needs to abolish compulsory voting bringing it in line with nearly every other democratic nation. Without compulsory voting, disengaged and uninformed voters would be less likely to participate, compelling political parties to focus their appeals on those who are better informed and genuinely engaged. Tactics, such as deploying misleading claims, for example Mediscare, are less likely to find traction with a more discerning electorate.

To motivate disengaged citizens to vote voluntarily, parties would need to sharpen their policy differences. In the most recent election, the Coalition initially sought to distinguish itself on two fronts: remote work and nuclear energy. The remote work position was quickly abandoned, and nuclear energy was barely mentioned. When the Coalition eventually proposed Medicare subsidies even more generous than Labor’s, their attempt at ‘me too’ politics failed to win support.

There is also a strong case for scrapping compulsory preferencing and adopting a first-past-the-post system, as used in the UK. Scrapping preferential voting could help marginalise fringe parties with extreme agendas. Even an optional preferential voting system, as used in New South Wales, would represent an improvement over the current model.

Ultimately, Australia needs an electoral system that incentivises sound policy development and appeals to informed voters, rather than one that rewards populist giveaways funded by taxpayers or debt. Ending compulsory voting and compulsory preferencing would be significant steps toward better governance.