I'd simply say 'Stop the votes', were it not for the danger it might appeal to the masses

BUT then, it might appeal to the masses. Pox populi, or why Elizabeth Farrelly thinks democracy mustn't be left in the hands of the people.

Elizabeth Farrelly in The Sydney Morning Herald on April 21:

Maybe it's too soon to dump democracy, but I'd make voting a privilege; not a right, and certainly not an obligation. If they can't be bothered to vote, the last thing you want is their help in running the country. Rather, we'd earn our voting rights by demonstrating at least some intelligent grasp of the issues and so force, or perhaps allow, our leaders to raise their eye-cues.

Letter writer Matt Pralija in the SMH on April 22:

I think Elizabeth Farrelly may be on to something: the experiment with universal suffrage has clearly failed. For example, look what happens when you let stupid people vote: between 1996 and 2004 they kept voting for Howard against all better advice. I like a test based on an "intelligent grasp of the issues". That would leave the vote to people like us, Elizabeth and me for example. Although I suspect she'd think even that was spreading the vote too far. On second thought perhaps it would be best if we left the running of our country to newspaper columnists, who seem to know just about everything.

Farrelly in the SMH on April 14:

Mining provides a tiny fraction of Australian jobs: just over 1 per cent compared with 11 per cent for health care, which the government so happily trashes. We could drop the entire mining sector and still keep unemployment well below the OECD average.

Farrelly earlier in same column:

OK, I know nothing about money.

Omar Barghouti, founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, interviewed on The Electronic Intifada, May 31, 2009:

The academic boycott, which was called for by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel in 2004, is an institutional boycott -- so it's a call to every conscientious academic and academic institution to boycott every Israeli academic institution because of their complicity in perpetuating Israel's occupation and other forms of oppression.

Hugh Muir in The Guardian, April 29, 2009:

Good wishes go to Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the movement to boycott Israeli academia, who has opted according to the Jewish Chronicle to take doctoral courses at Tel Aviv University, having studied for his BA and master's degree at Columbia University in the US. "My studies at Tel Aviv University are a personal matter and I have no interest in commenting," he is reported to have told the Ma'ariv newspaper when contacted. A student, but also a teacher.

He of little faith. Cardinal George Pell in The Spectator Australia:

I continue intermittently with my work on climate change. I continue to be sceptical of the view that human activity is causing climatic disaster. A few become very agitated when a Catholic archbishop requires scientific evidence for a scientific proposition. One woman thought it was like asking a witch doctor for a medical opinion. The problem does have Alice in Wonderland dimensions. Believers and recent converts are proposing an ineffectual tax on carbon dioxide, profitable only for devisers and implementers of the scheme, while both sides are supporting the export of billions of dollars worth of coal to produce enormous amounts of carbon dioxide dwarfing any hypothetical Australian savings.

Fingers crossed he doesn't want you working longer. Wayne Swan tackles things the Labor way and announces a new panel yesterday:

One of the most important policy challenges ahead of us is harnessing the economic and social opportunities presented by our growing population of seniors. Today with Mark Butler, Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, I'll be announcing the membership of a new panel to advise the government on how our nation can take advantage of the experience and wisdom of older Australians.

[e-mail]