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Comment by slopinthebag | Hacker News Reader

Name a good government.

Australia has a good government. It's extremely middle of the road due to Mandatory voting attendance and preferential voting. It's very much wisdom of the crowd. It's a good system and the results across the board from wealth inequality, GDP per capita, human development pretty much speak for themselves. it basically forces a really centrist approach because everyone preferences all of the candidates you never want to use outrage politics or it will backfire. It also has an independent body that defines where the electorate borders are so gerrymandering is not really a thing.

The Australian government enforced assimilation policies that systematically removed Aboriginal children from their families. The Australian Human Rights Commission concluded that this state-sanctioned policy constituted an act of genocide. During early colonization, government troops and police forces were directly involved in the planned and calculated mass slaughter of Indigenous communities. Archival records frequently referred to these indiscriminate killings using the codeword "dispersal". In Afghanistan, Australian special forces were involved in the unlawful killing of Afghan prisoners and civilians. In 2025, laws were passed allowing bans on protests for up to three months, and activists face arrest and imprisonment for demonstrations relating to climate change and the Gaza conflict.

If any group other than the state did any of these things they would be rightfully disbanded, instead people praise mandatory voting???

Mandatory voting is worthy of praise, some of the stuff you mentioned proves my point. Aboriginals are now part of that mandatory voting and as such the government bends over backwards to try and meet their needs while balancing them with the needs of others.

You are moving the goalposts, you asked to name a good government and I gave you one. On a spectrum from good to bad Australia is good.

If you ask to see a good horse and I show you one that can run at 30kmph, you can't in good faith complain that it requires oxygen and sometimes poops. It's not a bad horse because it can't fly.

List the top 10 happiest countries. Those governments are obviously doing something right.

I think it's fair to say plenty of people have been satisfied, and even pleased, with the policies and actions of their government. There isn't one objective measure.

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