Really good point about symptoms / causes (I do not entirely agree that it is automatically follows to make the gov not worth buying.. a bit like smashing up your car so no-one steals it). And I do not disagree with your comments about the US voting.

WRT Australian voting, in 2010 the voter turnout was around 92/93%, with a further 5.5% informal (donkey). Around 20% of the electorate voted for the minor parties / independents.

All this translated to.. 90% of the seats to the two major parties. Nope, no corruption here. In a very real sense the system is designed by the parties that run it. I mean, we all remember what happened in Tassie in the late 90's?