The Australian Democrats usually get pidgeon-holed as a 'lefty' party, but if you look at their Senate performance and speeches they are by far the most liberal and republican party in the Australian system. They actually practice a relatively pure style of liberal democracy which is based around deliberation, debate, competition over policy and then majority support.
Andrew Bartlett makes an interesting comment on clubtroppo:
Obviously a party can't have their members voting every which way on every second issue, but there really should be much more scope for conscience votes or crossing the floor or whatever you want to label. I think it is a terrible thing that people regularly vote in favour of things in the Parliament that they are personally deeply opposed to - it perverts democracy, dilutes personal responsibility and leads to a much greater likelihood of bad laws.The liberal principle of conscience in a representative preventing bad and tyrannous laws is strong in the Australian Democrats. It is actually written into their party constitution that a representative cannot be disciplined by the national executive over a conscience vote - though the representative has to explain why they voted their conscience.
