It's pretty silly as  any refrence too.  What Australia being a giant Island... and it's poorer neighbors actually hating Australia to the point of where some people are paranoid a war may break out... where Australia is somehow actually invaded.

I mean, whatever you think about immigration, at least Europe and the US border huge poor nations who want to move.

Or you could compare civil liberties... where Austarlia is horribly horribly behind.

People like to call America "right wing of the world" because of the lack of socialzied medicine and welfare... that's a very small piece of the puzzle.  For once... Numonex is right.

Neither major party is remotely as leftwing as the Democrats. 

Compare (as provided by political compass)... Australian Elections

VS the US

Oh really? Considering the ACCC is for consumers, not employees, and not even the ACCC could stop certain companies such as oil companies, from putting their heads together.

I live in a regional area, and at one stage, we had some of the most expensive petrol in regional Australia, at 30 cents over Melbourne's prices. There was no reason for this. They just knew they could get away with it in our region.

Give business an inch, and they WILL take a mile.

Of note however, is that the Greens had the biggist swing towards them, bigger then any other party and will hold the balace of power in the senate from next year onwards. So they increasinly are becomming a major party, they did get over 11% of the primary vote.

Can I ask the source for this graph?

You can... but I already gave it.  Political Compass.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2010

Thanks Kas - could you elaborate more on: "Or you could compare civil liberties... where Austarlia is horribly horribly behind"?

Just look at the general nanny state ideals already stated in this thread.

Freedom of speech violations all abound.  Weird censoring for "peoples protection" even with some groups wanting to pass an Internet filter?  There are other examples as well in general of Australia's general censorship problems.  For example the banning of X18 matieral in basically every area, and not even all movies being able to get that status!

This is partially possible because unlike most of the western world, there actually is no constiutional like law that expressly protects freedom of speech like you'd have in the US or UK.

As can be seen below... it's very teneous situation to be sitting on for sure.  The only speach protected really is "Free political speech."

http://www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/pubs/rn/2001-02/02rn42.htm

"The Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech. In theory, therefore, the Commonwealth Parliament may restrict or censor speech through censorship legislation or other laws, as long as they are otherwise within constitutional power. The Constitution consists mainly of provisions relating to the structure of the Commonwealth Parliament, executive government and the federal judicial system.⁽⁶⁾ There is no list of personal rights or freedoms which may be enforced in the courts. There are however some provisions relating to personal rights such as the right to trial by jury (section 80), and the right to freedom of religion (section 116).

Since 1992 decisions of the High Court have indicated that there are implied rights to free speech and communication on matters concerning politics and government, e.g. permitting political advertising during election campaigns.⁽⁷⁾ This is known as the 'implied freedom of political communication'. Issues arising from these decisions include defining when communication is 'political' and when the freedom should prevail over competing public interests.⁽⁸⁾

In 1942 a Constitutional Convention held in Canberra recommended that the Constitution be amended to include a new section 116A preventing the Commonwealth or a State passing laws which curtailed freedom of speech or of the press.⁽⁹⁾ The government did not accept this proposal and it was not included in the referendum on 19 August 1944, when other constitutional amendments were proposed.

The advantage of having such rights written into the Constitution is that they are 'entrenched' and cannot be amended or removed by any government without the overwhelming approval of the people voting at a referendum to amend the Constitution.⁽¹⁰⁾ Rights contained in other legislation, such as the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, are not entrenched. They may be amended or repealed by any government with the consent of Parliament. "

I see - I thought there may have been some same sex marriage or adoption reforms in the US that I hadn't heard of.  But you're absolutely right.  There's a wave of self-righteous baby boomers acting in their own interests imposing regulations and legislations in order to 'protect' and control us.  In following many anti-internet filter activist sites there was a prominent quote in circulation;

“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.” – Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler)  

The problem with using political compass is that they don't reveal much at all about their methodology, or the metrics they use to calculate the scores.  Many political scientists tend to view Political Compass as more entertainment than fact.  While I agree that civil liberties are more well entrenched in the US (except for the Patriot Act, of course), I feel comfortable with my statement that both parties in Australia are inherently further left than either American party.