You get fined about $20 for not voting, providing you're actually on the electoral roll in the first place. Also, you're not actually forced to 'vote', I cannot stress that enough. All you do is go down to the polling station on election day, talk to the nice people from the AEC and get your name marked off the electoral roll, enter the ballot booth, make a selection on the ballot paper, and drop it in the appropriate box. You're not legally required to make any selection on the ballot paper, at all.
Also, we have preferential voting here, quite different from the first-past-the-post system in the UK, so there isn't exactly a simple choice of A or B. In any case, Juila Gillard is quite a professional, well-versed and capable public servant, as is the majority of the federal parliamentary Labor Party. But, Tony Abbot, on the other hand, yes, he is a dickhead.
Compulsory voting ensues that everyone gets a say in who should run the country. In some countries where voting is not compulsory, voter turnout is absurdly low. Rather than having the desired effect of sending a message to leaders that the populace is clearly disillusioned with their policies and a change is needed; the complete opposite occurs, politicians can single out groups of people who are unlikely and likely to vote, and promote policies that benefit the latter.
And in that case, elections aren't exactly 'democratic' in a sense, politicians aren't given a mandate from the majority of the entire population, but rather just the majority of people who voted.
