Democracies operate according to rules, but they also change. Sometimes at the hands of visionary or power-hungry leaders, sometimes in response to external forces, and sometimes as a result of people power.

In the early days, Parliament House hosted an all-male conclave of politicians and newspapermen, sharing a cramped environment and a complex code of conventions and mutual dependency. But the age of disruption has arrived.

We begin with one of the enduring oddities of the Australian electoral system - preferential voting. Vaunted by mathematicians and theorists as a fairer way of voting. Adopted, uniquely, by Australia in 1918.