I can definitely see the voting system having quite an effect on what Australian's expect from their politicians and the sense of ownership that is held as a result. Even though I'm not allowed to vote yet, I find I am far more invested in political happenings here than I was in Canada where the average voting percentage is around 60%.
Thank you for that link. It lead me down a lovely rabbit trail of learning. I stumbled across this site in the process: http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp
It has a bit more thorough research (the above research was done entirely within one company and with group surveys) and reflects the changing aspect of values over time. There is such a large range world wide that I think some of the hardest differences to deal with are the ones that look like they should be small.