by cameron | Jun 4, 2008 | Australian politics
On Twitter this afternoon I made a crack about how the two-party system we have in Australia is, I believe, fundamentally broken. Someone asked me how I would improve it. This is what I came up with on the fly. This isn’t something I’ve given any thought to previously, so it’s probably full of holes as big as Barnesy’s mouth, but you know me, I’m a shoot-first, think-later kinda guy. I’m certain it isn’t even slightly original. It’s probably discussed in Politics 101 at university but as I didn’t go to university, I missed out.
Let’s scrap all of the political parties.
In fact, let’s scrap elections completely.
Why couldn’t it work like the jury system.
We set up an online Bill submission system. Citizens, businesses, lobby groups, etc, could all enter in their submissions for new laws they want enacted.
Public servants would then arrange for 50 or 100 citizens to be selected at random from the community, jury style, to hear the arguments for and against each submission. After they have heard the evidence and debated it in private, the jury will vote to see which submission deserve further investigation. Two small committees will then be established from the public service to examine the merits of each submission – one for and one against.
Once the committees have their presentations ready, another “jury” will be called to hear the respective arguments. They will hear the “for” argument and the “against” argument, just like hearing the prosecution and the defense in a legal case. Again, this “jury” will deliberate in private and then vote either for or agains the bill.
And so on and so forth.
And we treat being a member of one of these juries with the same seriousness and legal ramifications as we do being a member of a jury today. Tampering with a jury carries maximum penalties.
The benefits? Here are some off the top of my head.
- even if we fly everyone to Canberra for the deliberations, it’s going to save the country millions of dollars a year. The 2004 Federal Election cost $120 million. I have no idea what it costs us every year to run the MPs, but it can’t be pretty. In my system, it would be legislated that the jurors would get leave from their employers at full pay while they were on jury duty. Small businesses (under $10 million in annual revenue) would be compensated for this expense.
- we would get rid of professional politicians for good and all of the problems that this system entails. Lobby groups wouldn’t be able to buy off anyone, because juries would rotate constantly. Nobody gets to retire from politics and become a director of a mining company as a reward for Bills passed or get paid $US500,000 per speaking engagement.
- we’d get rid of party politics. Hooray.
- it won’t just be the wealthy members of society making the decisions. Federal backbenchers now get paid $127,000 pa plus benefits whereas half the households in Australia have a pre-tax income of less than $80,826. And that’s leaving out the politicians who are already insanely wealthy such as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull.
So – as always feel free to tell me where I’m wrong. You know I love a good debate.
(photo by tassie303)
by cameron | Jun 1, 2008 | Australian politics
More evidence that it doesn’t matter which one of the major parties is in power, the same game is played:
The narrow terms of reference were drafted to prevent any inquiry into the role played by Howard and his ministers. The inquiry was asked to report on “the arrest, detention, charging, prosecution and release of Dr Haneef, the cancellation of his Australian visa and the issuing of a criminal justice stay certificateâ€. Its instructions, however, are limited to identifying “any deficiencies in the relevant laws or administrative and operational procedures and arrangements of the Commonwealth and its agencies, including agency and interagency communication protocols and guidelinesâ€.
The Rudd government’s inquiry is designed to cover-up the essential character of the Haneef witch-hunt, as well as Labor’s role in supporting it until the whole case fell apart. Last July 12, while Haneef was still being detained without charge, Kevin Rudd declared he had “confidence†in the AFP to “handle this manner in an appropriate way†and reiterated that Labor would retain the anti-terrorism laws if it won office. Labor’s proposal for an inquiry only emerged amid widespread popular disgust at Haneef’s victimisation.
(link)
by cameron | May 22, 2008 | Australian politics, Cuba
Australia slipped two places to be ranked only the 27th most peaceful out of 140 countries on the Global Peace Index 2008, compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, while neighbour New Zealand is fourth.
The USA ranked 97th, below China, Cuba and Libya.
I wonder who much coverage this will get in the MSM. Are you, as a citizen of Australia, happy with the result? Do we want to be a peaceful nation?
by cameron | Nov 1, 2007 | Australian politics
I have been hearing a bit lately about “Senator On-Line“, Australia’s first internet based political party. The way it works is this: is a SOL candidate gets elected to the Senate, they will put up a website for every Bill being presented to the Senate, covering the arguments for and against the Bill, and then we all get to vote on it. They commit to voting in the Senate in line with how the majority vote on their site.
Can it work? Are we ready for this kind of participatory democracy? How much time would you be willing to spend each week learning about Bills in front of the Senate? I think it’s a huge step for democracy and something that should be completely supported. This could be the beginning of the end of “voting along party lines” and politicians promising one thing during the campaign and then reversing their position once they are elected. The public are truly in control of how SOL votes, Bill by Bill.
I’ll be fascinated to see how this works and how many people are really willing to participate in how their country is run. I wonder if SOL have a candidate running in my electorate?
They have a Facebook group as well.
The founder of SOL is Berge Der Sarkissian. A quick search on BDS brings up his less-than-perfect track record.
From ASIC’s site October 16 2002
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has accepted an enforceable undertaking from Mr Berge Anthony Der Sarkissian, a former proper authority holder.
Mr Der Sarkissian offered the enforceable undertaking following an ASIC investigation into suspected breaches of the Corporations Act relating to the Telstra 2 Public Share Offer.
As a result of ASIC’s investigation, ASIC formed a view that between August 1999 and October 1999, Mr Der Sarkissian was involved in making 420 applications for Telstra 2 Instalment Receipts (T2IR) using names that may have been contrived.
Further, ASIC was concerned that Mr Der Sarkissian caused 26 transfers of T2IR’s from names that may have been contrived to another person who was associated with DB Management Pty Ltd, in order for these T2IR’s to be sold in the future for the benefit of the company.
ASIC was concerned that Mr Der Sarkissian had engaged in conduct that was misleading or deceptive, or likely to mislead or deceive, in respect of his dealings in the T2IR’s. ASIC was concerned that Mr Der Sarkissian may not in the future, perform his duties as a representative of a dealer or an investment adviser, efficiently, honestly and fairly.
To his credit (and very Web 2.0 of him), BDS seems to be up-front about the incident, for on his personal website he says:
I was wrong to have made multiple applications in order to get a better allocation in T2 than I otherwise might have got. This poor decision had significant costs and embarrassment. More than the personal humiliation was the shame I felt for causing embarrassment to my wife and children.
I regret the decision I made, I remain embarrassed about it and I am sorry for it.
Throwing out a mea culpa once you’ve been caught and punished isn’t really a great act of contrition though. And while I don’t expect politicians to be saints, you have to question whether we need another political party run by someone who has deliberately tried to mislead and deceive in the past.
The other concern I have is one of whether or not SOL truly “get” the net or not. Check out their website. Wouldn’t you think an outfit positioning themselves as “Australia’s first internet based political party” would have email addresses, IM details, Skype addresses, blog details… ANYTHING… so you could talk with their candidates? Their site has the mandatory “Contact Us” form, but nothing that makes them truly available. I think that’s a sign of how much they really get the idea of openness and transparency.
by cameron | Sep 21, 2007 | Australian politics
When I had Matt Marks on the show recently talking about politicians using Web2.0 to engage their audience, I wish I’d seen this example. Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett (who was my guest on the show back in February 2005) has a video on his Facebook profile where recent G’Day World guest Julian Burnside QC explains why he believes why it is critical that Bartlett gets re-elected. Check out the video here. Not too shabby when the most visible defender of human rights in the country records a special video plugging you as “a person who is completely honest”. I think this is an amazing example of how to use Web2.0 correctly. This isn’t Andrew talking about how good he is – it’s Australia’s leading human rights lawyer talking about how good he is. Burnside carries a lot of weight in my book. Does something like this have an impact on how you are likely to vote?
by cameron | Sep 17, 2007 | Australian politics
Back in March when I had Dr Phil Burgess, Telstra’s Group Managing Director, Public Policy and Communication, on the show, he tried to portray Telstra as Darryl Kerrigan, Michael Caton’s character from the 1997 film “The Castle“. The suggestion was that Telstra was just the poor common man getting beaten up by the big, bad Government.
This is a meme Phil’s been repeating recently and which forms the moral center of their court case again Communications Minister Helen Coonan over the OPEL deal.
That is, until today.
Unfortunately for Telstra, their PR shield has been smashed by documents dating back to June 2006 which suggest that losing the bid for the Government broadband extension program, and then challenging the lost bid in court, was always part of their strategy (link). Telstra’s strategy documents suggest using the court action to delay the new broadband roll-out until after the upcoming federal election and the expected change of Government, at which time they expect a better hearing than they get under Howard.
No mention of this, of course, on Telstra’s Now We Are Talking blog as far as I can see.
So it seems to me that Telstra might be wasting taxpayer’s money by forcing the Government to defend their decision to award the broadband contract to OPEL when Telstra had no intention of winning it in the first place. They are playing the same old Telstra bully-boy games they have played forever. Despite what Phil and Sol say about “under new management”, it’s the same old dirty Telstra bag of tricks, costing the country money and delaying the roll-out of much-needed broadband.
What do you think?
