We do not have democracy.

Seems you confuse representative democracy with direct democracy.

I suggest you acquaint yourself with the difference.

We can and must have direct democracy.

All evils flow from your 'accepted representative democracy'.

It is not accepted, therein lies the rub. There is, rubbed-in, the lies.

Our councils have become empires of their own, run by oligarchies and folk with enough leisure time to be able to do the job, infiltrated by party politics, to boot.

Through the obscenity of placing our housing market on the international bidding stage, valuations have rocketed, rates are astronomical, and a poor house owner's largest spend, out of an impoverished purse, is the Council's taxes, called rates.

Get rid of the Councils altogether, they are a burden, and luxuriate, in their leather and silk ivory towers, at our expense!

Be off with the Councils, I say.

Get rid of local government says the voice from the hill. But why stop at local government. Throw out the lot of them. At least that would be consistent with the hill-dweller's argument.

Being a troglodyte, and having no chance of ever attaining the snow-capped eminence of people who live on higher ground, I can be forgiven (surely?) for thinking that in an imagined direct democracy, a majority vote for something would guarantee its delivery, because the people are all do-it-yourselfers who have neither desire nor need for elected representatives.

In such an Australian democracy, everyone who wants a road built or repaired would vote for the job to be done and it would be done. Direct democracy would assure us of that because everyone wants something done about roads and the majority vote must be obeyed. (A bit like Brexit, really.)

We could also vote not to pay taxes, or at least, not too much of it. Who can argue against that, when it's every voter for his/her self?

I have a better idea. Perhaps, instead of taking me to task about the form of democracy (since either way, it is the "least worst" method of government) the hill dweller might throw a little light into the dark recesses and tell us all how direct democracy will be any better than the system we now have.(Throwing it out is no argument, and please don't mention the USA's direct democracy.)

Conceded: the current system (at all levels) is abused but it is the abuse we must get rid of, not democracy itself.

Over to you who lives on the hill.

The states have initiated council amalgamations! Which in reality only saw bureaucratic salaries treble and debt levels double?

, As a means to deflect attention, stay the dismantling of the only tier of government truly redundant in today's world and in the most over-governed bar one, nation on the planet!

Simply put, if we the people were to claim back our power? We could and should disband state governments and on several counts

! The first being the 70 billions plus per annum we'd recover, without losing so much as a single amenity or service, by so doing! The second being, we'd end the endless duck shoving and buck passing of responsibility! Only possible in an over governed and divided nation!

The third being, there are far better things to do with finite taxpayer funds than forever fatten pork barrelling Ivory tower dwelling pollies!

Examples being, rapid rail, the rollout of fibre to the home NBN! The decarbonation of our (huge lead in the saddle bags) economy, and get it back to working for us, rather than the fools on the hill!

Simply put, and without incurring any additional expense or bureaucratic empire building! We can through a combination of local autonomy, complementary pro rata direct funding and limited council oversight.

Roll out all amenity and service now provided by state government and or their financial control as fee charging middlemen, minus them and their piece of the pie (70 billions plus per) demands!

They know that and the reason for both failing to officially recognize local government, all while compelling them to amalgamate, be they running a modest surplus or a massive deficit?

Thus entrenching eternal inefficiency, quite massive waste and hopeless incompetence? It's simple self preservation and to hell with the country or the (shot in the foot) national interest!
Alan B.