"The signal achievement of the Australian Parliament that first assembled in 2013 was to abolish the carbon pricing regime which had emerged from the bipartisan consensus for carbon pricing that had been forged with great difficulty over the previous 15-odd years."

The "bipartisan consensus", if it existed at all, was very ill-advised. It was based on the ignorance of most MPs on global warming and their pandering to the Green lobby. After 40 years of "research" nobody has established that global warming is genuine, even after governments have squandered billions of dollars on the very best "research" rent-seekers could concoct.

Malcolm Turnbull's "progressive" support for AGW nonsense was the direct cause of his overthrow in 2009. So Gruen's "consensus" was skin-deep, at best.

Turnbull, as PM, couldn't wait to throw $200 million at the UN for climate change amelioration the very day after President Trump announced America would not support the Paris frolic.

It's no accident that the coalition trails Labor by 10 points in most polls - not that giving $200 million to the tyrants, despots and scoundrels who infest the latter-day UN is Turnbull's only failing. We can only guess where that money will end up.

Political careerism is an issue of sorts. Left factions now control both the Liberal and Labor parties. Random selection is unlikely to solve that problem, but it would probably destroy all political parties.

A definition of "profession", which will do for this discussion:

"a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science."

So much for Lambie, Lazarus, Muir (Gruen's approved examples) and Hinch.

If one wishes to have politics as a profession, randomly choosing such people - including 18-year-old wannabes - won't help. Most will lack education and political experience. One Nation is an entire party of people like that and that's one reason they are likely to fracture: they lack basic political skills.

Curtin and Chifley were not highly educated, but that was a different age.

No, the next step should be to reform the major parties or support the more credible of the new parties, not ill-prepared amateurs.

I agree Calwest. But further; using the example of a random jury type representation, as any sort of alternative to elected officials, has ignorance attached to the idea.
The jury in its current form is totally manipulated by design, in order to produce sensible outcomes. Otherwise it has proved dangerous to the course of justice.
It's at the point of being disbanded as unworkable!

Reforming the current dogs breakfast inside the existing structure will work, but how to do that is beyond me. I hold little hope for meaningful reform by an institution with so many vested interests to satisfy.