"have a democratic political system where the local congressman (our MHR) actually represents their constituency,"

Absolutely correct!

The democratic system in Australia is an illusion. It is clear that the people who are elected do not actually, represent the people who elected them.

To hold up as an example of good governance the US with its gerrymandered constituency boundaries and the subordination of the democratic process to powerful lobby groups is risible.

The two go hand in hand. It would not be possible for the finance, oil and healthcare industries to own US congressmen if their constituencies were not gerrymandered to ensure that the incumbent is almost always re-elected.

Here's what REALLY needs to happen.

Most democratic politics boils down to selecting the LEAST-WORST CANDIDATE. This fact needs to be recognised. Instead of voting for the least-worst let's just vote for the worst.

And that brings me to the:

BIG BROTHER HOUSE OPTION

Here's how it works.

All candidates for a constituency are sequestered in a big brother house. We the voters get to watch them 24 / 7. We also get to send in questions they have to answer.

Every week we vote for the WORST candidate. Whoever gets the raspberry of the week gets kicked out.

The survivor becomes our MHR. He is by definition the candidate the voters consider the least-worst.

An interesting read Greg.

I think you are right. But I’d go a big step further and suggest that our system is a shadowy wisp of democracy very largely because of the extraordinarily cosy deal between government and big business.

This phenomenon has arguably led to Labor and Liberal developing essentially the same philosophies and policies, both absolutely pandering to the wishes of the all-powerful big business lobby. The arrangement is kept ensconced by the incredibly blatant favour-buying regime that we have via political donations.

This relationship is at least as important as the nitty gritty of our political structure.

In fact, for as long as this problem remains, no amount of ‘Americanisation’ of our system nor the implementation of a Swiss-style CIR are going to help very much. Afterall, the USA suffers from the same thing and Switzerland suffers from inconsistent and multidirectional policies, such as the recent vote to ban new minarets while allowing existing ones to remain and new mosques to continue to be built.

I’m inclined to think that our thinly disguised virtual autocracy would work very well for us if we could just get past our insane worship of continuous growth.

With the likes of Kevin Andrews, Labor MP Kelvin Thompson, ex NSW Premier Bob Carr and scientists such as Prof Tim Flannery and Prof Ian Lowe, and a lot of people in the general community, expressing a deep concern about our record-high population growth rate, I would hope that it is just a matter of time before some of big companies grasp the nettle and start expressing the same concerns. They'd do this on the basis that the need to protect our quality of life and coherence of society is more important than their constantly increasing short-term profits, and that if our society starts to badly fracture, they would suffer enormously, many to the point of collapse.

continued

This could well be the key. When the business sector embraces the need to stop expanding all things human in Australia and to head directly towards a stable population and a regime of sustainability, then maybe we can expect Rudd or his successor to backflip on their current mania and follow suit.

When this happens, a governmental system that is strongly autocratic as opposed to Swiss-style democratic, will be able to forge ahead in the right direction much more effectively.

Our terribly undemocratic system is currently holding us back from progressing towards the essential sustainability paradigm and keeping us in the dinosaur era.

But once the corner is turned, it could well be more effective than a strongly democratic system in getting us to where we need to go.

"Is Australia an autocracy dressing itself up as a democracy?"

Yes! That is, Australia is governed by an autocratic conservative hegemon: a narrow-minded, ignorant parochialism holds permanent sway. Left/conservationist/humanitarian thought has virtually no leverage in society at large. Indeed, the left should be grateful that the great conservative centre, that dominates our democracy (intellectually analagous to Australia's parched interior), doesn't have the rag-tag loony leftists rounded up and exterminated. This is true of Western democracy in general; that's why the right-thing seldom gets done, other than as a token gesture to the despised left who, by being appeased, only make the monolithic centre stronger.
Our politicians, so-called-left and right, accurately reflect popular consciousness.

I note the practice of “crossing the floor” is alive and well in Australia, according to the author.

I note the punishment for crossing the floor is possibly to lose pre-selection – or a ministerial position in either the government or the opposition shadow government.

I note no one is executed, imprisoned or otherwise restrained or punished as a consequence to “crossing the floor”.

Re “With thanks to Kevin Andrews whose outrageous hypocrisy sparked this missive.”

Imho there is no point in criticising a politician (Kevin Andrews in this case) for doing what many politicians have done before him

and lets face it, if we should be getting upset over anything, it should be the incumbent portfolio minister and prime minister for relaxing the rules which have encouraged people smugglers who have thus, contributed, through their incompetence, to the influx of illegal migrants to these shores.

As to squeers perception of some shadowy secret society….
“Yes! That is, Australia is governed by an autocratic conservative hegemon: a narrow-minded, ignorant parochialism holds permanent sway.”

Hmmmm – maybe it is the Free Masons back to take command….

(It will not be the Trotskyites.. they are heavily entrenched in perverting the environmental movement (although if the Copenhagen incident is any guide, they would appear to have bungled that attempt at imposing an authoritarian “world government“ - again)

I know, it is all a conspiracy between the Rotarians and the Lions

to get us all to buy extra Christmas cakes….

I wholeheartedly agree with this article.

Funny that this article advocating Swiss style Binding Citizens should have been published just today.

As it happens, I have just sent an open letter to Bob Brown and the Greens calling for them to introduce legislation to allow citizens to initiate referenda which would be binding on their Parliament.

The letter is to be found at http://candobetter.org/CitizensInitiatedReferenda http://candobetter.org/node/1725

Comments there or here are welcome.

The appalling misgovernance of this country in recent decades has been the direct consequence of politicians being able to do as they like between election times.

What motivated me to write the letter is Senator Stephen Conroy's arrogant determination to impose his mandatory Internet Laws regardless of the facts, reason and their unpopularity.

Another example of how little substance there is in our democracy is are Bligh's $15 billion fire sale opposed by at least 79% of the Queensland public. (Details of how the Government and the newsmedia cheated the Queensland public out of being able to have any say about this at the last elections can be found in the article "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" of 30 April 2009 at http://candobetter.org/node/1725 and other articles at http://candobetter.org/QldElections)

James Sinnamon

Brisbane Independent for Truth, Democracy,
the Environment and Economic Justice

Australian Federal Elections, 2010

http://candobetter.org/AustralianElections

I don’t know that I would wish to go the US way, but the idea of having a politician actually representing his electorate, instead of his party, would certainly be a good idea. If, in Australia, you contact your so-called representative, you get whatever the party allows them to say, i.e. if he or she even bothers to answer your correspondence.

I certainly do not feel that we have a democracy under the Rudd Regime, but the last years of Howard were not very democratic either. The sameness of the two major parties is probably at the heart of our lack of democracy. Vote one way or the other, and the result won’t be much different no matter which autocratic ‘leader’ heads the government.

I’m not sure that “…people perceive them (politicians) on election day” in “that way” or any other way; Australian voters are real dummies when it comes to politics, and it is these dummies we have to thank for the truly dreadful people we get in parliament. As long as we have compulsory voting, the drones will continue to go along every two or three years and blindly put numbers in the order that Labor or Liberal or one of the totally useless minor parties instructs them to do. Oh, and let’s not forget the ‘1’ in the box on the Senate paper because it’s too much trouble to take the time to vote in the way that could make the Senate more effective.

We could probably save a lot of money by doing away with make-believe local representatives. The author has spelled out the extent of their usefulness in his eighth paragraph. In Labor regimes, they are not allowed to differ from the PM and his henchman. In the Coalition regimes, they are supposed to have the right of dissent and vote accordingly but, apart from dumping of the autocratic Malcolm Turnbull, and the stand against Red Rudd’s huge tax scheme under the guise of helping the environment, and the odd occasion when a couple of renegade wets went pro-illegal entrants, the ‘right’ is not exercised

...very often.

So, local MP’s are a waste of money and space.

And, of course, no matter which mob of drongos (or worse) we ‘democratically’ elect, they can act like Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin for their time in power. The trick is to get in, then it’s all plain sailing to get all sorts of taxes and perks in early so that the drones will not remember how they were shafted at the next election.

It’s good to see that the author has brought up Kevin Andrew’s hypocritical comments on immigration. We all know (perhaps not the voting drones) that both major parties are dead set on lowering Australians’ standard of living with huge immigration targets. Red Rudd’s current lack of concern about illegal boats (55 this year) is making his task of filling up Australia for himself and his wealthy mates just that bit easier. It’s the poorer Australians who will be suffering, not those in Canberra’s Kremlin.

It is a sad thing that Greg Lees 14th paragraph sums up in a nutshell everything that is wrong with Australian politics and politicians: “Assuming he (Andrews) is genuine, this is an excellent example of our enfeebled democracy. If he objects to it now, why did he not object to it then? I suggest, because the executive rules with dictatorial authority even over ministers who despite their position have no power. So what hope for us then, to influence our masters?”
And it applies to everything in Australia, not just immigration. The ordinary citizen cannot have any influence over Australian politicians. Perhaps, if most Australians were not political drones, it would be different.
The are two ways to get rid of the disinterested and stop idiots and dictators from being elected: voluntary voting and Citizen Initiated Referenda. The problem is, our ‘democratic’ politicians will not allow us to have either of these things

If the electorate was more mature, Kevin Andrews would get credit and encouragement for having the courage to speak his mind.

As a government minister he could have represented those views in cabinet but he would not have had the luxury of speaking otherwise in public. That is not a fault of the parliamentary system, in fact it is a strength that once decisions have been made on policy, ministers are obliged to carry them out.

Make no bones about it, the gun turrets of those with a vested interest in high immigration numbers would have swung Andrews' way immediately and he will be under endless fire from now on as anyone is who dares to question immigration policy. He is already being called a xenophobe and racist - so much for free speech.

A good start Greg, but only a start. But at least you have started the conversation.

Politics 101 tells us that the design of an effective government structure is fundamentally about checks and balances and separation of powers.

Further, it is generally true that the great republics provide the best structure to deliver effective separation of powers and the needed checks and balances. The US is probably the best example of a (relatively) well designed republic.

It is generally recognised that there are four arms to government. The parliament (or congress) which is often comprised of a house of representatives and a senate. The second arm is the administration. The third arm is the judiciary. And the fourth arm is the press, which has a recognised role to keep government accountable to the people (when the system is working properly).

In Australia, we do not get effective separation of powers, thus the checks and balances are fragile indeed. The Prime Minister is the head of both the parliament AND the administration (or public service). He gets to appoint whomever he likes to the judiciary. And in Australia, the media is constrained by oppressive libel/slander laws, compounded by a sometimes too cosy relationship between the media proprietors and the Prime Minister. As a consequence, we have very few of the effective checks and balances that we need to hold a PM accountable.

About the only encouraging development has been the ascension of independents to the Senate. Senators Steve Fielding, Nick Xenophon, and Christine Milne have all distinguished themselves by asking tough questions of the government, and making it difficult for them to get their way. However, a senate majority for the government would deliver almost untrammelled power to the PM.

This discussion is essential in advance of talk of a Republic.

As to squeers perception of some shadowy secret society….
“Yes! That is, Australia is governed by an autocratic conservative hegemon: a narrow-minded, ignorant parochialism holds permanent sway.”

No no, Col, nothing so insidious. Our western democracies are failures and it has nothing to do with the politicians.
Democracy was invented when the world was fundamentally divided into nation states. The world is now a goldfish bowl and the myth of enlightened self-interest is exposed as benighted parochialism. Democracy has outgrown its context. No electorate is capable of making salubrious or ethical decisions as they still react (there is precious little thinking going on) in compartmentalised terms. It would be interesting to put various of the big "solutions" to referendums; they would all be defeated, imho, in favour of the queeziest half-measures that could be gotten away with. That's why democracy is always shelved during emergencies such as war; someone has to take real decisions, rather than making a career out of keeping the ignorant electorate happy. Humans being what they are, politicians relish such opportunities to stretch their legs and be done, for a time, with pandering to those they rightly despise---their constituents, as a body.
Democracy can only work when in it is put into practice the way the Greeks intended: participation rather than apathy. Indeed, only those who participate in a meaningful way should have a vote, otherwise self-interest would always thwart enlightened/ethical measures. Precisely the state we have now!
Anyone for democratic oligarchy--with fail-safe mechanisms built in?
Again, politicians "are" the electorate's, that is the "majority's" mirror image.
If democracy is to reassert itself, however, it has to stop "thinking" (that's a laugh) in nationalistic terms---selfishness on a national scale.

Sorry, Herbert, but the example Senators you use hardly inspire the conclusion that the system works. Fielding and Milne are wastes of space who, let's not forget, hardly got any votes. Fielding only got in through a series of shadowy preference deals and Milne also through preference deals plus the distortion that lets any Tasmanian Senator get elected with far, far fewer votes than they'd need on the mainland. The Senate is the problem. The Senators' only constituency is the selection panel of their party. They are completely unanswerable to us in any meaningful sense. In theory they represent the states, but in practice they are party machine people. Next time you have a quiz night in your local community, ask them to name all the senators for their own state. I bet they don't get past three. Down here in Tassie, the standard answers are Brown and Harradine (who hasn't been a senator for years)and a few have heard of Milne and, more recently, for all the wrong reasons, Abetz. What the hell do the other senators do to fill their day?

On SBS recently they had a show about whistle blowers, whilst Australia doesn't execute or imprison people, people can have their lives destroyed in other ways, an example was about the whistle blower over the airports, and the Liberal Howard response, Labor is no better.

Basically like the mafia, someone else does the dirty work. It would appear at present that making political donations, means favourable treatment by the party in power.

Sadly such a situation of political donations and favourable treatment is perhaps much stronger in the US than here at the moment.

We have corporatocracy.Corporates donate to Govts and Govts do their bidding.We all exist in a de-mockracy.

A fantastic article Greg Lees that should be viewed by every person who has at least the interest to look at news sites or sites such as this.
Australia's Westminster system is complete rubbish- how a system in which a tiny cartel of people who answer solely to a few thousand people in specific areas, and cater to a few thousand 'swinging voters' to back up their other members who do NOTHING- while they rule over the rest of us while we get ZERO say and their own members get barely a say for the next 3-4 years passes for a 'democracy' blows me away.
Even the 'conscience vote' is a sham- what right do a few dozen people have to dictate their (dubious) consciences on the rest of us?

We NEED BCIR (thanks for sending the letter Daggett and co), and we also need a system where:
-The Parliament is scrapped, and the entire lower-house is split up into independent ministries, voted in by separate ballots so that not all corners of our country are dictated by the whim of the top politician's party.
-Each separate ministry MUST have a coalition if nobody gets over 60% of the vote
-The Lower House candidates each answer to the WHOLE nation- not respective electorates- Senators instead can come from the electorates (or larger local regions) instead of some misproportionate state-by-state.
-NO deals (donors, lobbyists and party preferencing) may be committed either without voter consent or ALTOGETHER.

Thanks for your encouragement, King Hazza.

However, I disagree with your proposal to scrap the lower house.

I think the Parliamentary system could work quite well with BCIR's, although, (I would still favour the introduction of a Hare Clark system with multi-member constituencies for the lower house).

If Legislators understood that they cannot ignore the wishes of the voters as they do now, then I believe that it is likely that they will begin to pass good laws in anticipation of what the voters want and not enact laws that they know voters will subsequently vote down in a referenda.

It may not even prove necessary to go the to trouble of forcing a referendum on every wish by voters.

---

Don't forget that the system of representative democracy that we have in this country, even without direct democracy, has functioned reasonably well in many countries for much of the time.

That is, why the greedy elites were unable to get what they wanted out of them, for example in many Latin American countries before 1973, when Pinochet's junta seized power in Chile in order to do their bidding. All this is described in Naomi Klein's towering work "The Shock Doctrine" of 2007.

Of course in 2009 Australia's supposed representative democracy has been almost thoroughly corrupted and does largely give our own greedy elites what they want at the expense of everyone else, but I still think, as bad as the situation is, it can still be largely fixed with BCIR's and need not be completely discarded.

I dunno Daggett- although BCIR would mostly fix the problem of accountability (and make no mistake- our country is NOT a democracy as long as we lack BCIR, nor can any other country claim to be such without it either), we would still be left with a huge expensive bureaucratic waste of excess members randomly assigned their roles (or non-roles) of government- which is why, in my opinion, the Lower House needs to be made up of independent ministries each directly elected- instead of a large parliament composed of locally-elected representatives whose actual function is assigned afterwards.
In other words, I'm still endorsing a representative democracy- I'm just proposing changing the representatives.

BCIR is most definitely the main answer to fixing our system, but other changes to improve accountability (and also the use and expertise of serving members) need to be implemented as well.

King Hazza, whatever differences in opinion we have are not that significant compared to our agreements.

I agree that our country is not a democracy, but I think you would agree with me that we are still a good deal closer to being one than, say, North Korea, Burma/Myanmar and those Latin American dictatorships of the 1970's and 1980's.

We still have some freedom to express disagreement with the Government and an ability, even if it requires an inordinately large amount of effort, to prevent some of the worst abuses by our Governments as happened when the attempt by the NSW, Victorian and Federal Governments to privatise the Snowy Hydro was defeated in 2006, or when the Iemma Government's plans to sell the electricity generators were defeated in 2008.

So, we still have a good deal to lose as well as to gain.

If we don't appreciate what we have, for example, a (still) relatively free Internet, we could well lose it, (as you have shown that you understand (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9861#158494)).

---

We have to be wary of calls to remove bureaucratic waste from Government, because:

1. Everyone should be guaranteed as a human right, the right to a livelihood. If it happens that a good many jobs in Government, as well as the private sector (e.g. most advertising, libel litigation, property speculation, white elephant infrastructure construction, most of the finance sector, etc.) are socially useless, then society should give people, who earn their livelihoods in those ways, alternative means to do so, before axing those jobs.

2. Many jobs which have been cut under the pretext of removing Government waste have met real needs, and there are many unmet needs in society that could be met by an expansion, rather than a contraction of public sector employment. I therefore advocate the adoption of the Newcastle University's CofFEE program (http://e1.newcastle.edu.au/coffee/) costed at $9billion per year at most to give everyone, not employed, a socially useful and adequately paid job.

Actually I'm proposing that a new system of voting and government offices be introduced, and instead of regions electing a representative for parliament, the entire nation directly elects candidates into each ministry.
All it will mean is politicians will no longer be able to get back-bencher roles (and allowances) for doing basically nothing- and the people we do elect are nationally accountable and precisely the person we wanted for the intended job.
If we required coalitions, less jobs would be axed as long as enough people actually wanted them in the job.

I think it's important to have a representative system that requires minimum intervention by the public (but allows it regardless). With the Westminster system it may well require a LOT of public intervention to sidetrack all of its flaws.

Greg
Fantastic article.
Whilst the USA form of democracy has its flaws it is least a dynamic political model that has the capability of being changed, unlike Australia, whereby the referendum is yet to be held to change anything.
Of course Australia is free of gerrymandering big sars.
The cheapest effective way of countering is of course to make voting non compulsory. Thus without a defined numerical constituency as such there can be at least an offsetting the gerrymander setup.
Look at Joh Bjelke Peterson and QLD for this type of iniquitous setup.
The requirement that politician must LIVE in his electorate for at least 10 years before he can represent his constituency Is perhaps one of the more appealing parts of USA obligation to the electorate.
However until him Australian system adopts a responsible political process for its local government all are lost as far as emulating the USA is concerned.
On the whole though an excellent and well thought out article.

Greg,

People often argue that the States in Australia are failing, I would counter that it is actually local government that is failing.

There's a joke that NSW stands for Newcastle Sydney & Wollongong. The State government spends more of its time running these cities than it does running the entire State.

In greater Sydney there 39 mayors and 500 councillors, none of them are responsible for the buses, major roads, water or sewage. Talk about a bloated top-heavy soviet style bureaucracy. Unfortunately the British establishment in this country tend to focus on abolishing the States rather than reform of local government, the pretence being that it would save us money when really its a British versus American thing.

Contrast this to greater Brisbane where there are only 26 councillors and one mayor. City Hall in brisbane is responsible for the new Brisbane City tunnel, major roads, the ferries, the buses, water and sewage. The system works better there because local government has a greater share in responsibility.

Another issue we could use off the Americans is the fact that the States should be self funded, this would end the blame game between the States and the Commonwealth, unfortunately the major parties do not seem to want this, even though I think Frasier did try.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6419