The first and most important reform would be to totally ban all donations to parties or individual members.
We have a situation now where all parties and politicians are owned by the corporate world.
This makes it impossible for a true democracy.

Good discussion Klaas, thanks.

I also agree with sarnian - get the private money out of elections.

Wow, I can see it now.

A national parliament as functional as that in our apple Isle, Tasmania.

I wonder if the members would be as functional as some of the ratbag senate members that same state has given us.

Of course we could be lucky. They may not be as hopeless as the independents recently elected by NSW to national parliament.

Watch out for pig droppings falling from the sky, if you believe that.

Another major step would be to separate the parliament from the executive.
That is, the actual Ministries themselves are not merely picked from the largest coalition in parliament, but are each directly-elected among candidates who can be voted for by anyone federally.

That should ensure we get a more representative output in our health, finance, foreign affairs, immigration, environment, education etc and all of these things are given the highest priority, instead of a government vowing only to 'turn the boats back' and getting control over our health systems, aged care, and environment policy to boot- despite not even bothering to make a policy on these.

Federal-voter access is also important because as far as the executive is concerned, I deserve every right to vote for whoever is standing for that position wherever they are, instead of picking the best my tiny electorate has to offer (Which in my case is, on average, the majors, the greens and a couple of Christian parties).

The voting system is a bloody disaster in Tasmania. I have a Green representing me ( no she doesn't !) and we have two Labor and Liberal members as well.

So what , you say ?

My electorate stretches diagonally from North to South the length of Tasmania A genuine " dumb bell ' electorate.. and you can carry that bit as far as you like.

The Labor Member from the North is neither seen nor heard.. something in the "Silent Sid Sidebottom' tradition federally. They emerge when elections are held.

However , the Southern one does advertise, a positive , in our local Village paper ( circulation in the 100s').

That's Good?

Well I live in SHEFFIELD , just south of the Ferry Terminal, top north,on a map of Tasmania.

On the same map is SORRELL.. on the far other side of the Island, bottom south, east of Hobart near the Airport... that's where her office is located.

From an Ex Queenslanders view that like my local Aspley Member being located in Mount Isa.

Great idea, large Electorates with multiple Members.. I think not!

Incidentally , should my my Local Northern ( or are you in Central Tasmania, I don't know ) be reading this.. Who and Where are you ??

Has been,
Well Tassie is a good example of a “bought” political setup.
They do not come much more taken over by Big Corporations.
This is why it is the terrible financial position it’s in now, this is why it is being raped and pillaged by the BIG end of town, This why we have such abysmal Liberal senators to name but one.

One desirable reform would be to allow crossing the floor where prospective legislation is not connected with the platform the party ran on during the election.

I agree with sarnian and King Hazza. Separate the legislative branch from the executive branch by electing a prime minister separately, and outlaw corporate contributions.

Allow initiative, referendum and recall. Initiative puts prospective legislation before parliament by petition of the citizenry. Recall requires a special election if a petition of a large percentage of the citizenry indicates dissatisfaction with the incumbent. Referendum mandates that certain legislation must be approved by the electorate. This should be required before committing Australian troops to foreign combat.

Have preselection by vote. All voters could select a party that they identify with. Then voters selecting a party could preselect the candidate for that party.

After election have the new senate sworn in at the same time as the new house.

sarnian .. "We have a situation now where all parties and politicians are owned by the corporate world"

really, I thought the major finding for the ALP came from the Union movement, after all the ALP is the political arm of the unions ..

Or do you not count the ALP as receiving those - are the unions not counted as "private" money?

Sorry, not trying to be smart, I truly do not understand your point.

What do we do about professional lobby groups, like Getup who receive union money and make political advertisements .. while claiming they don't take sides, when they are clearly part of the ALP.

The author says "The universities are moving away from politics", sorry .. they are a hotbed of politics and intrigue always have been .. the ANU seems to turn out left wing students and staff without exception .. other Unis turn out similar activists

the ABC is becoming so politically activist that even their own staff are commenting and seem to be actually concerned.

the Drum, struggles to cope with their own lean to the left .. I saw one comment saying they thought the comments were fair, but always to the left .. and on other sites were complaints that contrary comments never get posted. So lefties always feel there are very few conservatives or different views, at all!

Personally I would prefer a straight 2 party system, no indies, no other parties .. if you want change, you do it within that structure .. that way we avoid the one person awesome political clout we have now with one green in federal politics wielding out of proportion power .. it would also end the stupid dealmaking that only benefits politicians and no one in the electorate

not perfect, but the current system is spiraling in for a very bad landing

By the way I agree with Sarnian, and David F.
Ban all donations, ensure that a VERY strict cap on what private or party use of resources is permitted, and of course David F's three measures.
Ensuring that extra contentious issues require a referendum (war declaration as you said) are an obvious thing lacking.
How about this for a rule- whenever a politician calls for a 'conscience vote'- the issue is immediately stripped from the government and put to referendum.

As it was said, regional representatives make sense for the colonial years, but in the modern age they make no sense, and really only make public input filtered down in the processes as representatives are filtered into eventually reaching the executive.

I'm glad most of us so far have offered some considerable ideas

Before one can accept that Australia has a dysfunctional party system, one has to have an idea of a functional party system.

One cannot form an idea of a functional party system unless one knows the function expected from a functional system.

We normally associate parties and elections with democracy and, probably, it is to a kind of democracy that the author of this article alludes.

If this is so, the article would be clearer if the author gave us his definition of ‘democracy’.

I agree. Long overdue!

One minor fix: I think that preferences are still a good thing.

Even in countries with proportional representation there is some minimum percentage which a party needs to achieve in order to get in. Voters are therefore afraid to vote for smaller parties due to the risk of their vote being completely lost. To prevent that, it is fair to allow a second (or even third) alternative-preference on the ballot paper.

I would add my support to changes recommended by others above, namely:
* eliminate donations
* citisen initiated referenda and legislation (I would also restrict parliamentary power to change/amend such legislation)

I would not want an american style executive outside of parliamen. However to make the senate work properly as a house of review I would make changes:
* ban ministers from the senate. When needed for questioning, the minister has to front the senate in person;
* all legislation originates in the lower house. The upper house simply debates/amends/passes (or not) as they decide.
* Deadlock between house, have the double dissolution provisions as at present with one small change: The moment the bill is rejected a second time, both house are automatically prorogued immediately. No further debate, no banking up more measures etc. Off to the people 4 weeks after the rejection. Oh and treat not passing the bill say 3 months after first tabling as rejection.

DKit

Rpg,
It would be very naïve to believe that the only donations to Labour came from the Unions. Check the state of play in Tassie where the big two corporations have run things by donating to both parties. My first post called for a TOTAL ban on donations from Big Business and individuals and that of course would include unions.
When I say that the parties are owned by the corporate world that is because they have more money to throw around than the unions or individuals.
I do not see that if any organization wants to spend money on advertising their point of view that it can be stopped, you do not want to take away the right of free speech.
That said it should not be called a donation.
Perhaps the Left leaning bias in the ABC and Uni’s is because they are looking at the Right and not liking what they see. OK the ABC should be “middle of the road” but it is staffed by humans.
If the Right had such a good agenda to offer then maybe more would be leaning their way.
As for a straight two party system, no thanks. That’s what we have had in Tassie forever and mostly also in the federal sphere. It has led to to parties that are the same in all but name. In Tassie they are known as the LibLabs.
It is only when there is a third (or more) party in the wings that there is any form of a genuine opposition as in “keep the bastards honest”.
I totally agree with David F about initiative, referendum and recall.
I just am not going to hold my breath on that one. The pollies will never give up power to any other system. I think it would take a revolution to change that.

"I do not see that if any organization wants to spend money on advertising their point of view that it can be stopped, you do not want to take away the right of free speech.
That said it should not be called a donation."

So what's the difference then?

If I give money to a friend it is also not called a donation, why should it matter how it is called?

What is the difference between me advertising my ideas in person with my own money (after tax of course), or giving the same money to a body that organises and coordinates the advertising of the same ideas?

Yuyutsu,
If you give money to a friend, it is called a donation.
The obvious thing is to make it a requirement for any political party or politician to make their accounts open to scrutiny by an independent body. Any money or other assets showing up would have to be accounted for.
The Wiki definition of a donation is below.

A donation is a gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods including clothing, toys, food, and vehicles. It also may consist of emergency, relief or humanitarian aid items, development aid support, and can also relate to medical care needs as i.e. blood or organs for transplant. Charitable gifts of goods or services are also called gifts in kind.
Donations are gifts given without return consideration. This lack of return consideration means that, in common law, an agreement to make a donation is an "imperfect contract void for want of consideration."[1] Only when the donation is actually made does it acquire legal status as a transfer or property. In civil law jurisdictions, on the contrary, donations are valid contracts, though they may require some extra formalities, such as being done in writing.

Fine, Sarnian,

So if I understand you correctly, then it is not right to call monies that one gives to a political party a "donation", because you get something in return - the propagation of your ideas.

So nothing that you give away is really a donation if you expect something in return, for example, a chance for winning a seat in heaven.

One advantage of single-member constituencies is that they have some responsibility to their electors, ie, it's more difficult for the parties to put in someone too awful.

So this suggests a system like that of Germany or New Zealand, where there are members elected per constituency, and also a PR component in the membership of the whole parliament.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_member_proportional_representation for the details

As a former memeber of the Labor Party, I agree with Klass that there is no democracy within the Labor Party. The aristocrats in the executive take as much notice of the wishes of the lumpen proletariate members, as Marie Antoinette took of cake distribution in France.

But to have proportional representation elections, you must have a society where there is fundamental agreement as to what constitutes the correct cultural values of a country. That is no longer possible in a culturally divided country like Australia.

One of the reasons why both the Labor and Liberal Parties supported Multiculturalism, was to divide the electorate into ethnic voting blocks which they could play off against each other. Divide and Rule. Of course, the chickens would come home to roost with proportional representation.

Proportional representation is going to result in a Shiite Party and a Sunni Party, who will happilly attack each other when they are not both attacking the Jewish Party. A Serbian Party and a Croation Party will be similarly inclined to squabble, when they are not both attacking the Bosnian party. Same for the Armenian Party and the Turkish Party. The mind boggles.

Of course, we could see some interesting developmemnts. The Turkish Party and the Macedonian Party could unite against the Greek Party. The Greek Party could then ally themselves with the Armenian Party to give the Turks and the Macedonians a bit of stick.

One wonders if these ethnic political parties will then be forced to change their names to non ethnic names (like the soccor clubs of Sydney), to prevent every political meeting turning into a race riot.

One presumes that we will end up living in interesting times with an election every six months.

The current system kills off community engagement and political participation. Under the current rules, you're used and abused by autocratic power brokers who too often act to serve the interests of wealthy elites.

Australia should look seriously at e-Government intitiatives where people become 'summiteers' engaged through networking, to develop the kind of brilliant, far reaching and integrated whole of government policies we need. Polished proposals should be put to a plebicite. Australia has abundant talent, so let's tap into it.

Under our current dysfunctional politics, you'd be excused for thinking we are governed by people who serve parties with no long term vision or any comprehension of the bleak prospects for Australia future playing the opportunistic, personality based adverserial games they relish.