I agree fully Klaas. But what would really be achieved if we did have selection of ministers from the entire population on the basis of merit?

We’d still have another overwhelming flaw with the Westminster system, and apparently with all democratic (or more correctly; pseudodemocratic) systems of government, which would render such a change impotent. This is the enormous bias towards big business and continuous-growth economics.

The sector that makes the big money and pays the big donations and generally does all manner of favours for the decision-makers wins the day, not the average voter!

This is now of critical importance, as we have the profit-driven power base pushing for ever more expansion, in a never-ending growth spiral, which is totally inconsistent with a sustainable future, at a time that we desperately need to embrace a regime of sustainability.

I wonder Klaas if you have any ideas about how we might get around this critical problem.

I don't think so, Mr Woldring.

"Could [the choice of Minister being limited to the MPs of the Governing Party] be a major factor why politicians enjoy such low esteem in Australia? Surely, it must be at least a major contributing factor."

You seem to have made the assumption that the Minister in charge of a particular portfolio needs to have a strong background in that specific area in order to be effective. I disagree.

MPs are there to represent the people who have elected them, Ministers as well as backbenchers. The job of a Minister, therefore, should be first and foremost to look at policy through the eyes of the constituent, not through the eyes of a specialist, or an expert in the field - that's what the army of Public Servants is for.

More important would be the process through which these "matter-experts" might be selected. Would you choose the Minister of Finance from the Banking system, for example, or the Minister for Resources and Energy from the Mining fraternity? Ministers are called upon to make tough decisions sometimes, and should not carry the baggage of an industry insider. Think of the Defence Department; would you be comfortable that a Brigadier-General would make balanced decisions on the composition of, and financial support for, our armed forces?

I somehow doubt it.

There is no doubt that our political system is in dire need of some form of overhaul in this post-democratic age of ours. But rather than pick on some of its less significant issues, why don't we begin with something really, really simple.

We make parliamentarians fully responsible for the electoral commitments they make.

It can be done. And it can be done without throwing out the existing mechanics of parliamentary life, which would take literally decades to shift.

With all of Abbotts pledges in blood is he talking for himself or for his party.
It is a frightening scenario. To think such could happen.
Big business buying privileges is a tragic thought, no doubt it does go on.

The Westminster system is not perfect but it is better than whatever
system is in second place.

One big advantage is at question time ministers can be forced to
answer unwanted questions.

Look at what has happened in Italy and Greece, they just brought the
receivers in and made them Prime Minister !

How about Rupert Murdock as a minister ?

Let's not forget that the first split in the Labor Party was on this issue - representation Vs caucus loyalty, in 1893. This was part of a transition from Westminster - to perfidy, where we are now - with ineffectual representation systems.

Woe.

Although there is some merit in Dr Woldring arguments, I think the Westminster system has stacked up tolerably well when compared to the performance of its main rival, presidential-style systems.

The idea of selecting minister from outside the Parliament has been kicked around for some time but nothing will ever come out of it. The allocation of ministerial posts is, after all, one of the ways prime ministers reward followers or penalise others. To gain a ministry is one way for an aspiring MP to gain notice..

In any case, as other posters have pointed out, the ministers are there to represent the interests of the electorate and not the sector concerned, which is what would happen should a well-qualified outsider was appointed.

Time for Dr Woldring to find another cause..

I think Bazz is on to something. Perhaps, on a pro bono basis, the following Ministers might put our faltering ministries back on track:

Defence: Liang Guanglie (China)
Industry: Miao Wei (China)
Technology: Bill Gates (USA)
Health: Roberto Morales Ojeda (Cuba)
Refugees - well take your pick, there are dozens of administrations doing better than us.

At very least, Question Time would be livened up!

Like your thinking, prialprang.

Mind you, with our luck, politically speaking, we'd probably get:

Defence: Tomasz Siemoniak (Poland)
Industry: Abib Hassan Fil-fil (Somalia)
Technology: Kokouvi Dogbe (Togo)
Health: Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Ethiopia)
Refugees: Ri Myong Su (North Korea)

Not that I'm saying it wouldn't be an improvement...

The Westminster system was alive and well in parliament today.
With the rebirth of Julia, and an assassination attempt from the noalition. The vote was 69 to 72 in favor of labor
So in two votes today the noalition has failed.
So where to now for Abbott, Turnbull was looking pleased, maybe he has ideas.
How long do we have to put up with the negativity from the noalition. They are showing no ambition at all in parliament, just a continual hunt around for something that is not there

Using modern communications technology such as internet and perhaps mobile phones, the public could vote for what policies they want. The job of a minister is to then carry out the policies as voted for by the public.

Indeed, the public could have voted today for the Prime Minister they wanted, and not the Prime Minister the ALP wants.

The Westminster system is a very blunt and imprecise instrument in acheiving democracy.

Here we go again. Two incompetent Labour politicians are unable to iron out their ambitions and personality differences. What's the solution? Change the Westminster system. Please!! We the people will decide and the sooner the better.

Despite the sneering of the ABC and its fellow travellers, we actually have an opposition leader willing to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy of ever bigger government paid for by ever higher taxes, taxes disguised as attempts to save the planet and other high-sounding nonsense, whle the ALP at the same time is turning the country over to the big unions who put the current Prime Minister there in the first place.

Tony Abbott has committed two unforgiveable crimes in the eyes of the Green - Left elite in this country: he believes in God; and, like an increasing majority of people, he doesn't believe in the AGW climate change thesis. Hardly surprising since even Phil Jones is struggling to believe it any more.

Klaas makes some strong points, but his analysis is two-dimensionsal.

I agree entirely that a weakness of the Westminster system is that Ministers know nothing about their portfolios. But the job of governments is not just to come up with the right policies, but to marshall popular support behind them. For this, unfortunately, we need people with political skills.

If technocratic ministers are chosen who are not skilled in building popular support, their technical understanding may be to no avail. And it takes decades to build up that know-how. Look at the comparative success of Malcom Turnbull and Tony Abbott as opposition leaders. Most people, myself included, would rather have Malcom as PM any day, but Tony has run rings around him as one of the most effective opposition leaders in recent history. A lifetime in politics has been the foundation for this.

I think Prialprang misunderstood what I wrote.
The public service is there to provide technical advice to ministers
and the minister decides policy, ie to whom the policy will be applied.
The senate committees seem to do a lot of work informing themselves of
the ins and outs of a policy.

Presidential systems have a poor record. A few presidential systems
have an arrangement where the president has similar powers to our
governor general.
The problem of electing a GG or president with similar powers is that
no matter what you do you get a politician.
That immediately generates a power centre.

No, leave it alone, it has evolved into a stable system that can even
survive upheavals that would cause revolution in lessor systems.

The single biggest problem with our system is that our elected representatives don't do their jobs. The member for Geelong, for instance, doesn't in any sense 'represent' Geelong, except as and when Geelong's interests happen to coincide with the line of his or her party. Geographical representation is merely a carry-over from the days when one had to physically appear at a polling booth to vote for a candidate -- there's no reason to hang on to it in the Internet age. We might as well scrap the whole idea of geographical representation and just divvy up the total vote -- every 200,000 votes entitles a party to one representative.

If we agree that direct representation is a good thing, though, perhaps we should be looking for other, more homogenous, groups of electors to represent. Occupational grouping seems like an obvious choice. What price the Member for Scientists, the Member for Mineworkers or the Member for Hairdressers?

Michael T,
Why is it that it is the Governments job to come up with policies. Why can't the public decide the policies of the country. Or another way of putting it, don’t you have any confidence in the Australian people to decide their own policies?

Jon J,
I would agree most MP's are a waste of taxpayer’s money. A pol conducted by the local newspaper found that over 60% of the public didn't know the name of the local federal MP, and they didn't care.

The local MP just votes along party lines and few ever cross the floor. They are there to get the numbers for voting, and they vote for what the party wants, which may not be what the local electorate wants. I have even seen the local MP fall asleep in a chair in front of an audience on an Australian Day ceremony.

There's a theme developing here:

>>...Two incompetent Labour politicians are unable to iron out their ambitions and personality differences. What's the solution? Change the Westminster system<<

>>The single biggest problem with our system is that our elected representatives don't do their jobs... perhaps we should be looking for other, more homogenous, groups of electors to represent<<

No system, of any kind, looks good when it is being abused. The answer cannot then be found in changing the system, but in changing the behaviour that is causing the abuse in the first place.

The Westminster system works better when its rules are observed, than when they are not. While the idea of a Member for Hairdressers is a highly attractive one ("just look at this mess. I don't know what your previous Minister did, but my goodness it will take a while to sort out..."), would it not be far simpler to address the shortcomings of the people in the current process, not the system itself.

Like agreeing that our representatives actually represent us. And that they are bound by the commitments they make at the ballot box, not those they make behind closed doors in the Party room.

Or is that far too simple?

A well argued position. Certainly, the present system is merely leading us from crisis to crisis. I’ve concluded that we do not need a government, per se. We need good governance. A parliament of proportionally elected representatives—independent in that they are not allied to any party system—would be required to debate issues until consensus is reached. Instead of ministers, your suggestion of unelected ‘experts’ in the field should be engaged to advice, provide facts and statistics and thus assist the elected representatives to make decisions that are in the best interests of the nation.
We certainly do not need a ‘strong leader’ with the power to promote and demote representatives. With a group of dedicated men and women, an unelected, competent chairperson [speaker] is all that would be required to keep the house in order. The current presidential style prime minister is counter productive and divisive, just as much as the confrontational style of politics that the present system demands and which actively prevents good governance.
At all costs, we must avoid the U.S.A. System of an elected ‘king’, advised by unelected, politically chosen advisers, thus reducing parliament to tax gatherers. The revolutions and bloodshed in so many countries with all-powerful presidents is due entirely to the granting of too much power to one person.

I don't understand what the difficulty is…

Most of the problem issues with the Westminster system as well as many of the solutions have been extensively and continuously covered in print, on the radio and on television for three decades.

'Yes Minister' and 'Yes, Prime Minister' by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, would be funny… if it wasn't so true.

Whilst we are cogitating on the best ways to reprogram the mindset of our 'elected representatives ' that who and what they represent is us – not themselves and not their political parties – technology may give us an option for an interim solution.

Let's remove the concept of 'closed doors ' government.

Sessions of Parliament are broadcast – just extend the concept. An Internet site map of every room in Parliament house on which a simple mouse click would provide Skype type coverage 24/7 would work.

My grandmother once said never do anything you wouldn't want to see reported on the front page of the newspaper… This would go some way to making sure our elected representatives abided by that maxim. After all they're working for us and this way we can see or hear them working.

Plus it would allow many commenters on this forum to base their opinions more solidly on facts than fancy.

The author and all respondents on this thread seem to be totally missing the most important factor – whatever the problems with our governmental system and whatever reforms are needed, it has surely got to be aimed at improving the independence of government from the enormous vested-interest profit motive and allowing government to actually take our society down the right path towards a sustainable future instead of promulgating the growth spiral into economic and social meltdown.

Better quality ministers, better political reps who actually represent their constituency, better leaders, etc, are not going to achieve anything if we are going to remain in the same old never-ending-expansionist paradigm.

In fact, reforms of that sort are likely to actually worsen the situation by leading to greater efficiency in heading towards the proverbial cliff!

In these days of hackers I don't think internet voting would be very
sensible change. Any government party that wanted to stay in power
could adjust votes as they came in to suit themselves.
Anyone who thinks that such things would never be done by the covert
parts of any government or party is not living in the real world.

I completely agree, Ludwig. Unfortunately, our type of democracy, the political system that has brought stability and reasonable fairness to our lives, is now the stumbling block to a sustainable future. Perhaps if governments were elected for ten years and individual members were held financially and morally accountable for the results of their decisions, things might improve. But when the only hope of keeping one’s seat in the halls of power is to pander every three or four years to the majority of voters, most of whom appear to be ill-informed and susceptible to corporate propaganda, then there’s no hope of change. Cleverly promoted changes to taxation, corporate size and profitability, ownership restrictions and so on would be very popular, provided anti-government corporate propaganda was legally restricted to provable facts, not wild, fear-inducing speculation.

Baz
Hacking can occur with internet voting, and of course steps can be taken to ensure it doesn’t occur. I have not heard of any research being conducted or authorised by government to find a program that can be used for public voting through the internet, when it could be more democratic, and much more cost effective than voting through a ballot box.

Someone can fill out their tax return forms through the internet, and fill out many other government forms, but they can’t vote through the internet.

Seems a little suspicious to me, and I find it totally impertinent when governments believe that only people elected into a government have the intelligence and education to form policies, and the public is too dumb to do so.

Vanna, India uses specially designed machines for computerised voting
at voting booths. That is the most automated voting that I have heard about.
I don't know whether they read out at the booth or take the m/cs to
a central area.
Many people would not have internet access and so booths would still
have to be manned.
A card like the Australia card could be used for voting as well as
medical records, medicare, centrelink and petrol rationing.
Bob Hawke got jumped on when he tried to introduce it but it is now
time to try again.

Bazz
A member of the voting public could just use their taxfile number to log in. It is intriguing that someone can lodge their income tax online, but can’t vote online for a policy, or vote for who they want as a minister, or as Prime Minister.

My guess is that political parties want to be in power, and running the country is rather secondary.

Vanna, a lot of people do not have a Tax File number.
Enough so that it could be used to change marginal seat results.

There is another reason for it not to be used, it breaches the secret ballot rule.

Bazz
If someone does not have a taxfile number, then why should they be voting (and even pensioners are required to have a taxfile number)

Systems for the public to vote inline can be established, and heavily audited to ensure they remain secure.

Consider the alternative, where the public is at the mercy of political parties untill the sun finally runs out of hydrogen.

The problem with the Westminster system is it completely fails to function in the way it was intended when the Parliament is divided into large factions (i.e. political parties). 2-party politics just doesn't work in a system of parliamentary government. Westminster really assumes that the Australian parliament is composed of 150 independents.

Take Question Time, it was meant to assume that non-ministerial MP's (all of them) would use that time to ask questions of the executive, with a view to obtaining information based on which they would be continually reassessing whether or not the government still held their support. This was supposed to ensure better government, since the cabinet knows it can be replaced at any time if it doesn't perform, whereas in a Presidential system an incompetent President must be suffered until the next election. What really happens in our system is the ruling party knows it will never lose a confidence motion (the present situation notwithstanding), since the parties can enforce voting blocks. Therefore, it has no motivation to honestly answer hard questions during QT. The opposition, knowing it will never win a confidence motion, similarly has no reason to ask a sensible question or offer a constructive suggestion. So the whole thing turns into this ridiculous exercise of mindless mud-slinging and back-slapping.

Certainly there are some solutions which might help. Removing partisan pre-selection in favor of some sort of broader election for party candidates is one way. Proportional representation is another. The trouble these or any other solution you can think of is that they make the system more prone to deadlock during a more rigorous deliberation process, reducing the ability of the parliament to efficiently pass legislation. Now I actually think that’s a good thing, but I also think Australian’s overall find legislative efficiency to be a strength of our system, which they are reluctant to compromise. Which is fine, but I think that means there are some inherent downsides to our system we simply have to accept.

The fundamental flaws in the Westminster system are arguably as old as this archaic system of govt; designed to limit the power of Kings?
The first is, I believe, it seems to attract power hungry psychopaths?
Clearly the electorate has had a belly full, with the rejection of Kevin Rudd by an electorate waiting with baseball bats; and more recently, by the quite massive rejection of apparent arrogant autocrat, Anna Bligh. This is the real lesson for Canberra, particularly, given the electorate often votes quite differently in state and federal elections!
NSW and Vic, opted for a revolving door approach to both seemingly problematic leadership, risible incompetence and enduring entrenched endemic corruption?
We need a bill of rights, with a citizens' initiated referendum front and centre. Secondly, we need a divorce from state parliaments and politicians. The 70 plus annual billions we'd save could be far better spent, on endlessly unmet need!
We need to elect a government; and a house of review, but not an endlessly antagonistic opposition, which simply adds billions to the cost of running the country and endlessly deferred capital projects, which double in cost with every decade of delay!
There plainly is enough diversity of opinion inside cabinet and caucus to ensure sufficient debate and or divergent views! The money saved by jettisoning the road blocks to real progress, could be far better used to create a truly massive sovereign fund, which would secure our future, well beyond the mining booms. Rhrosty.

How would we be able to distinguish and select merit?
I know, we could simply reject political parties per se; and then hold primaries, controlled by only the grass roots and or the whole electorate, or rather, those who cared enough about how well their electorate fared; and or, how well the country was run; to bother to show up?
The country could and or should be called corporate Australia; and only those with real and very successful corporate or business experience ought to be invited to apply for pre-selection; via a primary process?
This could follow the original Westminster system, and be unpaid positions, with only real expenses refunded.
This would preclude the possibility of unsuccessful incompetents being attracted to politics, to shore up or fund a singularly unsuccessful business or private financial venture; or untried untested intellectual concepts?
We would reject the dilettantes and their bookish ideas, which include dismantling our manufacturing base and replacing that with services; or, the privatisation or off-selling of income earning assets!
[One notes that the only currently successful European economy is Germany, which rejected this advice and fought with determination and endless innovation, to retain a manufacturing based economy!]
A share holders annual general meeting; could invite the elected board to justify various decisions and or, CEO selection etc.
This would allow a process that enabled the outing and the early rejection of company harming corp. psychopaths, who see only power in parliament, when in truth there is only onerous responsibility! Rhrosty.