So it's like republican style citizen's referendum initiative - you can knock back those people you don't like (catholics, muslims, blacks, liberals) building next door? I'm all for it!

can't we just tow western Sydeny out to sea they seem to be the ones causing all the fuss.

Oh dear Mr. Howell,

I sometimes wonder if socialists ever consider how transparent they are. It always starts with the word “democracy” doesn’t it Philip? Then we get the “we” word, a few references to “local decisions”, a dash of some things “would be permitted”, and then the reassuring words “There would be no other controls”.

I have a filter system for proposals like this. It goes something like this.

Is this citizens/assembly empowerment?
Does it position itself as “Democratic”?
Does it bypass elected representation?
Is there a “new” authoritive entity proposed?
Does the proposal contain “emotive triggers”?
Is it elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself?
Are there elements of polarized us-versus-them mentality?
Does it employ tactics designed to create or deepen confusion, fear, guilt or doubt?
Does it promote the end justifies the means?
Does it distort/exaggerate a problem as cause for its solution?
Does it embrace Autopoietic Networking (like selecting like)?
Are there elements of “Socialization/Social Engineering”?
Does it adopt "loaded" language (characterized by "thought-terminating clichés")?

Congratulations Mr. Howell, your ”wewilldecide” scored a 100%.

If you are tempted to respond that would be interesting and welcome.

When it comes to immigration and all the development associated with it, I agree that we need a much more bottom-up approach. If we had this, we’d get a whomping great cut in immigration straight away, which would curtail a great deal of the urban expansion that we would otherwise have imposed upon us.

But a bottom-up approach regarding particular developments is not likely to work all that well, as we would get nimbyism prevailing. We need a coordinated approach, which would largely mean a top-down decision-making methodology, with appropriate consultation at the local level always included. We need an overall planning strategy rather than a piecemeal one dependent on the whims of local residents.

As for many other aspects of our governance, I don’t think a bottom-up ‘we will decide’ approach would be all that effective. For instance, people would always vote to lower taxes, rates and all manner of costs, wouldn’t they? They may be better off paying a bit more and getting better services and infrastructure as a result, but they will always vote for a minimisation of the cost burden, I would presume.

What we really need is a good government which consults effectively at the local level, and which is not biased by the donations, favours and very strong personal associations of the rapid-expansion-supporting big-business sector.

The key is not to implement a bottom-up decision-making system. It is to make our government much more independent, so that it will listen more to the ordinary people and less to the all-powerful vested-interest profit-driven property-developers and other sectors of the big-business fraternity.

You're a hard man Spindoc, but I like you.

Now back to the problem of depopulating people we don't like. I'm personally for creating a citizen initiated referenda against my passive aggressive lesbian neighbours who start their lawnmower up at 7.30 am on a sunday morning.

I'm not keen on the lebanese around Maroubra either, so they'll have to go. As for fat people - gone! Ugly people - see ya later. Actually, screw representative democracy altogether. This is exactly the path the anti-populationists are heading down.

Hi Cheryl,

Your nominations gratefully accepted. I do however feel that yours is a list of victims. The guilty party’s that should really be expunged from our society globally are as follows.

Fellow travelers and useful idiots
Humanities Academia
Human Right Lawyers
Peak everything Activists
NGO’s
British aristocracy
American democratic aristocracy (Al Gore)
Western lib/democratic/Labor parties
Greens/Deep Greens
Disaffected independents
Bureaucracies / self styled regulating classes
Intelligentsia
High percentage of journalists, public broadcasters and media interests
Industrial/commercial/financial opportunists
Celebrity Advocates