I downloaded Woldring’s eBook last night. Two thirds into the badly written, poorly punctuate volume, I found that his ideas could/would mean:

More politicians for us to pay (proportional/multiple representation in each seat).
More say for multi-cultis.
A total re-write of the Constitution.
Finish of Federation.
Replacement of the adversity model with ‘co-operation’ (even less say for voters).
More renegade minorities stalling legislation.
‘Punishment’ for Anglos.
Unelected Ministers, and even leaders, from outside parliament.
A system that “…suits it’s (the country’s) multicultural society and historical background.”

Woldring appears to be on another planet; isolated by his personal beliefs and hatreds. He actually calls our media “The deeply conservative Australian media”, and believes lots of good was done under the HUNG parliament of Gillard. His only reasons for his scary nonsense are that he likes it, and 90 other countries operate with the shambles.

It made me shudder. Thanks Klaas, but no thanks. We need changes forced on our politicians by the electorate, not by an isolated elite; and we don’t need more politicians, particularly not the nutters thrown up by proportional representation.

NeverTrustPoliticians,
I think Woldring wants to create yet another taxpayer funded upper Klaas.

IT GETS WORSE !
I have been informed that converting the UN into a world government is still active !

Amazing, I thought Bob Brown killed it stone dead by advocating it !

Nothing will change unless we get back to Govt owned banks. The private banking system owns us by creating from nothing all the money to = our growth + inflation.

Germany is doing OK because it produces and exports a lot.

One commentator belonging to the group "Never Trust Politicians", claiming to have read part of my recent eBook, writes:

"I found that his ideas could/would mean":

“More politicians for us to pay (proportional/multiple representation in each seat)”.
“Replacement of the adversity model with ‘co-operation’ (even less say for voters)”
“More renegade minorities stalling legislation”.

My responses:

Proportional representation is based on multi-member districts. Moving from single-member districts to multi-member districts does not in itself change the number of politicians. The abolition of states would. It is well-known that Australia is over supplied with politicians. One would think that the Group would welcome (1) a reduction in the number of politicians (2) improvement in the quality of politicians.

As to the replacement of the adversarial model, a principal generator of dismay about the behaviour of politicians, why would this lead to "even less say for voters"? Proportional representation requires cooperation amongst parties to achieve majorities in Parliament. It also makes the choice for voters much greater and their therefore more meaningful.

"More renegade minorities stalling legislation". The representation of minorities in Parliaments is a democratic value. "Renegade" is a prejudicial generalisation. Many minorities have serious objectives. If they are strong enough, in terms of numbers, they deserve to be represented. However, in almost all P. R. systems there is an entry threshold for representation, usuallly 3% to 5% of the vote, to prevent an excess of minority groups.

The commentator also appeared to oppose:

"Finish of Federation" - sure, federation is very costly and has become clearly dysfunctional
"More say for multi-cultis" - correct, clearly under-represented in Australian Parliaments
"A total re-write of the Constitution" - well, do Australians want another 100 years of ineffectual tinkering by politicians?
"Unelected Ministers, and even leaders, from outside parliament" - definitely, quite common in many other democracies to ensure talent is represented in the government and the legislature does its job effectively.
"A system that “…suits it’s (the country’s) multicultural society and historical background” - well, what might be wrong with that?

My recommendation: Read the book properly.

Klass Woldring is the consummate social engineer, for whom the natural foundation of society is anything but the thinking, autonomous, free individual. Social engineers regard the population as a pastiche of GROUPS, membership and structure of which is decreed by social engineers. Democracy is the last thing on their minds. Democracy is government of the people by the people for the people. Representative government, the social engineer’s dream, is government of the people by the political parties for those who buy them. Who has as much say in the composition and decisions of Australia’s representative governments as the tiny group who rule News Ltd?

Coming down to Klass Woldring, it is not a good look when he refers to some of the individualistic respondents to OLO articles as a Group (capital G), to be expected to exhibit groupthink. As he has come out as a social engineer it is not surprising that he favours systems like multiculturalism that subsume individuals under carefully fostered, funded and preserved group identities and “consult” the groups through “community leaders”. (At least he spares us the boring repeated reinvention of a global “group” of “lefties” to be addressed not in terms of what they have said but in terms of what others assumed to be grouped with them have said not about the given issue but about other issues. Thus in one fell swoop both to group people and to group issues!

In a fit of curiosity I have downloaded Klass’ book although it is unlikely to bear on what interests me and what should interest everyone concerned about governance – the practice not of ever-so- tweaked systems of representative government but of DEMOCRACY, starting with what happens in the 26 American states that exercise it. Short of democracy, we could for a start do something about the overemphasis on “swinging seats” which the English used to call rotten boroughs.