Shades of Gilbert and Sullivan.....
"I always voted at my party`s call, I never thought of thinking for myself at all"
Or something like that.

The bloke who wrote this convoluted twaddle has got to be a lawyer.

And I was really silly.

I thought this article might be about the union control of the Labor Party. But no that was limited to a sanitised comment about Labor Members being Loyal to Caucus.

Don't you see the elephant Max. That is really where the rot begins.

Max,
“ The duty of elected members . . . is to serve the community “ , which community are you talking about, the community at large or the community of his electorate?
I would be inclined to think the latter. As you point out, this makes the Australian political system a joke. The only entities who comply with this would be some independents (Tony Windsor springs to mind) or minor parties.
Some argument could be made for a political party to pursue a project such as refurbishment of the Murray-Darling system where the benefit goes to the population at large but to the detriment of some minor group.
The rot in Australian politics goes even further than what you have outlined. There are three shibboleths. These are unspoken commandments for any Australian government.
• Support for an out of control immigration policy.
• Support for the Jews in Palestine – whether it be ethnic cleansing, murder of Palestinian children and so on. It cannot be criticised.
• Support for road transport (Tasman highway?)
The Australian population at large doesn’t support any of these things. Politicians act on behalf of those who pay into their election campaign

How is it that these academics can get it so far wrong, & still be teaching our kids. Well, perhaps indoctrinating would be a better word.

Come on Max, it really is time to grow up.

If we want independent MPs we will vote for independents. Perhaps academics have the time to study all those standing for a seat adequately to know how they will think on every issue, but those who work for a living don't. That is why we vote for parties, not MPs.

We can usually have a pretty good idea of how a party will react & vote, provided we don't get another Gillard lying to us.

Assuming we have time to analyze the parties, we vote for a local member, on the understanding they will vote the party line, often not even knowing the local bloke/birds name. That is why we have how to vote cards.

So Max, please catch up with the average citizens problems, & don't, whatever you do, get MPs believing they should start to think, vote their conscience, or what they may perceive as the will of their electorate.

Trying to judge the electorate will lead to MPs thinking the noisy ones, like you, are speaking anything like the majority.

"political theory must rest on the values common to a community, not the interests and preferences which divide its many groups and factions."

So multiculturalism would have no political validity, since it promotes the "factions" and ignores or undermines the "common".

How can people from 6000 different cultures produce a "community" with "shared" values?

All Progressive policy seems to be about promoting factions: feminists, gays, immigrants, Muslims, Aborigines, environmentalists, atheists.

Remove the plank from your own eye, lefties.

You want to know what the "community" wants, then a plebiscite should be conducted regarding any policy that would have significant, long-term impact.

This doesn't necessarily require the entire body of voters (expensive if frequent), just a large enough random sample (10,000?).

You'd probably find little Progressive policy is actually supported by Australians.