Don't know much about it but the Swiss seem to have a reasonable system based on their cantons and a president has the chair for only one year.
All important decisions are put to citizen referenda, that sounds fine to me.
Here we have to vote for candidates WE have not selected, they are put in front of us and we are told --vote for these people or else!
The minor parties are more of an irritation than they are of use, they fulfil no useful purpose whatever and are simply an expense.
The two major parties are mediocre , their main interest is in getting reelected.
Unfortunately the opposition is so weak it is in danger of becoming just another minor party.
We deserve better than that.

Sorry for the mispelt words in the last post.

"For this letterbox post each would produce a 2,500 word submission on who they are, their vision and purpose and how they intend to perform their job. There would be no other electoral propagander stuffed into letterboxes."

This would mean Party politicts would not receive huge refunding from Taxpayers for material and expenses. The booklet distributed would contain the essential material and be directly funded by the Electoral Commisson. Detail policy would be financed by the community group they represent and not refundable by the taxpayer. Equal unbiased media coverage would be given each Candidate. How to distribute preferences and photographs would also be in the booklet mailed to every voter. As NRMA or RACQ does in Board elections.

No lobbying outside polling booths as at present. Though I know the large parties like the atmosphere of the polling day as it indicates their support. Posters of the Candidate and how the Candidate would prefer you distribute your preferences be posted inside the Polling Booth.

Philo,

I am quite happy with that because at least we finally have local people representing local interests in our parliament.

I believe you still have to outlaw alliances because people will always form groups to defeat individuals. For instance Chambers of Commerce tend to always represent conservative values so they would usually ally themselves with similar people. Trade Unions would do likewise at the other end of the scale.

Your community group idea is fine but many battlers just don't belong to community groups because they haven't the resources to fund themselves. Also cutting the money flowing to parties would get a better use of resources as we wouldn't have that cost at all.

The system has to be designed to stop the manipulators in our society. I still believe the speaker should be a judge who has strong powers and his deliberations are assessed by a peer review type process. I agree we should ban the polling day pamphlet pushers.

But look what we have achieved in a few moments of thinking ... no parties, no alliances, communities better represented, independent speakers, a more representative democracy and we have changed very little really.

Amazing!

Oh my goodness! I will try to build some bridges here first (before burning them all? :-))

To all the posters on this site, let us first remember that when it comes to individual affairs of the State, thee & me are more like than not to be on the "same side". I, like you, want peace, goodwill, health & prosperity for all.

However, it is obvious from many of the postings that we have somewhat different perspectives about what is, and what is possible.

Reading many of the postings reminds me of reading 'letters to the editor' - which is usually the first page I turn to when opening any newspaper.

In all the years (since 1974) that I have been reading these letters, two letters are perennial:
i) The Prime Minister (whoever it may be) is "just like Hitler"
ii) Why can't the politicians just get together and get the country out of the mess it's in!

I also remember discussing politics with a couple of shearers when Paul Keating was in The Lodge. They were a class apart from anything I had discussed politics with previously. Their hard-line stance was that PK was "selling the country down the gurgler".

NOTE: they were NOT saying his policies were doing this. Oh no. They were saying he, personally, was DELIBERATELY selling the country out.

When I queried them as to why the Prime Minister of our country would want to do that, their response was just as hard-line:
"Because he's a puppet!"

I am saddened that so many on this site have such a low opinion of our elected representatives. I agree they ain’t no saints, but I do believe that we in Australia are in fact quite lucky with the quality of our politicians, especially Federally.

I think they generally do a remarkable job in very trying conditions, especially consideration of how much vilification they CONSTANTLY get – and allow through our wonderful “freedom of the press”.

Am I a lone voice on this one, or do others listening in have similar “OK” attitudes to our legislatures?

David

In trying to keep to the spirit of Occam’s razor / KISS principle, I would just say that I believe the ideas and ideals that Philo, Opinionated2 and other on this site express about “no parties”, “no lobbying”, etc show a gross misunderstanding of how democracy actually works.

The closest example of a legislature full of independents that I know of would be the Israeli Knesset. This legislature is elected through proportional representation, with all of Israel being one electorate. With a membership of 120, it could THEORETICALLY mean less than 1% of the vote would be needed to secure a seat. In their infinite wisdom, over the past few years the Israeli’s have incrementally increased the quota needed to win a seat. It presently sits at 2.5%!

What this means is that to pass anything through the legislature it is necessary to do deals with all sorts of small parties and independents who hold the balance of power.

Who are the small parties and independents? The ULTRA right, religious, nationalistic, weirdo, etc.

Sorry folks, but democracy works BEST when there is a government and a strong and encouraged “alternative government”, ie the “two-party system”.

With preferential voting in single-member electorates, a person needs to secure 50% plus 1 of the vote to win the seat, meaning they have at least broad community support. The beauty of prefential voting is that deals can be struck AND radicals can be marginalized (as what happened with One Nation when BOTH Liberals and Labor put them LAST on their ‘how to vote cards’)

Alas, once again I must be off. If anyone is in the mood, perhaps you might like to read an old posting of mine on the OpenDemocracy website:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=83&threadID=42462&messageID=48175#48175

It is rather long and rambling, but hopefully will give you more food-for-thought on the matter.

I must, I must, I must write a booklet sometime soon on this matter which is more tightly argued. I figure it need be no more than 100 pages, possibly 50.

For the time being …

In peace,
David (from Perth, Western Australia)

To the extent that religion has enriched the total human experience, providing diverse customs, a source of contentment and, perhaps, moral codes of behaviour to follow, then it has positive value….. And to that extent we should welcome its (indirect) influence and involvement in politics.

To the extent that religion has been used to overpower other societies; to justify exploitation; as an adjunct of colonialism; as a form of mind-control; as a justification for prejudice; as a major cause of warfare.... then it has been an immensely destructive force…… How can we keep this side out of our politics?

The problem we have is, in this modern global village, overpopulated as it is, where people of all faiths and ethnicities have to live together and share the planet's resources, the harmful, destructive aspects of religion-in-politics has come strongly to the fore.

In the Middle East and the United States strident religion has become so entwined with politics so as to virtually control it. And so religion-in-politics has become a much more pernicious and dangerous threat than ever before. Now we are all threatened by it.

I thank the original author for pointing out this alarming world trend and how it could so easily spread into our body politic. But as for trying to lock in a more sane secular state by means of contrived political structures, I have my doubts. Our best defence is awareness.