Pericles: "It should not be too difficult, given the wealth of technology available to us, to document these agreements that were voluntarily made in return for our vote, and to hold the elected member accountable for them."

The problem with what you describe is it requires far too much work of we, the apathetic citizens. The major parties already do a reasonable facsimile of what you describe. You can go the the ALP's page or the LP's page and look up their electoral promises for 2007. Journalists busily compile lists of those kept and those broken. So the promises are documented using today's technology, and they are held accountable for them.

But how many people actually looked at those pages before voting? Did you? I bet you didn't. I didn't either. And that is the problem.

I have looked at their promises in hindsight, when they did something that annoyed me immensely and claimed "it is an electoral promise". Well, it may or may not have been. Given their words, a lawyer or judge would have to decide. It certainly wasn't what I envisaged they would do when reading now. And that is the second problem.

What you suggest sounds to me like it could become a bureaucratic nightmare, or a lawyers picnic. It might be worth it if there wasn't a simpler solution. As it turns out there is - the one we have now. Rather spending huge amounts time trying to wade through legalise before the election, at the next election we look back and see what they _did_ do. It's simple, fast and reliable.

Politicians are all sort of scared of lawyers. They are lawmakers, but have lost the plot as far as ensuring their efforts are not in vain. Knowingly or unwittingly they have created a monster that has absolutely no respect whatsoever for their efforts. They have created Courts, instead of courts, and these Courts are the cause of much of our dissatisfaction with politicians.

The Courts created by the politicians are undemocratic. We don’t know how they have been fooled into creating these monsters, but it is time they woke up to themselves and uncreated them. The Courts they have created are filled with lawyers who take home many times the salaries a Politician gets paid, even a lowly Magistrate gets more than a politician, as a backbencher, and he is simply a rubber stamp.

When we created a Federation we had courts, in which the Constitution could be enforced, and which had integrity, because they had 12 ordinary people as judges. When the lawyers persuaded the Parliament to make them into the trustees of the Courts, and abolish jury trial as of right, that really put the cunning foxes in charge of the henhouses. The foxes have been running with the hounds ever since 1970, in New South Wales and 1976 in the Federal Court of Australia and if you want to make a small fortune out of litigation and you are not a lawyer, start off with a big one. They will take it from you by hook or by crook.

I knew Sir Joh Bjellke-Petersen. I heard him tell a Conference once, that you can ask us to do whatever you like, but we cannot do anything that will not be passed by the courts. He knew the score in Queensland before 1991. In 1989, a Labor party dominated by lawyers was elected in Queensland, and one of the first things they did was abolish jury trials as or right. People have been getting ruined ever since.

It is not the Politicians who are the foxes. Lawyers must know they are doing the wrong thing

Back before the politicians decided to abdicate their responsibilities, and dump them on an unelected judiciary, the procedure to resolve a grievance was simple. You issued a writ. A writ was like a summons, that called upon the person you were annoyed with to come to a town meeting, and explain why he or she was causing you grief. It was quick, it was certain to get a result, and had a guaranteed jury trial as a condition of its issue.

In 95% of cases Writs got results almost immediately. Some settled on the courthouse steps, but most settled quickly. It was a great way to get someone’s attention. Today their stringing out of litigation is an art form, and every step costs money, so that the lawyers have prospered enormously, and the state has suffered revenue loss in proportion to their winnings.

Now the politicians have permitted substitutes for the writ process to be instituted. This is not a good move, and if the High Court can be believed is illegal. However without a High Court Writ to test it, or any way of having a guaranteed right to do so, the lawyers are riding high.

If politicians again took charge of the country, instead of leaving it to lawyers, in practice, and unelected Judges, they should be getting the big money, and Judges less. I think an increase in politicians salaries would be justified, if they were willing to supervise the judiciary, using the powers given to them by Standing Orders

I think you are being unduly pessimistic, rstuart.

>>The problem with what you describe is it requires far too much work of we, the apathetic citizens.<<

On the contrary, I think that the introduction of some visibility and accountability in the process would galvanize the citizenry afresh. Nothing like putting a little power into people's hands to get them excited.

It would also give the timeserving party apparatchik something to ponder as they clamber up the greasy pole to pre-selection. Responsibility is not a concept that comes naturally to them.

>>The major parties already do a reasonable facsimile of what you describe. You can go the the ALP's page or the LP's page and look up their electoral promises...<<

Yep. That's the top level stuff I was outlining. The important new bit is making the individual candidate accountable for those promises. And for the detail.

>>What you suggest sounds to me like it could become a bureaucratic nightmare, or a lawyers picnic.<<

In the twentieth century, I suspect you would have been right.

But the speed and precision of communication these days is actually making this practically a walk in the park. Facebook, Twitter, all these "social networking" gizmos finally have a real-world value.

>>It might be worth it if there wasn't a simpler solution. As it turns out there is - the one we have now<<

There's nothing so simple as inactivity, rstuart. We can all do it, and nothing will improve, ever.

For a real simple example of how Politicians can interact with their constituents, go to my place:
http://avasay.com
If I can do it, surely pollies can. Admittedly my polling is not bullet proof, but it does -or can- at least give some idea of how connected people feel about just about anything.
And it could be made bullet proof, if necessary.