NSW has already tried governance by CEO aka consultants under the former Nick Greiner Liberal Government, remember.

It didn't work. Gary Sturgess was given free reign to implement running government departments and businesses along private sector lines.

The amount of spending on consultants to implement business models was huge adn comprehensive. Greiner in fact DID implement the consultants' recommendations and he himself being from teh business world was not conned either. It all failed.

No need to repeat failed history.

There is an alternative way forward though at all tiers of government.
It is a model based upon the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. decentralsiation is one key, another is regulation of banking and finance and public ownership of key essentials for living such as electricity, water, gas, oil; and even nationalisation of all airports. Then divestiture laws to break up the Coles and Woolies near duopoly in many suburban and regional centres. Small and medium businesses would flourish as a result of divestiture laws and changes to commercial law. There is more:
http://www.dlpnsw.com/

Don Allan says:

"Not a power grabber or spin doctor myself, I predict, nevertheless, that if politicians don’t start doing what they are supposed to, work for the community rather than themselves, sometime in the future, society will demand changes that will make our current democratic system more meaningful."

What a cost-effective proposal Don offers as a counter to the declining influence of the mainstream media in moulding public opinion. Instead of having to invest in the gathering of news compatible with the line they wish to push, these media outlets will only have to concentrate on controlling the reportage of the outcome of the unscrutinisable phone polls. Brilliant! What a fantastic way to tell us what we all think, and translate it into action on the spot, with us 'electing' a CEO in the process.

It is good to see Don accepts the expertise of the Australian Electoral Commission as referees. "I can see the scene now as the Electoral Commission’s Master of Ceremonies introduces the BIG GIG finalists ..." Results of the phone polls could be presented in a Virtual Tallyroom format of the like of that used at the 2007 elections. You know, where they were able to hold back publication of the total numbers of pre-poll and postal votes issued until after most of the vote was in. Avoided little embarrassments like it becoming transiently apparent that more vote claims may have been made in some electoral Divisions than enrolments recorded. Clever, that.

"One change in this more meaningful democracy will be that a Chief Economic Officer (CEO) not a Prime Minister, will lead a non-party government."

Narrowly avoiding voicing the heresy that Parliament should be where policy should be debated and decided, Don neatly sidesteps the Constitution in just one move, instead of the interminable double-speak multi-step of the past century's politicians, to institute a Big Business republic.

It now seems unlikely that our first CEO would be named Trujillo, or even Switkowsky, but what if he were named Corleone? Would we have to address him as Don?

OK OLO that's it. I've patiently put up with a barrage of nonsense from AGW delusionists. I've even endured an occasional piece by Leon Bertrand. But if this is the kind of tripe that is now regarded as worth publishing, I'm outta here.

Unfortunately, Mr Allan's prescription for our election of "PM as CEO" is more likely to produce a dictatorship. Popular acclaim of a single individual - whatever the means to elect him or her - coupled with the freedom to pick their own team, can have only the one result.

The missing element, of course, is that business CEOs report to a Board of Directors, and unless there are similar checks and balances in any evolution of our present farrago of half-baked notions of what government should be, his proposals would not be an improvement.

Which is a shame. The idea of a political version of Australian Idol is compelling.

What should it be called?

Australian Idle? no, too easy.

The Biggest Schmoozer?

Big Brother...?

Uh oh.

Pericles,
I'm in full agreement with you the idea is badly thought through.

JCurtin,

Wow the DLP still exists see evolutionists, dinosaurs do still exist.
At meetings do you play "where's Mac ...he didn't come back!"

You must be joking. Government by big brother and the biggest loser. F that. You must be terminally niave to think that these shows are not rigged. They get the winners they want and they manipulate the stupid viewers to think they made a choice. Those with vested interests would be able to corrupt such an idea so easily and with no repercussions that it is just asking for an authoritarian dictatorship.

Not to mention your facile genuflecting to economists. The biggest bunch of wreckers and charlatans in existence. Your faith in economics is sad and in light of the current financial crisis supremely pigheaded and blind.

We should be heading in a more democratic and participatory direction not some sci fi future of max headroom television ruling the world. There are plenty of ways to use technology to make politics more inclusive and democratic. Voting in popularity contests is not likely to be one of them.

Politics is not a competition it is a system of running the country for the benefit of its people. Competition ALWAYS involves losers and I dont think the turning of a portion of the population into losers is good for our society.

After reading your article again I am beginning to think it is satirical. No one could be this dumb. Maybe I was the dumb one for taking it seriously. I hope so. :)

Lighten up folks. This was obviously a spoof designed to make us think about alternatives to the way we govern. The sad state of our democracy is evidenced by low party membership, branch stacking and numbers games where our 'chosen' leaders emerge after a 'spill'.

In the networked era with superfast, interactive broadband soon to be a reality for most Australians, shouldn't we be looking for ways of up-grading our democracy to engage in genuine participatory decision making, rather than status quo where the big policy decisions are made in back room deals with special interest groups?

Mikk says:

"After reading your article again I am beginning to think it is satirical. No one could be this dumb. Maybe I was the dumb one for taking it seriously. I hope so. :)"

Mikk, your hopes have been realised. The article listing on the Onlineopinion main page ( http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/ ) contained, upon listing this morning, this entry:

"A new system of government is on the way
How about having a CEO to run the country?
Humour & Satire - Don Allan"

Note the categorization under which the author lodged the article for publication.

Lord, but its 'ard to be 'umble, when yer know yer way round the 'ome page ......

I have to admit, it took me months to realize where articles were posted on OLO before they acquired their first comments. Hope the link helps. I keep it up in a tab, and just refresh the page every so often. Scroll down a bit and you will see the article popularity statistics, if that sort of thing interests you.

OLO doesn't exactly explain the features of its own site very well to its viewers, in my digitally saurian opinion. Hope you enjoyed the Sicilian vesper offered in response to the article to all the would-be Dons and Donnas of the world.

Good one, Don.

We don't have true democracy,that is why our social/economic system is in such pickle.Really uncertain times are ahead,especially with the collapse of the US $.This will be the really next big hurdle.

The "new world order" is a philosophy of corporate totalitarism.View Ron Paul's site http://www.ronpaul.com/ and learn about true freedom of both markets and the human spirit.

No, it would be a disaster.

You'd end up with a couple of drop kick orators, ones who know how to work the drongos, as the finalists. Someone like Obama, or Hillary would probably get the vote.

On the OLO pages are plugs for the University of Western Sydney, claiming to be the best lawyers school in Australia. Good on yer Western Sydney. I agree with Don Allen, in that we have probably the worst example of democracy gone wrong, after England in the whole world.

The reason we have gone wrong lies with out Universities, and in particular with our law schools. Our law schools have become hotbeds of religious zeal, where the religion that a Parliament can make paramount laws, that must be obeyed by all, is pushed and pushed and pushed. Trouble is we have nine States in Australia one as small as a suburb in Sydney, one with the population of a suburb if Sydney, and an area so vast it boggles the mind, all with Parliaments and a separate legal system.

Now if our lawyers started to lift their game, and the University of Western Sydney could lead the way here, and taught from Craies on Statute Law, Seventh Edition (1971) London Sweet and Maxwell, that the repeal of the Common Law Procedure Act 1899 in 1970 by the Parliament of New South Wales eliminated a very important part of government. That important part was continuing accountability.

Under the Common Law Procedure Act 1899 anyone could sue anyone else including the State Government or Federal Government in a common law court, for breach of statute, and recover a liquidated penalty, which has been set out in a formula in s 4B Crimes Act 1914 ( Cth). The penalty for attempting to pervert the course of justice in respect of the judicial power of the Commonwealth is set at $33,000 for an individual. For a corporation it is $165,000 and that is what the State of New South Wales would be liable to pay anyone who sued for it, if it had not enacted the Supreme Court Act 1970.

This Liberal party scam was continued by the Liberals when they enacted the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and while providing the money for juries, mandated a single Judge as the Court

If it aint broken don’t fix it, but if it is it needs doing. Don Allen has hit the nail on the head, the system she is broke, and it needs fixin.

There is nothing new under the sun. The problems we have confronted the King in 1487. The King was Henry 7. The solution the parliament enacted was to prohibit a single Judge from giving dispensations from the need to obey Statute Law. The statute it is contained in is 4 Hen 7 Ch 20, Actions popular prosecuted by Collusion, shall be no bar to those prosecuted in good faith.

Lawyers were just as cunning in 1487 as they are today, and at that time were given to starting a penal action before a single Judge, and bribing the Judge to dismiss it, creating a bar to a further prosecution. Henry was losing lots of money because a Popular Action was an action where the King was represented by a Commoner, and the proceeds of the prosecution shared equally. There was no Income Tax in 1487. The Crown Revenue depended on law enforcement and obedience to Statute Law. Since it was abolished in 1970 in New South Wales the Crown revenue has had to rely on legalized theft, and common slavery to balance the budget. It is the same in eight of the nine Kingdoms established by the Australia Act 1986. They are all broke and have descended to thievery.

In 1487, the King’s solution was to ban a single Judge from being a court, and making the only court that could let a criminal go free without paying a fine, a court comprised of 12 men and a Justice. Research at the University of Sydney Law Library clearly discloses this law was in force in 1828, and the Australian Courts Act 1828 catches it.

Law Schools should turn out graduates who understand how the system should be working, that no one should be imprisoned without being offered a fine for a first offence, and instead of jailing them let them work it off. That system worked