The wollongong scandals merely highlight the pervasive corruption throughout Australian government. The collapse of fisheries and forestry, the inadequacies of schools, hospitals, and transport, the appearance of reactionary laws and unjust treatment of australian people, should be adequate proof that the current political structure is not good enough.

Real democracy is much better. The fundamental reason is, when the people are sovereign, when their will must be done, government must happen in public so that they can see that their will is done. Open government makes corruption very difficult. It also exposes incompetence and simple error very quickly.

Democracy can plan for the future, can vote for policy that needs a generation to pay off, because the electorate will be around ‘forever’, unlike politicians who must sell-out future generations to buy the next election.

How is the will of the people to be measured?

By referendum. Instead of choosing which of two political gangs look like doing the least damage, the electorate will require ministerial candidates to present their plans and budget, select the best offered by referendum, and let them get on with it. But the electorate will have access to government activity through the web, and the auditors will ‘drop in’ unannounced to other agencies, to count the money.

So the electorate will get what they voted for, and what they must pay for. Wouldn’t that be a nice change?

How to get there? Ultimately, oz must have a new constitution, one that begins:

“We, the citizens of Australia, declare that we are the masters of our nation, and that law and policy of the nation only takes effect upon the express consent of the electorate.”

But a lot must happen first. That’s another 350 word chapter, stay tuned.

The people elect representatives because they don't want to be involved in every single decision. You are ignoring one of the fundamental tradeoffs in democracy - representation vs cost.

You could however get most of the way there without the huge cost with a system of voting by delegable proxy:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/electoral-reform/electoral-reform.html#direct-democracy

" That is, citizens must delegate their vote either to a member of parliament or to an agent who delegates all of their votes to a sitting member."

This is highly corruptable and not democracy. It's giving an elite who love to lie and exert their will on others power, an oligarchy like the usa. No thanks. No. the solution imo is to somehow remove or override the lies and the tendency to desire increased control of a populace, out of government. Iraq should never have happened, for example. Our relationship with Allies should be in direct proportion to our beliefs on torture, corruption and upholding them. Domestically, it should be much harder to decrease freedoms, and the goal should always be to increase freedoms instead. Our government and it's representatives have way too much baggage in this regard. Better arguments from anyone should trump a minister's ignorance.

Isn't dictating the goals jsut a way to circumvet democracy? You cannot increase one freedom without decreasing another. A delegable proxy system is far less corruptible because everyone will be voting on an issue rather than the minority that turn up to vote every time the government wants to cross a t or dot an i in the legislation. Delegating your authority is democratic if that is what the people want. By tring to impose a system that people don't want and will never want against their wishes you are being undemocratic.

A healthy democracy requires citizen particpation. However you cannot force this. By holding a referendum on each issue you will actually decrease citizen pariticpation because you will prevent people from exercising the freedom to delegate their authority to a person they trust. People will not choose to make each decision personally, they will simply choose not to be involved in the decision making process.

Even voting itself is an irrational process considering the effort required and the difference it makes or is likely to make in a person's life. You want to vastly increase the irrationality in democracy. The outcome will be irrational.

"You cannot increase one freedom without decreasing another"

freedom is slavery, right?

"Even voting itself is an irrational process considering the effort required and the difference it makes or is likely to make in a person's life"

effort for whom? it takes less time than a shopping excursion every few years

Yes, but you come back from a shopping expedition with some shopping don't you? What do you come back from the polls with?