That's more than a sidestep, Peter Hume. That's a tap dance.

>>(Pericles you have not shown any reason, apart from your presumed omniscience, why the legislative sovereignty could not be exercised directly by the people.)<<

(Thanks for the parentheses. They're actually quite comfortable)

I suspect that you are becoming a bit tied up in your own logical ball of string.

The "legislative sovereignty" is a concept that you have just introduced here, and - since it is captivatingly vague - I assume that you want it to mean something important, without actually saying what it is.

If you mean, is there a place for referenda in our relationship with our government, I'd say that yes, there is.

If you mean, is there a place for the people to become directly involved in the creation, amendment and approval by greater than fifty percent of every single law, I'd say, you're kidding, aren't you.

But do tell. What is "legislative sovereignty" and how should it be "exercised directly by the people".

Don't forget, that you yourself pointed out that:

>>The majority are as capable of error, greed and violence as any minority. What makes you think their opinion, even if it were accurately represented, is going to be any good? If a majority favour persecuting homosexuals, or drowning witches, or boat people, does that make it okay?<<

Which at first blush, appears to negate any form of decision at all, as meeting your criteria.

It certainly states, quite categorically, that you believe "the legislative sovereignty could not be exercised directly by the people"

So tell us - given that I totally accept that I am in no way shape or form omniscient ('cos if I were, I'd already know) - and given that you would neither accept representation, nor a majority vote (who'd drown witches)...

...what are your criteria for selecting our government?

At the risk of sounding prescient, rather than omniscient, I'd suggest you will have to back of from at least one of those positions in order to answer the question

One more thing before I head off. If you can get hold of the transcript from today's National Press Club talk by retiring Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans please read it.

It highlights many of the issues raised on OLO about accountability.

Putting power into the hands of citizens is one approach as others have suggested (how far do we go with this?) and the other is to ensure the systems of accountability are up to speed - the parliamentary systems and processes that keeps the government honest and open to scrutiny. This includes relevant and effective Senate processes, parliamentary committees and Estimates committees.

I will miss Harry Evans and his 'trouble-making' ways, his dogged and relentless goal in keeping the politicians honest. If you lose the systems of accountability you will lose track of the way money is spent or wasted and monitoring payments to 'friends'. Secrecy is the nature of politics but it should not be the nature of Parliament and necessary mechanisms to ensure transparency are crucial.

Mr Evans raised the AWB Inquiry and the fact that many believe we will never know the full story - while Government held a majority in the Senate.

It is situations like this that are open to manipulation in terms of the sorts of questions asked and the information available for release.

Harry Evans's speech is worth a read once it comes up on the NPC site.

http://www.npc.org.au/

Pelican

<< If people took the time out to read the Green's policies they may find there is a lot more than just the environmental platform. >>

I agree. You wouldn't necessarily even need to do that. Just tuning in to the regular press statements made by Bob Brown, Sarah Hanson-Young and the other Greens on a wide range of issues would soon clearly demonstrate the comprehensive scope of Greens policy.

So often, it's the Greens who are providing the opposition to government policy and speaking up as the conscience of the nation. Whether it's on the treatment of asylum seekers, indigenous Australians, the homeless, the plight of political prisoners, there are a whole host of issues on which the Greens lead the nation. Indicative of all they stand for is the recent generosity of Bob Brown towards the Australian photo journalist held in Somalia.

If we were hearing more from the Greens on climate change and less of the political posturing of the two major parties, we'd all be so much better informed and inspired and motivated to make the changes needed. They would have been talking up all the wonderful opportunities that other countries have been exploring for many years now, all the promising possibilities of alternative ways of sourcing energy and living sustainably and all the job creation opportunites that would continue to open up as we headed down that path.

No, instead we're left with Rudd unable or unwilling to properly sell his policy message and Abbott ranting on about a great big new tax. Deriding the Greens and keeping them on the margins means we're all being kept in the dark on the most pressing issue of our time.

I addressed this very issue in Peter's constitution topic.
Who and how is his plan going disseminate the requisite information, who is going to understand it, and when will those who can, do this?

I can't see people wading through pages of appropriate technical, statistical, scientific information necessary to vote meaningfully on legislation.
One needs to consider diplomacy and security decisions too.

We need to understand the process/purpose of 1st , 2nd , 3rd reading speeches and committee structures etc., all adding up to *masses of work * for the representatives.
There is no functional way a part time parliamentary citizenry could do this.
Embedded in the system are a myriad of checks and balances.

As I have said before, IMO, the two key distorting factors in the main work of the parliament are the party structure, the notion of a winners and losers (govt V opposition) and non-parliamentary influences.

The government passes what ever it wants, within the whims of a un-mandated leader, while the other side are, legislatively speaking, a bunch of spoilers, lead by a likewise un-mandated leader, all this is regardless of good of the country. Both these are along un-democratically formed party policy (dogma). The result? 2nd rate governance an 3rd rate usage of resources.

The party system is a key inhibitor to the representatives being more sensitive to their electorates. Without it a mechanism could be structured to remove a non performing representative.
Democracy like capitalism works with total participation , fair competition, between equals, given that neither system functionally has the above criteria, both are proportionally
dysfunctional.

This doesn't imply communism, socialism et sec, merely equality in representation under law and legislation.

The last issue is non parliamentary interference by way of unfair access to the media and influence on the representatives through money. The loudest isn't necessarily correct or in the citizenry's interest (s).

North Queensland separation has been denied officially by K.Rudd today. This separation has been requested numerous times over the course of 150 years at least. The attempts have always been due to a sense of under representation and also under funding. It is ironic that the cities will often complain why they have to pay for the kind people of the Torres Strait, the Indigenous and also the mainstream citizens of the regional centres. However it is always these areas that are backbone to the economy. Why do cities benefit more from the bush than the people of the bush? There is something seriously wrong here.

TheMissus,

You are throwing around wild and irrational assumptions like grain to free range chooks and as accurate.

FYI all electorates roughly hold the same number of voters, so under a democracy you get the same representation as any similar number of voters.

Not all city folk complain about funding the the northern indigenous communities. In fact I'd be prepared there are more people in the south that care about them than the genuine caring northerners.

Likewise the north gets more $ per head per capita that the south.

The problem is that the population is more spread out and it needs more money to service the area.

In truth the northern argument is similar to those on the Morton bay islands there are a limited number of then but they "need" to have disproportional amounts of funding. The question is why? They chose to live there knowing the conditions.

Apart from the basics which cost more it's a case of what you see is what you get.