The topic title "Stop the poll and surprise the parties" was the headline for Gretel Killeen's article that appeared on page 15 of today's Sydney Sun-Herald. See: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/stop-the-poll-and-surprise-the-parties-20100731-110km.html . The only reason the topic title is not in quotation marks is because the OLO software has in the past had issues with quotation marks being used in new discussion headings.




I am interested in this headline and article because I am curious as to whether it may be a indicator as to the extent to which ideas first floated on OLO may now be reaching, and being noted by, the MSM commentariat and politicians.




There has, to my knowledge, been no OLO Article or General Discussion topic that has expressly floated this idea of stopping the poll, but several recent posts of mine, on different threads, have touched upon such possibility.

There seems to have been an expression on OLO at least, if not more widely, that electors face a lack of real choice at these upcoming elections. Indeed a current Article is 'The Great Debate: No choice is the new choice', see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10750

I have proposed one way of overcoming this perceived problem. See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3820#93798 , and my subsequent four posts in that thread, as an outline. Gretel Killeen herself offers, if not a mechanism for genuine choice for electors, at least a somewhat tongue-in-cheek 'random political sincerity check' as a counter to anodyne campaigning.

I don't see any insurmountable Constitutional barriers to the electoral clock being reset by the Governor-General or the Administrator of the Commonwealth. Indeed, given the conflict of interest Exeutive Councillors from either of the major parties might face in advising the Governor-General as to remedy for the defective 1946 alteration to the Constitution, an Executive Council chosen from elsewhere than such in the interim would seem desirable.

What do others think?

Here is a Twitpic of how this topic rated when used as a search term on Google at around 8:00 AM this morning: http://twitpic.com/2askhc

It would be interesting to know whether it has, or does, generate any viewing traffic more than the ordinarily expected click-throughs.

I guess the topic is a bit challenging.

Let's see if this generates any interest, here or there: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10712#178530

This post from the Forum's newest registered user, 'The Larrikin', comes close to the theme of this topic: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10749#178578

A quote therefrom:

"It's time alright - to call on the
Governor General to establish a caretaker
government of passionate, proven, real
people - Paul Keating, Peter Costello,
Malcolm Turnbull and Allanah MacTiernan
(she gets things done), with a reviewing
senate of panellists from the Gruen Nation,
It’s the only hope we’ve got, the lunatics
are already in the building!"

I have no idea what may have moved him, first to register on the Forum, and then to suggest what he does, but its interesting seeing this sort of thinking being given expression.

The only difficulty in what he proposes is that it pre-supposes an exercise of choice on the part of the Governor-General as to the 'political suitability' of such as would be appointed to the proposed 'caretaker government', and the existence of some power of compulsion to serve exercisable over intended appointees by the G-G. The first would appear undesirable because it would go against the convention that the G-G does not exercise partiality, the second unworkable due to the absence of any legislation to effectively conscript such persons and require them to work together.

The Larrikin makes no mention as to whether or not the electors are intended to be able to ratify, or alternatively reject, such caretaker government. The proposal I have outlined does leave it up to the electors to either go with the status quo, or endorse candidates originally chosen by lot over whom the G-G does have an existing lawful power of compulsion to serve.

Interesting, nevertheless.

Welcome to OLO, The Larrikin. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/user.asp?id=58763

Stop the clock and surprise the parties?

No, I don’t think this would be a good idea. Everyone would presumably be required to vote at very short notice. Not everyone would be able to get the message in time or be in a position to vote. And most significantly, a very large proportion of the population would not have made up their minds and would have to make a decision based on nothing of any substance.

A large portion of voters will be voting from a position of apathy or very poor knowledge about what is really on offer anyway. A snap vote would only increase this factor. At least a fair portion of voters that are largely apathetic do actually take some interest in the election race in the last couple of days.

Wouldn’t it be a much better idea to get the Governor General to outline the major issues that need to be addressed in a campaign and to make sure that they are adequately addressed?

It would appear that in this campaign some major policy areas are going to go virtually unaddressed. These include the urgency of steering ourselves towards a sustainable society; http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3836#94223, and as you put so well Forrest: the critical need for Australian liquid fuel supply security; http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3836#94228.

As for the idea of establishing a caretaker government, maybe, but certainly NOT with the likes of Costello or Keating, for goodness sake!! ( :>O

continued

A reviewing ‘senate’ of panelists might also be a good idea. The good folk from Gruen Nation wouldn’t be a bad starting point. We’d need a set of astute political analysts who are non-aligned or evenly aligned (ie the same number of people aligned to different parties and/or philosophies). And we would need them to be empowered to get our pollies to properly address all of the major policy issues.

To put it simply; we desperately need a mechanism for keeping our politicians on-track and getting them to actually put a fair bit of detail forward during election campaigns, and to then hold them accountable for sticking to it.

The current regime of policy-making on the run, with big disjointed handouts left, right and centre, designed specifically to appeal to voters in the immediate timeframe, is just a load of poppycock!

If there is a significant chance of an elected government taking up an agenda that was not clear in the election campaign – and there certainly is – then there is a fundamental problem with the system, which urgently needs addressing.

The Governor General should be the person charged with this. A panel of political analysts under her/his guidance that are empowered to direct political leaders to discuss all major policy areas and to do so in considerable detail, would perhaps be the way forward.

Ludwig, in his post of Wednesday, 4 August 2010 at 7:22:02 AM, says:


"Stop the clock and surprise the parties?

No, I don’t think this would be a good idea.
Everyone would presumably be required to vote
at very short notice."


I suspect we may be talking at cross purposes here. I sense that you are commenting upon Gretel Killeen's tongue-in-cheek proposal for snap election 'random political sincerity checks'. Whilst that proposal provides a good lead-in to this topic, I am not endorsing it, other than to acknowledge the wry humour of it in concept.

What I am talking about is not some vague and general set of proposals for a more hands-on Governor-General to participate in the political process in future elections, but the exercise by the present Governor-General of powers express or implied given her by the Constitution in relation to THIS election already called.

Given that the date for the close of nominations has already passed (nominations closed at 12 noon last Thursday, 29 July 2010), for the Governor-General to conscript, and identify upon the ballot paper, a candidate (one effectively chosen by lot years ago) in each electoral Division, the electoral clock would have to be reset, with new writs superseding the existing ones.

That a Governor-General in Council would have the power to replace the existing writs with new ones is, subject to the overall Constitutional constraints as to by when a Parliament must be able to be seated, beyond question.

The general question remaining would be as to whether there exists JUSTIFICATION for the Governor-General to act in this way at this time. Bear in mind that unless the present Executive Councilors were to advise the Governor-General to take just such a course as I am suggesting, that there would have to be a determination of a Prime Minister's commission, and the immediate appointment of a new executive council.

That would be, if not a big 'D', at least a little 'd': a dismissal with a twist.

Its time.