Giving our democracy a much-needed
WELL, if not dead, it’s certainly showing symptoms of terminal decline. We have a professional political class that is perceived to be out of touch.
We’ve seen power broker deals such as here in Tasmania before the last federal election when Senate candidates such as Lisa Singh and Richard Colbeck were relegated to virtually unwinnable positions on their respective party’s tickets. We have a Senate where an extremist can block
Pat Synge
Government legislation despite only having had 77 first preference votes. A system where industrial lobbies use their muscle to change tax policy in their favour. Powerful groups now lobby openly for changes to laws they don’t like and bring governments to their knees. Think of the “mining tax” or “work choices”. As well as using the media they can legally fund political parties with substantial donations that are kept hidden from voters. Lobby groups are becoming more and more sophisticated at getting their messages across using complex algorithms and analytics to target vulnerable voters. Social media is now the source of “news” for many. “Fake news” is real. “Alternative facts” are no joke.
So, what’s changed? Well, the change has been incremental and insidious but democracy as we knew it is sick and needs more than just a shot in the arm. So, if democracy is dying what can we do to resurrect it?
The word “democracy” can be fairly translated as “people power” and in the original Greek form of “direct democracy” there were no elected representatives; citizens collectively would vote on important issues. A bit like the system in Switzerland where in the past 120 years they have had 240 referendums. I’m not suggesting we decide every piece of legislation by referendum but that we introduce a process where ordinary people are directly part of decision making. What I’m suggesting is not new or original and is usually referred to as “citizens’ juries”.
Various models have been used in different countries including here in Australia. Just like trial juries, citizen’s juries are randomly selected. Typically, 100 individuals are invited to participate: they are paid and can decline if they