1. I'm not a lawyer. But hey, MPs get help when they write Bills. So long as we can be specific about what we are discussing, the numbering system will probably do for now.
2. I'm not a genius with software. You can request a pdf copy by email with a personal message through the facebook page. OR, if you want to stick with blogger; If this is too small and you are using Windows, you should be able to zoom in by going to the settings button in the top right hand corner of your screen. It looks like a little gear wheel-cog thingy. Another option is to try Ctrl+
3. It ain't poetry. I'm not a poet. Someone out there in psychospace is.
4. Yep - bound to be full of illogical inconsistencies. It's kept me awake at nights for a year and my brain is frazzled. Let's fix it. Democratically.
5. The important question is - will you join in and say what you like or hate about the ideas, sentiments, model, suggestions and other stuff this draft contains? At the very least, say whether or not you support the idea of a new constitution.
6. No, it won't be easy to get the idea of a new constitution accepted, but if we don't try, it definitely won't.
The more we talk, the more the idea will become a possibility. Some posts will be dedicated to strategies.
7. I'm not in a hurry to re-type and re-format this. If your comments are not troll-like, they will be valued and kept so after a while we can try and "poll" opinions, ideas etc. I know some of my favourite bits probably won't survive. Maybe none of them - I'm all for democracy.
8. Let's agree that any Constitution proposal will contain some assumptions about what is desirable or offensive. If you really hate it, and find it really, really, really offensive, please don't be personal when you say so.
Australia’s a great
big country with a teeny tiny population, but there are a lot more than 57
people registered to vote. So how do just 57 people manage to decide who should
be Prime Minister? Easy: Australia inherited
the British form of government;
Lower House; Upper House; and Queen
It's a system based on Parties, Party Philosophies, and Cabinets. The theory is that
the people vote for a LOCAL representative for their LOCAL area. Voters don't directly choose who will become the Face of the Nation.
24 Nov 2007
Australian
voters:
13,645,073
People who voted
for the Leader
43,957
21 Aug 2010
Australian
voters:
14,088,260
People who voted
for the Leader:
66,298
7 Sept 2013
Australian
voters:
14,712,799
People who voted
for the Leader:
54,388
Even if voters
think they know on election day who is likely to be the Face of the
Nation, this can change later without anyone asking voters at all.
In Australia,
Faceless Party Hacksdecide who should be the Face of the Nation,
and they do it all the time.
June 2010
115 people got into
a huddle and replaced one Prime Minister with another.
[Not actually sure
how many of the 115 voted for, and how many against. It might be a democratic
secret.]
June 2013
57 people voted in
favour of changing things back the way they were before the last time they changed their mind.
[Nobody asked me.
Fair enough – I might have just complained the more things change the more they
stay the same.]
The Faceless Hacks often change
the Face of the Nation if they suspect voters hate the Face.
But something
far worse has happened in Australia recently;
few voters like the current Face of the
Nation,
but the Faceless Party Hacks won’t replace
him at all.
So what's happening? Can't the Faceless Party Hacks find anyone better?
And what can voters
do about it? Even less than when
there is an election: Nothing.
--oo0oo--
In Australia, the
Queen is represented by a Governor General.
Q. Who protects us
from bad Government?
A. The Governor
General!
Q. Who chooses the
Governor General who protects us from bad Government?
A. The
[potentially] bad Government!
This system of
choosing a leader and a protector just doesn’t seem terribly democratic or
safe. The British people might be okay with it, but that’s their problem.
[And secretly I think it really is their problem].
In Great Britain, the Queen doesn’t really get to say “Nope, don’t like it” and reject a law – but at least the British Parliament doesn’t decide who should be Queen. You might say I’m being unfair – ‘cos in 1975 the Australian Governor General noticed our bills weren't getting paid, and suggested we need an election. The Governor General is able to call an election, but really has no “Nope don’t like the law” power at all. Governments can, and sometimes do, pass bad laws.
The British System relies on people choosing a philosophy and sticking with it - but what if everyone sticks with a party philosophy except the party?
In Australia in 2015, the so called philosophy of each major Party has changed.
Great money-management with a good social conscience has become "stuff-you, stuff-them".
Great social conscience with mediocre money-management has become "anything you can stuff, we can stuff harder."
Winning matters. That's all. As an end in itself. Parties win - People lose.
--oo0oo--
One thing that could make this country a lot more democratic is a PRESIDENT.
We were asked in
1999 if we wanted a Republic with a President, but it was just more of the same
with a name change: The Parliament still choosing the toothless protector, not the people.
What we could and should demand is the right to Democratically elect a President.
We could have a President with at least 7 and a 1/2 million or so votes - instead of a leader with just 60,000. Instead of a leader with just 57 votes. We might get a President who will still disappoint or
embarrass us, but what if it was someone who had to actually say something
positive to get elected, or even someone with a vision? It would be a nice change to hear a speech from someone who has to appeal to more
than just a few faceless party hacks.
A Democratically
elected President could even have a little bit of “Nope, don’t like that law
power” [but not too much]. Really, anyone with a good reason to speak
their mind would be better than someone with a good reason to keep their mouth
shut.
And, seriously, the
Queen deserves a lot more respect than some of the Faces we’ve had lately could
ever earn.
You can read the text of the draft here or PM me through the facebook page and I will happily email you a more readable PDF. The draft DOES need everybody's input, it is just designed to start discussions.
Please join the discussion if you agree Australia needs a new and more democratic constitution. If you don't want to use blogger, you can discuss the idea via facebook.
We often express our
frustration by fixating on the negatives of one politician or another, but I'm
not sure even THAT helps. Behind every good laugh is a feeling we are being
treated with contempt. It's easy to be distracted from the REAL problem which
is that we have a totally dud constitution.
We are governed by a
constitution written when few people had the right to vote. It's a constitution
cobbled together by people who desperately wanted to abolish the taxes they
paid to do business across state borders, or by others who, to our ongoing
shame, were desperate to keep Australia White.
Start of Railway from WA to SA - 1915
It was cobbled together
at a time when people could only travel any distance by horse, or ship, or
camel. Before phones existed. At a time when - despite the pitifully small
population - the cost of State governments actually made sense.
Dreams of
freedom or democracy
couldn't have been further from the minds of our
current constitution's authors.
If lies become truths
simply through repetition, one of the biggest lies has to be that we live in a real
democracy.
When it is said we get
the government we deserve, the unspoken assumption is that we choose our
government - in Australia that is simply not true. There are several reasons
for this, but our current Constitution is the biggest one.
The government has
issued a discussion paper for improving the constitution and dealing with voter
dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction has been acknowledged, but the intent is
the same; to simply fiddle with a totally defective constitution.
Aren't governments supposed to help CREATE jobs,
not just blame people for economic mismanagement?
Our constitution has
changed over the years in ways that have made it more useless than it already was - so
much so that it is like a 120 year old hammer that has had two new heads and
four new handles and doesn't work at all anymore.
The 1901 Constitution was NOT originally designed to let
Federal Governments pork-barrel State Elections
We will never get better
government until we have a whole new constitution that provides for a
truly democratic process, spells out the contract between people and government,
protects the rights of the people, and ensures people have a real voice.
Is a new constitution
even possible? Yes. Support for it won't develop overnight, but with enough
support it is possible.
Maybe we could start by
looking at what we do want, and getting stuck a little less on what we don’t
want. Like choices between policies that aren't all the same.
Here are just a few
things I do want
·I
want to know who I am voting for when I vote.
·I
want to take away the power of the Prime Minister to embroil us in military
action without any real checks and balances.
·I
want Politicians to stop talking about voters as if we are scum.
·I
want all Australians to have more influence over what happens anywhere in
Australia – not just their own state. I might live in Victoria, but the Barrier
Reef is as much mine as any other Australian’s.
·I
want whistleblowers protected by a law that can’t be changed too easily.
·I
want politicians to be more accountable. A LOT more accountable.
·I
want politicians to not be able to vote against a tax they have outstanding.
·I
want people to get hip replacements in a reasonable amount of time – not have
to wait 5 years [during which they receive benefits instead of working and
paying taxes]
·I
want to NOT subsidise religious instruction.
·I
want companies that trade in Australia – using Australia’s infrastructure – to pay
taxes in Australia
Stuff
like that. A HEAP of stuff like that.
A lot of this would change if we had a decent constitution.
What would YOU like,
that would make Australia a better democracy?
