How to cure the disease at the heart of Australia’s democracy? Independent Australia Managing editor David Donovan advocates the injection of an “anti-party” into the body politic.
Let’s talk about how we can break the stranglehold political parties have over our political system and establish, or maybe re-establish, true representative democracy in Australia. It won’t be an easy, or a quick, job — but with effort, commitment and maybe a little luck, it should be possible.
In case you are wondering what I am talking about, Australia’s journal of democracy, Independent Australia, has published several articles recently explaining why political parties are a worm that has burrowed into the core of our body politic, and is rotting it from within. But in case you have come into this debate late, let’s summarise the problem.
Our sick democracy
Our system is set up so that we elect politicians to represent the interests of our community or state. Unfortunately, almost all our politicians come from one of two major political parties — one claiming to represent “workers” and the other tending towards “business” interests. Because of conditioning, and other factors, people almost always automatically vote for one of these two parties so that one of them becomes our Government. And because MPs almost always vote as a bloc, along party lines, the governing party is always the only one that can ever get any legislation passed through Parliament, and has only its members in the Executive, thus establishing a “partiocracy” that exists until it can be broken, usually at the next election. Because MPs owe their careers to the party, and risk being expelled from the party by voting against the party-line, it is clear that party MPs put the needs of their career and party before the needs of their constituents, fundamentally undermining the objective of a representative democracy — politicians representing their constituents.
Furthermore, because of mass disillusionment from the public in the political system due to the adversarial and sleazy reputation of politics and politicians, very few people join political parties thereby making these organisations unrepresentative of the wider community. Consequently, the quality of our elected representatives is relatively poor. Rather than attracting high quality candidates with real world-experience and accumulated wisdom, political parties usually attract people driven simply to develop a career in politics and who see loyalty to a party as a shortcut to success — as indeed it is. Political parties are also a shortcut to power and influence for vested interests and lobby groups, since political parties also put the needs of major campaign donors, typically the unions and big business, before the needs of the general public, so as to ensure the continuing flow of significant donations. And, as a final insult, to ensure that there are no threats to their domination of the political process and power, both major parties collude to pass laws and regulations that ensure it is difficult, if not impossible, for minor parties or Independents to get elected — or at least in any significant numbers.
That is a quick overview, but you can read more about the rotten heart of Australian politics in the following articles …
Read the rest of the article, on Independent Australia, HERE
• On Tasmanian Times: Simon Warriner: Conflict of Interest: The cancer withinour public life, with links to earlier Opinion
