Tasmania … 350 snouts in one small electoral trough …

Charles Wooley, 60 Minutes

I know I call it ‘Little Cuba’, but on the basis of numbers alone, our small island might actually be regarded as one of the most democratic jurisdictions on earth. If you’re not sleeping with an elected representative, you are at least related to one, or living next door to, or have a friend who is all of the above.

How can it be otherwise? There are only five hundred thousand of us, yet we have more than three hundred elected legislators. Start with five Lower House members of Federal Parliament and twelve Senators. Add twenty-five members of our state House of Assembly, and presumably because they can’t be trusted to do the right thing, throw in another fifteen members of the Legislative Council to over-rule them, and incidentally ensure that our state is almost ungovernable.

Then add twenty-nine local councils for a population worthy of just one council on the other side of Bass Strait. Critics say we are over-governed. Until now I have been inclined to agree.

But let us reconsider. Just for the argument let’s assume democracy is such a good thing and that too much is never enough. Now I know that the ‘Democracy is Good for Everyone’ kind of zealotry has got our side into an awful lot of trouble in what were once peaceful and well run military dictatorships in the Middle-East, but that might only be because over there we failed to properly sell the benefits of getting yourself elected. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans are now despairing because most people clearly have no faith in the democratic ideal. This is where I think the example of Little Cuba might just be the clarion call that the cause of international democracy so badly needs.

Three hundred and fifty snouts in one small electoral trough! The slurping and shoving should be heard as far away as Baghdad, hopefully even over the gunfire. The benefits of democracy, for the governing rather than for the governed, should be made abundantly clear. The point to promote is that democracy is a far better rort than tyranny and a safer one. The dictator Saddam and his family might have enjoyed some of the usual democratic benefits; free meals in restaurants, no parking fines and free overseas holidays, but look how badly it all ended for the Husseins.

How much better in the exemplary Tasmanian model, where fallen rulers go directly to paradise in this world? They are forever on clover in a land flowing with milk and honey. They serve only themselves on cushy government boards, cop a few lucrative consultancies and enquiries, and call in a few favours from mates in business. Otherwise they just knock around their well-deserved country estates, beach houses and lake houses, on such generously pensioned public largesse you might want to spit.

But that’s not my point here.

If the average Iraqi, Afghani or Syrian saw that such benefits are to be enjoyed by anyone with the barefaced gall and presumption to seek public office, even in some obscure local council or tiny regional parliament, they would certainly think again about the virtues of democracy. They would immediately put down their weapons and queue up to vote for themselves and to get elected. Extrapolate Tasmania’s representative-to-voter ratio to Iraq and you create more than twenty thousand cushy jobs with unlimited benefits. Suddenly Democracy makes a whole lot more sense than fighting.

I hope this helps you feel a little better about our bloated administration because, just between us, I don’t know anyone, not in politics, or not working for a politician (admittedly that rules out a lot of Little Cubans) who has a good word for the process. Faith in the system is at the lowest ebb I can remember, though not helped at all by “The Mercury’s” ‘right to know’ campaign. Details of all that wining and dining and general whooping it up while householders are being stiffed with increased rates does make the case for local democracy a little harder to argue.

Almost a century ago the writer and philosopher Bertrand Russell, back in a time when philosophers were pop stars, as opposed to now when pop stars are philosophers, shocked Britain when he suggested that given public disenchantment, the nation should abolish the vote. Instead, the wickedly clever professor opined, that every adult citizen, chosen at random from the Electoral Roll should have a chance to serve in Parliament for one term only.

This would effectively abolish divisive and self-serving party politics.

Corruption and political favours would also presumably diminish if not disappear, simply because one term isn’t long enough to fully return favours. With insufficient time to feather their nests the balloted representatives might even concentrate their efforts on good public policy. I’ve always thought this would be a great idea in Australia, at all levels of government, because it gets rid of political parties and career politicians.

At a press conference, Russell, was questioned by an outraged political correspondent from a conservative newspaper. “But Professor Russell, surely under your proposal, you must realise this would mean that absolutely anyone, no matter how appallingly unsuitable, could become a Member of Parliament?”

“Yes” retorted Russell, with a wry smile. “And isn’t that exactly the situation we have today …”