Passionate Political Discussion

[am Bays]

ATM basded on SMH polls being published in the Age, Iemma looks like being returned - if you can't govern yourself how can you govern the state, State based Liberal parties are racked by infighting ATM. FFS NSW Libs can't take advantage of pedophile charges against a former labor member of govt!!!

The thought of losing the next federal election and the same infighting broiling over into the Federal sphere is too scarey to contemplate.

[GWW]

I am considering setting up a website promoting the abolition of party politics by rotating local elections instead of holding them all at once and thus encouraging more independents who may exercise conscience rather than toe a party line. None of the parties like that idea!

I think thats certainly a noble cause Psyber, and in an "ideal" world there wouldn't be any political parties. To me, its almost some type of anomaly that we have such powerful parties given that they rate no mention in our constitution.

I think its ironical that political parties are both the saviour and destroyer of demoracy. Saviour because they allow governments to be formed, laws to be passed in a semi-efficient way, but destroyer because the priority of governments is generally 1) political party 2) country/state - they're generally too busy with internal party problems and scoring political points against their political opponents. The reason they're elected (ie to govern for the electorate and community at large) is generally overlooked once an election takes place, with decisions made generally according to the parties' ideology, even if it is against the "best interests" of the country/state.

But i guess having a "vibrant" democracy is certainly much more preferential than altneratives such as today's Zimbabwe under Mugagbe and Saddam era Iraq.

[Psyber]

I am considering setting up a website promoting the abolition of party politics by rotating local elections instead of holding them all at once and thus encouraging more independents who may exercise conscience rather than toe a party line. None of the parties like that idea!

I think thats certainly a noble cause Psyber, and in an "ideal" world there wouldn't be any political parties. To me, its almost some type of anomaly that we have such powerful parties given that they rate no mention in our constitution.

I think its ironical that political parties are both the saviour and destroyer of demoracy. Saviour because they allow governments to be formed, laws to be passed in a semi-efficient way, but destroyer because the priority of governments is generally 1) political party 2) country/state - they're generally too busy with internal party problems and scoring political points against their political opponents. The reason they're elected (ie to govern for the electorate and community at large) is generally overlooked once an election takes place, with decisions made generally according to the parties' ideology, even if it is against the "best interests" of the country/state.

But i guess having a "vibrant" democracy is certainly much more preferential than altneratives such as today's Zimbabwe under Mugagbe and Saddam era Iraq.

I tend to agree - any form of democracy, even a disordered one, is better than any form of dictatorship.

What we really have is a representative oligarchy. The problem of running a democratic government without parties is that any representative group of more than nine individuals will inevitably break into factions, and thus parties are born, and factions within parties. I suspect what we really need is a group of no more than nine individuals to form an executive to make day-to-day decisions, and a Senate of no more than 100, elected on a strictly proportional representative basis so no one group or party ever has total control, to act as a slower house of review that needs a vote of say 60% to ratify or modify executive decisions, and have the final say. One government nationally, then we can sack the rest and save a lot of money.

The one socialist idea I really like is universal superannuation with everybody paying in proportionally to their income. But the benefits would need to be proportional to what you pay in and it would need to be not administered by a government agency, or people would feel ripped off and subvert it any way they could. It would need to be seen to be fair and independent, and not become a covert tax, which I suspect some of our more extreme socialist friends would want to try to make it be.