The Wall Street Journal in the USA reportedly saying:
Australia, normally one of the most stable democracies in the region, faces its most uncertain period in recent political history after a national poll on Saturday failed to deliver a clear result.
The country's two major parties, the centre-left Labor administration of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Liberal-National conservative bloc of Tony Abbott, said a new government likely won't be formed for a number of days, as negotiations begin with non-party lawmakers who hold the keys to power in the first hung parliament in 70 years.
Perhaps there is another way of viewing this.
In my previous post about informal voting I (half jokingly) suggested that the ballot ticket also contain another choice:None of these buggers
Because I genuinely don't feel that any of them do represent what I want. I also have little faith in or personal knowledge of them.
Further I think more and more people around the world in developed stable democratic nations feel the same way.
Around me before the election I commonly heard expressed it wasn't about who I wanted "in" it was about who I didn't want "in". This is not what the election process is designed to do.
Today I think that the issues of National Governance are many more and far more complex than in the past when Sir Henry Parks gave the Tenterfield Oration. We as a community can no longer be satisfied with stale and or out of touch individuals within our elected representation making deals on what "party solidarity" wants while neglecting their electorates needs.
With the cost of the election being billed at about AU$170 million perhaps we need to start considering a more active participatory approach incorporating some modern technology. I think that internet technology and public private key security holds a potential answer to this problem. It would allow the representatives to get a good feel of the electorate and enable them to not only make better decisions but to demonstrate to us that this is what people wanted.
This sort of sophistication adds to the neural network of the Government and expands it to what it should be. As it stand we have an organism the size of 20million people with a nerve network of less than that of a jelly fish.
No wonder we blob around in the political sea
It seems to me that feelings about politics and politicians has 3 distinct phases, and these phases generally occur at about the same age in most people.. The first: belief that "They" will take care of it, or that it doesn't really matter because..."Nothing really ever changes anyway." The second is when a general distrust (disgust?) for all politicians sets in. "Throw the rascals out!" or "None of the above." The third is when one realizes that all politics is local and tries to get involved.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that it makes sense. Young people have a great deal of worry about getting started, getting established and getting ahead. Life's responsibilities are ahead of them and they are tested every day. As one ages many mysteries are solved through repetition and the realization that it does matter takes hold.
Not an easy task but...getting involved locally at least gives one the illusion of making a difference.
good summary, although some mixing of the occurrence of 2 and 3 in your list happen at different times. I've seen #3 turn back into the second part of #1 after some time spent in politics by the people involved.
ReplyDelete"None of the buggers" was sorely needed, and I think in a way we got it: the "hung" decision is going to force them to listen to each other.
ReplyDeleteInstead of the complete rout it's been in the last 15 years or so of "clear majorities".
Basically, they are going to have to watch their step all the way. I reckon that is good: we haven't seen anything like this since the Democrats imploded after Don Chipp's demise.