Hello Everyone.

I'm new here, and in addition to a skin full of opinions you might get to shoot down at some point, I also have the need to collect some wide ranging opinions from a group such as yourselves for a little project I am working on...

I have cleared this already with the Board Admin, as I really don't want to step on anyone's toes...

What I want to do, is to compile a list of about 100 top generic questions that Aussies should ask their politicians in order to be fully informed about them. Rather than just write 100 questions myself all dripping with my personal bias, I figured that asking a diverse group such as yourselves to suggest questions would give a much fairer and I hope broader range of questions from many perspectives.

Initially, if you are willing, I would like suggestions for the top 10 broad topics or categories for the questions. Later on, once 10 topics are chosen, then I would like 10 questions for each topic.

Some of the topics are obvious - like Environment, Employment, Community Services, but I don't want to limit this to only those topics that seem obvious to me.

The end result of all this, is planned to be a free on-line tool that will encourage ordinary folk to quiz their politicians more closely on what they are all about. The questions will be like a starting point, or a range of suggestions to get people thinking.

So, if you are willing, please let your creative juices flow...

I look forward to chatting with you in the future.

Polly

I think I'm getting it now. You will answer the 100 questions yourself, and the tool will tell you which parties or politicians most suit you?

Environment, tax, health, welfare, education and research, law enforcement, military, infrastructure, government, other.

freediver wrote on Jul 8^th, 2008 at 9:54pm:

I think I'm getting it now. You will answer the 100 questions yourself, and the tool will tell you which parties or politicians most suit you?

No, not quite. Telling people what party suits them assumes that you know what party suits them. Clearly any suggestion that you do, can only be an opinion informed by one's own prejudices whatever they may be.

My starting point is that I have no idea what will best suit another person. The tool is just something that the individual user can use to help order the process of making up their own mind. There is a bit of a twist to make it appealing, but it is intentionally structured so that the only bias that can influence the outcome, is the bias of the individual user.

Thanks for the first list of suggested topics!

polly - thats a really good idea.

Research the voters, see what topics WE want queried.
Sort of an customer led media ?/

For some of my picks,

1/ Immigration to be severley limited.

2/ Permaculture to be a national focus.

3/ Muslims to have to assimilate or leave.

4/ The legal system to be far less punitive.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 8^th, 2008 at 10:34pm:

polly - thats a really good idea.

Thanks for the encouragement  :)

Your suggestions seem to be more in the form of objectives than question topics...

Taking your first point as an example - the topic may be Immigration. Assuming immigration gets a guernsey as one of the top ten categories, then the question may be something like "Do you believe our immigration policies allow too many migrants to enter the country?"

I need to chose the topics first. Once they are chosen, then I will need questions for each topic, and if I am to rely on a computer to do the analysis, the questions will need to be in a form that allows a Yes or No answer, as in my example above. For now though, what I am really looking for is just the topics.

thought you were looking for an input from a voter.
Not necessarily someone who will be limited to your 10/10 framework.

Thought it was  consumer led research, not what questions we ask correctly.

What's say you throw my suggestions into a BIG box without ANY modifications.
At the end you may get a few common suggestions from customers.

If you want suggestions, you got them.
If my suggestions are "wrong" ,  tell ruddydudd  I hate his populist shams.

Sprintcyclist wrote on Jul 8^th, 2008 at 10:56pm:

thought you were looking for an input from a voter.

Please don't think I'm telling you anything is wrong with your suggestion. I'm not! I am just constrained by what is possible in the software that is being put together. As I said in my first post, what I need are questions from as broad a range of opinions as possible as a starting point for users of the tool I want to build. All of your points suggested are equally valid, useful, and desirable input - I just need them massaged into a form that the software can cope with.

When the tool is up and running, users will be able to enter their own questions into the system as well, I just want to be able to offer a whole set of pre-loaded examples to choose from  - that is what I need these questions for.

Sorry if I offended you in any way - I was just trying to explain more clearly what I was after exactly.

Thanks for answering.

Sounds interesting. What software is this? Did you write it?

FD have already listed most of my priority categories. I like to add the following (if you're willing) mental health, local government, media, telecommunication, society, global village.

Don't worry too much about Sprint - he's fighting the Tenth Crusades on 4 fronts. Only jkg Sprint!  ;)

onya acid   ;)

Sprint the closest thing we have to the 'big box' you mentioned is all the polling which the major parties do. What that produces is two major parties that don't actually lead, but follow the whims of a marginally informed public. Sometimes you need that, but if you have it for too long the tough decisions never get made.

Polly is trying to come up with some kind of alternative. It seems to be targetted at telling the people what they want to know, rather than telling the politicians where the path of least resistance is.

Another big issue is gay marriage. You would need at least two or three yes/no answers (eg do you support civil unions, do you support gay marriage) to sort out where people stand. Not sure what category that would fit into.

With categories like education, I'm not sure what common questions there would be, other than more/less funding. Once you go beyond that, the issues get complex very quickly.

My focus is on areas of regulation, which I would like to see some changes.

1: Ethics
We have witnessed a progressive lowering of expectations of ethically responsible behaviour across the spectrum from Business to Government.
We expect salesman and politicians to be deceitful, for their own purposes, I would like to see that change, by applying real and effective penalties for unethical behaviour, and have watchdog organisations in place to enforce ethical standards.

2: Economy
Yes, it is the economy, stupid.
Economic competence is always an issue, and coming into a world where changing circumstances have seen all previously sound economic predictors, become less reliable, the importance of this area will only increase.

3: Education
With the changing economic focus of the world moving eastwards, we are ideally positioned to take a major role in the booming economies of the asian region.
We need to identify which areas of education to fast track, which will facilitate our role as a hub for Asian business activity, probably in Banking/Finance, Management, Advertising, PR, Information Technology, Green Technology/Renewable Energy Resources, etc.
By advancing our credentials in these types of ways we can evolve from the role of being little more than a non-value added resource supplier.
As I have said before, when a quarry outlives it's usefulness, it becomes a Tip.
If we raise our education levels to world's best standards, we will also cultivate a market as an Education supplier for the whole region.

4: Environment
We face the greatest environmental challenges ever, we must take a leading role as an innovative, and proactive environmentally sustainable, and responsible society.

So that is a few E's, to get me started with, I will work on other letters of the alphabet at another time.

freediver wrote on Jul 9^th, 2008 at 9:08am:

Sprint the closest thing we have to the 'big box' you mentioned is all the polling which the major parties do. What that produces is two major parties that don't actually lead, but follow the whims of a marginally informed public. Sometimes you need that, but if you have it for too long the tough decisions never get made.

Well, we are in a democracy after all (definition of democracy vs republic - crossover to another thread)



freediver wrote on Jul 9^th, 2008 at 9:08am:

Another big issue is gay marriage. You would need at least two or three yes/no answers (eg do you support civil unions, do you support gay marriage) to sort out where people stand. Not sure what category that would fit into.

Category: Society

Do they have to be questions soliciting a yes/no answer? Some issues are too complex to be restricted to a one word.



freediver wrote on Jul 9^th, 2008 at 9:08am:

With categories like education, I'm not sure what common questions there would be, other than more/less funding. Once you go beyond that, the issues get complex very quickly.

- Intelligent Design being taught as a science.
- Language studies and sex education.
- HECS
- German model free university education which is very successful.

Thanks for the replies guys.

To answer a few of your questions...

The eventual questions to be loaded into the system do need to have a yes/no answer purely so that boolean logic in the software is capable of analyzing them. There will also be the ability for those answering questions to qualify their answer so real people can make more sense of the yes or no - you just can't plot an explanation on a graph!

The only reason I want to break the questions up into topics, is so that people can find questions that are important to them more easily. A short list of mostly relevant questions is easier to deal with than a long list of mostly irrelevant ones.

Also, it is not important for the chosen questions to cover every conceivable issue within the category. These will just be the "starting" questions already in the system. People will be able to add their own questions as the system runs.

The actual software doesn't exist yet as a complete system. It is being written for me at the moment, and the job is about 1/4 done. So long as I can keep enough of the details under my hat until it is ready, it will be a unique service.

The problem with the "Big box - party polling" freediver was talking about, is that that sort of polling only ever asks if you agree or disagree with a pre-determined proposition. The questions that the poll ask are carefully crafted in order to illicit the responces that the people who commissioned the poll want. Having got the desired response, the poll is then used to justify whatever it was the group in question wanted in the first place. The worst of it is, we all let them get away with it time after time... Sometimes, they use focus groups to help choose the question that will best illicit the desired answer. My hope, is to effectively create a focus group with millions of members so the "real" questions will bubble to the surface without any spin doctors being able to adjust them first.

Thanks again - still looking forward to a wide range of views...

polly

Having got the desired response, the poll is then used to justify whatever it was the group in question wanted in the first place.

I was under the impression most of the polling results were kept secret - they are paid for by the parties for their own internal use. Parties try to go out of their way to pretend that they are taking the moral high ground and not merely following opinion polls - hence Rudd's 'tough decisions' rhetoric.

freediver wrote on Jul 9^th, 2008 at 8:48pm:

I was under the impression most of the polling results were kept secret

Political Parties do tend to keep their polling results to themselves (unless it is deemed to be in the party's interest that they get leaked - to justify the party's position). Political parties of course, aren't the only ones to use polling like this. Just about every interest group there is will use polling to either justify or argue for whatever it is the interest group is interested in. Don't you find it interesting that never in the history of polling has any group ever released polling figures that didn't support whatever proposition the group was set up to promote?

Many years ago I was in the position of being a part of a group that needed to convince a previous Government about the rightness of our cause. We were advised to engage a professional polling company to conduct a survey in accordance with all the accepted standards to ensure statistical accuracy. The first question asked by the polling company's rep at the first meeting was "What results do you want to get?" As the questions were customised to match the intended result, I lost all faith in the polling industry as it stood.

polly

I've had a re-think about the 10 x 10 structure of the questions, and had the design of the software altered slightly to add more flexibility.

Consequently, I'll include all 15 of the topics suggested so far (I think I have one for every suggestion to fit in - let me know if I've missed any), and remove the restriction on the number of questions per topic.

So, in alphabetical order, the topics are...
Defense, Economy, Education/Research, Environment, Government, Health, Immigration, Infrastructure, Law Enforcement, Media, Society, Taxation, Telecommunications, Welfare, and just for good measure, Other.

Please offer your suggested questions for these categories...

polly

Not sure on some of these categories.

Society:
Do you support civil unions for gays?
Do you support gay marriage?

Welfare:
Do you support the baby bonus?
Do you support the first home owners grant?
Do you support the rainwater tank rebate?
Should the dole be increased?

Environment:
Do you prefer carbon taxes as the means to reduce GHG emissions?
Do you prefer an emissions trading scheme as the means to reduce GHG emissions?
Do you prefer mandatory renewable energy targets and renewable energy subsidies as the means to reduce GHG emissions?
Do you support the use of marine parks as a fisheries management tool?

Tax:
Should the total tax burden on society be reduced?
Should the states be given direct control over GST revenue?

Media:
Should freedom of information laws be strengthened to give the media greater access to government documents?

Defense:
Should we pull out of Iraq?
Should we pull out of Afghanistan?
Should we invade or attack Iran?

Government:
Should state governments be dismantled?
Should we switch to voting by delegable proxy?
Should we switch to compulsory optional preferential voting (compulsory to vote, optional to rank all candidates)?
Should the federal government take control over rivers that cross state borders?
Should the federal government take control of hospitals?
Should the federal government take control education?

Telecommunications:
Should the federal government fund a broadband network?

Polly - good on you for asking the voter what they want.

My original questions stand. Would you add them to your list please ?
As per freedivers suggestins, my answers are as follows.



Society:
Do you support civil unions for gays?   Yes
Do you support gay marriage?             No

Welfare:
Do you support the baby bonus?    No
Do you support the first home owners grant?   No
Do you support the rainwater tank rebate?     Yes
Should the dole be increased?                       No more than inflation

Environment:
Do you prefer carbon taxes as the means to reduce GHG emissions?  No
Do you prefer an emissions trading scheme as the means to reduce GHG emissions?   No
Do you prefer mandatory renewable energy targets and renewable energy subsidies as the means to reduce GHG emissions?   No
Do you support the use of marine parks as a fisheries management tool?   yes

Tax:
Should the total tax burden on society be reduced?   Yes
Should the states be given direct control over GST revenue?   No

Media:
Should freedom of information laws be strengthened to give the media greater access to government documents?   No

Defense:
Should we pull out of Iraq?   No
Should we pull out of Afghanistan?   No
Should we invade or attack Iran?   Not yet.

Government:
Should state governments be dismantled?  Gradully
Should we switch to voting by delegable proxy?   no
Should we switch to compulsory optional preferential voting (compulsory to vote, optional to rank all candidates)?   No
Should the federal government take control over rivers that cross state borders?   yes
Should the federal government take control of hospitals?   yes
Should the federal government take control education?   yes

Telecommunications:
Should the federal government fund a broadband network?   No  

Defense,
Should the national draft be reinstated?
Should National Service be introduced?

Education/Research
Should formal/traditional grammar be part of the English subject?
Should Intelligent Design be taught as a science subject?
Should Intelligent Design be taught at all in a public secular school?
Are private schools entitled to government grants?
Should stem cell research be allowed?

Environment
Should solar heating rebate be mean tested?

Government
Should there be a cap in FoI fees?
Should the governement Cabinet exemption certificate be abolished?
Should Parliamentary priviledge exclude defamation, personal attacks and character assasination?

Infrastructure
Should essential services such as railways & telecommunication be privatised?
Should city planning override council planning?
Should state priviledge of confiscating private land for private development be allowed?

Media
Should media ownership be reigned back and re-regulated?
Should a minimum level for Australian content on television be set?

Society
Do you accept abortion?
Do you accept injection rooms?
Do you accept marijuana for medicinal purposes?
Should gay marriages and civil unions be legal?
Should gay partners be allowed to be beneficiaries of supernuation?
Should the legal drinking age be increased to 21 years old.
Do you accept drug harm minimisation?
Should drug addiction be treated as a criminal offence?
Should drug addiction be treated as a medical condition?
Do you accept the Northern Territory Intervention?
Do you accept mandaory removal and adoption of children of drug addicts?
Do you accept that alcohol is a drug?
Do you accept that cigarettes is a drug?
Should gender specific clubs and associations be allowed (ie: Tattasalls Club, Fernwood gymnasiums)?
Should the identity of underage repeat and serious crimes offenders be kept secret?

Other
Should there be a speed limiters installed into high powered cars?

Welfare:

Should middle class welfare be reigned in?

Education/Research:

Should there be single sex state schools?
Should government funding of private schools be reduced?
Should government funding of private schools be eliminated?
Should private schools be banned?
Should education funding be increased?
Should there be more government funded research in the private sector?
Should a university education be free?
Should HECS charges be increased?

nice one.
very democratic.
a pity we don't live in a democratic country.
what we have here and have always had is a benign dictatorship.
i applaud the ppl behind this board but in reality, all the talk in the world isn't going to change a thing.
we are inmates in a seductive prison called australia.
if you are rich here, you are persecuted. (paul hogan).
if you are poor here, you are persecuted (by centrelink).
if you are middle class, you cannot afford your lifestyle.
if you are new here, you are fodder for the ATO.
sorry,  talk won't change the situation.
DR9. :)

Acid Monkey wrote on Jul 13^th, 2008 at 2:07am:

Government Should there be a cap in FoI fees? Should the governement Cabinet exemption certificate be abolished? Should Parliamentary priviledge exclude defamation, personal attacks and character assasination?

This just in re: govt cabinet exemption certificates.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/ministers-lose-power-to-keep-documents-secret-20080722-3j6b.html

polly wrote on Jul 8^th, 2008 at 9:47pm:

Hello Everyone. I'm new here, and in addition to a skin full of opinions you might get to shoot down at some point, I also have the need to collect some wide ranging opinions from a group such as yourselves for a little project I am working on... I have cleared this already with the Board Admin, as I really don't want to step on anyone's toes... What I want to do, is to compile a list of about 100 top generic questions that Aussies should ask their politicians in order to be fully informed about them. Rather than just write 100 questions myself all dripping with my personal bias, I figured that asking a diverse group such as yourselves to suggest questions would give a much fairer and I hope broader range of questions from many perspectives. Initially, if you are willing, I would like suggestions for the top 10 broad topics or categories for the questions. Later on, once 10 topics are chosen, then I would like 10 questions for each topic. Some of the topics are obvious - like Environment, Employment, Community Services, but I don't want to limit this to only those topics that seem obvious to me. The end result of all this, is planned to be a free on-line tool that will encourage ordinary folk to quiz their politicians more closely on what they are all about. The questions will be like a starting point, or a range of suggestions to get people thinking. So, if you are willing, please let your creative juices flow... I look forward to chatting with you in the future. Polly

Excellent idea...

As we can edit these posts I will keep my ten topics all in this one post and edit as I think of more until I get my ten together... ;)

1. Energy (humanities greatest concern)

polly wrote on Jul 11^th, 2008 at 11:44pm:

I've had a re-think about the 10 x 10 structure of the questions, and had the design of the software altered slightly to add more flexibility. Consequently, I'll include all 15 of the topics suggested so far (I think I have one for every suggestion to fit in - let me know if I've missed any), and remove the restriction on the number of questions per topic. So, in alphabetical order, the topics are... Defense, Economy, Education/Research, Environment, Government, Health, Immigration, Infrastructure, Law Enforcement, Media, Society, Taxation, Telecommunications, Welfare, and just for good measure, Other. Please offer your suggested questions for these categories... polly

Sorry I'm late...

my first suggestion was Energy(humanities greatest concern).

As energy is, no doubt, humanities greatest concern and you seem to be happy with your categories after having done a fair degree of asking of the public for a good spread of topics may I insist something (as opposed to suggest)

...that the first question in the Infrastructure topic be: What are the plans for Energy Infrastructure?

 :-?

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2008 at 9:47pm:

As energy is, no doubt, humanities greatest concern and you seem to be happy with your categories after having done a fair degree of asking of the public for a good spread of topics may I insist something (as opposed to suggest) ...that the first question in the Infrastructure topic be: What are the plans for Energy Infrastructure?

Having gone back to the programmers once already to change the 10x10, I did allow for a more flexible layout and can now more easily accomodate an additional topic. Energy does perhaps cross the boarders a little into both the Infrastructure and Environment categories, but if folk want to include specific questions for Energy, then I am happy to accomodate with an additional category.

Thanks for the suggestions folks...

Polly

polly wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2008 at 12:45am:

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Jul 22nd, 2008 at 9:47pm: As energy is, no doubt, humanities greatest concern and you seem to be happy with your categories after having done a fair degree of asking of the public for a good spread of topics may I insist something (as opposed to suggest) ...that the first question in the Infrastructure topic be: What are the plans for Energy Infrastructure? Having gone back to the programmers once already to change the 10x10, I did allow for a more flexible layout and can now more easily accomodate an additional topic. Energy does perhaps cross the boarders a little into both the Infrastructure and Environment categories, but if folk want to include specific questions for Energy, then I am happy to accomodate with an additional category. Thanks for the suggestions folks... Polly

Actually I find your topics good and think the question would sit beautifully in Infrastructure: it just goes to show how solid your topics are... :D

 ;) ;) ;) But, your the boss!

You probably don't want too many topics otherwise...I dunno, 6 of one half-a-dozen of the other I s'pose!

 :-? ::) :o 8-)

...that the first question in the Infrastructure topic be: What are the plans for Energy Infrastructure?

They have to have yes or no answers death. You have to ask closed, specific questions. It's always dangerous to ask a politician an open question. They will never answer it, unless it happens to be directly related to party policy. They will however ramble on for a very long time about all the great (though only tangentially relevant) stuff they have planned.

freediver wrote on Jul 23^rd, 2008 at 10:02am:

...that the first question in the Infrastructure topic be: What are the plans for Energy Infrastructure? They have to have yes or no answers death. You have to ask closed, specific questions. It's always dangerous to ask a politician an open question. They will never answer it, unless it happens to be directly related to party policy. They will however ramble on for a very long time about all the great (though only tangentially relevant) stuff they have planned.

Oh, yeh... big problem!

....well,

ahm,,,[I'l be back!]

I like Gwyneth’s recommendation for an agency like the Office of Technology Assessment to help sort out the technical options for Congress. This gets at the heart of the dilemma – how to compare technical solutions across disciplines, sectors, costs, and time.

(Sharon Squassoni, 4th last comment in debate)


source: http://newtalk.org/2008/07/is-nuclear-power-essential-to.php

I was just thinking that the above idea proposed, of an "Office of Technology Assesment", should probably get a guernsey some how?!?

 ;) :-? ::)

I think it is usually better to let market forces choose the best technology than a bunch of bureaucrats. Nuclear would be the main exception.

freediver wrote on Jul 24^th, 2008 at 10:18am:

I think it is usually better to let market forces choose the best technology than a bunch of bureaucrats. Nuclear would be the main exception.

Well, market forces chose coal and other fossil fuels: how smart is it to be (b)led by the blind, sorry, invisible hand of market forces?!?

(We are talking about humanities greatest concern!)

 :D :-? ::)

Those market failures are easily correctable, which is what we are in the process of doing. It makes more sense to correct those market failures than adopt a communist style approach to energy technology. The failure was one of knowledge or science, not economics. Now that we recognise the externality, we can internalise it. You can't expect market forces to fix a problem before we know it exists.

freediver wrote on Jul 24^th, 2008 at 2:28pm:

Those market failures are easily correctable, which is what we are in the process of doing. It makes more sense to correct those market failures than adopt a communist style approach to energy technology. The failure was one of knowledge or science, not economics. Now that we recognise the externality, we can internalise it. You can't expect market forces to fix a problem before we know it exists.

Well, maybe I should go back and read the link a bit more and find out what the idea of this "Office of Technology Assesment" was all in aid of...I must admit I don't remember it when I read it the first time I just happened to see it when I got the link for some dude interested in Jim Riccio: some Greenpeace Nuclear Policy analyst.

Yes, it was serendipity (that's the word!)!

freediver wrote on Jul 24^th, 2008 at 2:28pm:

Those market failures are easily correctable, which is what we are in the process of doing. It makes more sense to correct those market failures than adopt a communist style approach to energy technology. The failure was one of knowledge or science, not economics. Now that we recognise the externality, we can internalise it. You can't expect market forces to fix a problem before we know it exists.

as for peak oil: we knew it was going to happen...plus

I heard on the radio the other day something about Germany; Italy; Autobahns; Freeways; the "f" word and signs/protests about white people not being allowed to have roads carrying massive amounts of cars through a blackmans backyard(i.e. poor/cheap neighbourhoods) leading to and fro from major(read all) cities...

Those market forces shouldn't be to blame for anything?!?

 ;) :D :D :-?

BatteriesNotIncluded wrote on Jul 24^th, 2008 at 5:13pm:

as for peak oil: we knew it was going to happen...plus

The enlightened mind knew that it was going to happen. Then there are those who chose to remain blind; and then there were the lazy and the lemmings who believed and were led away by the blind.