Australian Politics Forum
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl
General Discussion >> General Board >> Direct democracy in Australia
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1175406277

Message started by AUShole on Apr 1st, 2007 at 3:44pm

Title: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by AUShole on Apr 1st, 2007 at 3:44pm
Direct democracy is a system where decisions that are reserved for parliament are handed to the people (same concept as a referendum).

Should Australia prepare for a move away from the present two party Westminster-based system, and toward a direct democracy?

Votes would be cast via the internet. There are security issues, but these are not insurmountable, and will probably be solved with technological advancement in the next decade. Estonia recently held elections with votes cast via the internet, so it should be possible in Australia.

There would still be a system of government, in the sense that Ministers would be appointed by the people, and then manage their portfolios in accordance with agreed outcomes.

My position is no... what do you think?

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Shithouse Rat on Apr 1st, 2007 at 11:49pm
Realistically, I don't think Direct Democracy is practical and it is too unpredictable for important national decisions.

I think it is quite likely that there will be an increase in "polling" as a way of determining the public mood on policy matters. This will be used as a guideline for decision making.

I'm very skeptical of electronic voting methods.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by freediver on Apr 5th, 2007 at 7:56am
Direct democracy in Australia

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1175406277

the need for political parties

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1173261822/0

Should preference voting be disabled

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1176974719

Republic discussion vs Monarchy (?)

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1174963616

A different Political System  ?

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1175233421

Liberals trying to gag voters..sneaky deceitful.

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1175730573

Rock Enrol

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1171784399

Politics Online

http://ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1176680937



I think that voting by delegable proxy would effectively achieve the same thing without the hassle. We had a discussion about it a while back but I can't seem to find it.

The idea is that MP's do not get equal votes, but rather the weight of their vote is directly proportional to the number of citizens who have delgated their proxy vote to them. Effectively you get a referendum on every single issue, except that you delegate someone to vote for you. To make it more similar to direct democracy, you allow people to change their vote at any time via electronic voting. You could create a dual system with two roles which lets people choose between voting on paper at an election of vote electronically (or at a council office or something like that).

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Shithouse Rat on Apr 6th, 2007 at 2:37am
Interesting concept.

I haven't seen the previous discussion, so the following is probably ill-informed, but I'm still not sure it's practical. If you allow voters to change their delegation "at any time" you still have an administrative nightmare, and it will also upset the whole notion of representation if the proposal is to continue debating policy publicly in a parliament. It would become possible for the balance of power in the parliament to shift behind the scenes. The "majority" in numbers in the parliament could become the "minority" in votes, and you could potentially have members who have no votes at all! Why are they even there - or perhaps more to the point why are there not more of them there if this kind of redundancy is OK? Popular members could wield unusual power by harvesting votes from less popular colleagues, in fact there would be a whole new dynamic produced by members/delegates continually canvassing the votes of the public in order to increase their personal influence in the final vote. The complex chains of proxies and proxies of proxies, would soon leave many people with no idea where their votes are actually going. And all this would be changing minute by minute, and day by day. Admittedly there would probably be a significant number of people who would "set and forget", and plenty of others who would only change their arrangements occasionally, but the system would need to be designed to cater for a fully fluid situation because you could never determine in advance when a particular voter would decide to switch their delegate.

It would be possible to design a system with much less instability (ie. less responsive), but I think this would quickly begin to look very similar to a parliament elected by proportional representation, and informed but not bound by polling.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by sprintcyclist on Apr 6th, 2007 at 7:53am
It would be nice to have a direct referendum for their pay rises and "generous" allowances. :-)

Then again, pay peanuts and get monkeys. Then again, the ones we have now behave like chimpanzees !!

Would the public get swayed by short term emotional sides on current issues ?
We have to assume, pepole who make political decisions often make better political decisions than "amateurs".

Given the westminister system of govts faults, it is still a pretty good system.

That idea of having all independants and unanamous votes on all decisions woud probably not work , in the real world.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by freediver on Apr 7th, 2007 at 9:27am
If you allow voters to change their delegation "at any time" you still have an administrative nightmare

Not if it's done electronically. Most of the population would be likely to stick with one candidate for many years.

It would become possible for the balance of power in the parliament to shift behind the scenes.

In other words, it would be the people calling the shots, not the parties. A shift in the balance of power would cause far less disturbance because coalitions would probably only consist of a few people. You would probably get a few parliamentarians with 20% of the power each.

and you could potentially have members who have no votes at all!

Assuming you keep the same number of members, there would be many with very few votes, but not any with no votes at all.

Why are they even there - or perhaps more to the point why are there not more of them there if this kind of redundancy is OK?

I guess it would be reasonable to reduce the number of representatives. Then again, if they aren't costing much why not keep them. The system I proposed had their salary proportional to their vote.

The complex chains of proxies and proxies of proxies, would soon leave many people with no idea where their votes are actually going.

I think it would be a good idea to limit such chains to a length of two. That is, you can delegate your vote to one non-sitting agent, who must then delegate to a sitting member. Non-sitting agents could then enter parliament if they obtained more votes than the lowest sitting member.

This would change the dynamic - I think for the better.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by AUShole on Apr 7th, 2007 at 6:40pm

freediver wrote on Apr 5th, 2007 at 7:56am:
The idea is that MP's do not get equal votes, but rather the weight of their vote is directly proportional to the number of citizens who have delgated their proxy vote to them. Effectively you get a referendum on every single issue, except that you delegate someone to vote for you.


In a practical sense, does this really differ from non partisan government? Members are elected based on the number of votes of their constituency. Members then vote in accordance with their constituency's views. In aggregate, the final result is proportional to the wishes of the electorate.

This assumes that the appointed proxy can vote as they wish. Or does the proxy direct the appointee to vote in a certain way?

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by AUShole on Apr 7th, 2007 at 7:00pm

Shithouse Rat wrote on Apr 1st, 2007 at 11:49pm:
Realistically, I don't think Direct Democracy is practical and it is too unpredictable for important national decisions.


The main reason I dont like direct democracy is because it does not allow for social conscience. Minority issues become marginalised. So it would very quickly become a totalitarian form of government.


Quote:
I'm very skeptical of electronic voting methods.


There is no reason why a system of electronic voting could not be introduced immediately. The main  issue is to ensure that hackers do not hijack the overall system. To address this, each electorate would be set up independently (i.e. no direct links to any other voting server). Security checks would be performed at this lower level. The final results for each electorate would be sent via a secure method, and aggregated at a central point.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Shithouse Rat on Apr 8th, 2007 at 3:20am
Coming soon....

**The Parliament Show** on Foxtel

The "Big Four" (with their ~20% vote quotas each) are the hosts - the live studio audience are a bunch of folks making up the remaining 20% of the "cut" (a fixed number of seats in the studio).

The public at home (with their Foxtel-Interactive handsets) listen to the on-air discussion, frantically trying to figure out which of the folks on the TV might actually deliver their vote where they want it to go. The deadline for the vote draws near.

... outside the studio door are a second tier of shady "agents", wielding mobile phones, and collecting votes via blog adverts and talk-back radio, in the purported hope of getting a seat in the studio audience, but meanwhile passing "their" votes along in blocs behind the scenes, potentially changing the balance of power after the on-air negotiations and agreements have been made, but before the final votes are cast.

...the votes are cast, and BINGO! - as the numbers appear on the screen, the studio audience gasps - the new Anti-terrorism Bill is defeated!

...but wait, news just in...a BOMB has just exploded at the HQ of the Australian occupation force in West Papua, killing three conscripts...

...a new vote is called for...one of the "Big Four" (who once played Madge on Neigbours) is suddenly demoted and asked to swap seats with a red-faced member of the studio audience (a pig shooter), while other studio members are escorted out and new ones enter the studio to take their seats.

A new quickly revised Anti-Terrorism Bill is presented (now including the death penalty) ... and a vote is called... this time, as the result flashes onto the screen, the audience cheers. The Bill is passed!

Nevertheless, despite the dramatic events of the day, the live Cricket from New Zealand still beats The Parliament Show in the ratings. Foxtel executives scratch their chins and ask themselves the age-old questions - "Why is the Australian voting public so apathetic?", "How can we encourage greater participation?", and "Dammit, how can we raise our advertising revenue?".



That's the dynamic I see emerging under the proposed system. You wouldn't need a large number of active "fiddlers" to create a volatile effect.

I just do not think a "change your vote at any time" system is practical. Not because it is not technically possible to count the votes, but because it makes a nonsense of any kind of representation which is intended to exist. Representation creates the separation which filters out emotion and passion and enables considered decision making. It also encourages professionalism in politics which is desirable when important policy decisions are being negotiated. Professional representation also reduces the likelihood of mob tyranny.

The practicality of the TV Parliament system could be vastly improved if Foxtel sent out a list of Bills pending for the coming month (along with their program guide), and people were only able to change their vote once a week (say). This however would essentially destroy the true "proxy" nature of the system.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Shithouse Rat on Apr 8th, 2007 at 3:21am
AUShole, a booth-based electronic voting system would be very expensive to implement, mainly because the equipment and software would inevitably be upgraded for every election. Instead of kind community minded folks handing out voting forms, there would be creepy geeks checking security - no thanks. And the other thing about electronic security, is that if somebody has the necessary keys there is no security at all - and no way of knowing that the security has been compromised. It's not necessary to hijack the whole system, just tweak a few critical things here and there - enough to deliver a plausible 50%+something when it counts. The result in the US Presidential Election in 2004 could have been altered by changing only a very few outcomes in a tiny number of critical places. Online voting would be much less expensive to maintain, but less secure. Security is probably less of an issue in the Direct Voting systems we've been discussing in this thread, because the fluidity of the voting would make it more difficult to rigg.

I think we will probably be voting electronically sometime soon, but I don't think it's a good idea.



The system I proposed had their salary proportional to their vote.

freediver, the mighty dollar as a motivator again! For a Christian you certainly place a lot of faith in materialism. I'd have thought less energy spent trying to determine the value of a pushpin would mean less energy expended trying to push a camel through the eye of a needle!   :)

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by freediver on Apr 8th, 2007 at 4:59am
In a practical sense, does this really differ from non partisan government? Members are elected based on the number of votes of their constituency. Members then vote in accordance with their constituency's views. In aggregate, the final result is proportional to the wishes of the electorate.

Yes, there is a huge difference. For starters, under a system with multiple single member electorates, you can easily get a group coming to power with the support of less than half the population. For example, you could theoretically gain a house majority with just over half the votes from just over half the electorates - ie one quarter of the votes. Furthermore, only having single member electorates significanlty reduces the range of views that can be represented in parliament.

Proportional representation would be sort of half way between our current system and the delegable proxy system I described.

This assumes that the appointed proxy can vote as they wish. Or does the proxy direct the appointee to vote in a certain way?

The appointee can vote as they wish, as they are representing many people. Hope I understood this question properly.

The main reason I dont like direct democracy is because it does not allow for social conscience. Minority issues become marginalised. So it would very quickly become a totalitarian form of government.

How so? As far as I can tell, this only occurs to the extent that democracy does not allow for social conscience.

The public at home (with their Foxtel-Interactive handsets) listen to the on-air discussion, frantically trying to figure out which of the folks on the TV might actually deliver their vote where they want it to go.

Political parties currently make their views known well ahead of important votes. This would be even more true under a delegable proxy system. You would not vote for someone who is unpredictable. Parties currently have to try for broad support, which leads to ambiguity in their positions. Under a delegable proxy system people would votes for candidates with very speicific positions that match their views, rather than broad sweeping generalisations.

Not because it is not technically possible to count the votes, but because it makes a nonsense of any kind of representation which is intended to exist.

Intended by whom?

Representation creates the separation which filters out emotion and passion and enables considered decision making.

No it doesn't. It disconnects people from the voting system in parliament and leads them to vote based on emotional response and rules of thumb come election time.

It also encourages professionalism in politics which is desirable when important policy decisions are being negotiated. Professional representation also reduces the likelihood of mob tyranny.

A delegable proxy system would not encourage professionalism to any lesser extent.

For a Christian you certainly place a lot of faith in materialism.

What makes you think I am a Christian?

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by AUShole on Apr 8th, 2007 at 11:02am

Quote:
Yes, there is a huge difference. For starters, under a system with multiple single member electorates, you can easily get a group coming to power with the support of less than half the population. For example, you could theoretically gain a house majority with just over half the votes from just over half the electorates - ie one quarter of the votes. Furthermore, only having single member electorates significanlty reduces the range of views that can be represented in parliament.


That pretty much describes the present election method in Australia.

My question was what the real difference was between non partisan parliament (i.e. of independents) who are elected by proportional voting. That means each member must be elected by the majority.


Quote:
How so? As far as I can tell, this only occurs to the extent that democracy does not allow for social conscience.


I would have thought that minorities are only supported where a group of members (i.e. in a party) have a policy to do so. With direct voting, would the current electorate allow immigration from an Islamic country? Support the arts? Increase funding to aboriginal causes? I wouldn't think so.


Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by AUShole on Apr 8th, 2007 at 11:11am

Shithouse Rat wrote on Apr 8th, 2007 at 3:21am:
AUShole, a booth-based electronic voting system would be very expensive to implement, mainly because the equipment and software would inevitably be upgraded for every election. Instead of kind community minded folks handing out voting forms, there would be creepy geeks checking security - no thanks. And the other thing about electronic security, is that if somebody has the necessary keys there is no security at all - and no way of knowing that the security has been compromised. It's not necessary to hijack the whole system, just tweak a few critical things here and there - enough to deliver a plausible 50%+something when it counts. The result in the US Presidential Election in 2004 could have been altered by changing only a very few outcomes in a tiny number of critical places. Online voting would be much less expensive to maintain, but less secure. Security is probably less of an issue in the Direct Voting systems we've been discussing in this thread, because the fluidity of the voting would make it more difficult to rigg.

I think we will probably be voting electronically sometime soon, but I don't think it's a good idea.


India has used mechanical voting for a number of years now, with very few problems.

I dont think the booths would be that expensive, it would just be a large metal box with some buttons on it, almost future proof (consider that many ATMs are well over 20 years old). Software costs nothing to replace. Besides, the longer term proposition would be using the internet.

Security? Like there is any of that in the system Australia currently employs. You just get asked your name and address. No ID required, unless you are absentee voting (in a different electorate).

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by freediver on Apr 9th, 2007 at 12:31am
My question was what the real difference was between non partisan parliament (i.e. of independents) who are elected by proportional voting. That means each member must be elected by the majority.

I'm still not sure what you are getting at. For starters, proportioanl representation does not avoid parties. Under the systems currently used for PR elections it almost necessitates political parties. Furthermore it does not require each to be elected by a majority. For example, under our senate system there are six senators elected for a state each round so you only need one seventh of the vote after preference distribution to get elected.

I guess you could abolish parties and make each candidate stand alone. Supposing you did have true independents, it would make the results unpredictable for the general public. This may not be so bad for the senate as it is more a house of review. However, you would probably want to reduce senate terms.

I would have thought that minorities are only supported where a group of members (i.e. in a party) have a policy to do so. With direct voting, would the current electorate allow immigration from an Islamic country? Support the arts? Increase funding to aboriginal causes? I wouldn't think so.

Both systems are ultimately subject to the will of the people. There is no reason to think that a specific outcome is more likely under one system or the other. The only thing you can be certain is that direct democracy would make the outcome reflect the will of the people far more accurately.

Many people tend to think that separating the general public from the decision making process is a good thing. This is wrong as it relies on the assumption of some kind of 'benign dictatorship,' ie that the more freedom you give a politician to circumvent the will of the people the better the outcome. What you really end up with is corruption and power mongering. Maybe once in a lifetime you get a politician who is so popular, altruistic and insightful that he can risk going against the will of the people in a way that benefits society, but most of the time you just get politicians trying to cling to power. The less they are beholden to the will of the people, the more able they are to take shortcuts to try to achieve this.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by AUShole on Apr 9th, 2007 at 2:17pm

freediver wrote on Apr 9th, 2007 at 12:31am:
I guess you could abolish parties and make each candidate stand alone. Supposing you did have true independents, it would make the results unpredictable for the general public. This may not be so bad for the senate as it is more a house of review. However, you would probably want to reduce senate terms.


That is what I meant by non partisan government. I agree with the problems you have highlighted, and such a system would only be effective in the senate. It is the reason why I think that political parties are the most effective form of government at this point in time.


Quote:
The only thing you can be certain is that direct democracy would make the outcome reflect the will of the people far more accurately.


Agree.


Quote:
Many people tend to think that separating the general public from the decision making process is a good thing.


I agree with the separation. Only because the public may not be fully informed to make a decision.


Quote:
This is wrong as it relies on the assumption of some kind of 'benign dictatorship,' ie that the more freedom you give a politician to circumvent the will of the people the better the outcome.


No, you end up with politicians who serve a term in office. They act in accordance with the principles they were elected upon. If they fail, you elect someone else.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by zoso on Apr 11th, 2007 at 4:13pm

freediver wrote on Apr 5th, 2007 at 7:56am:
The idea is that MP's do not get equal votes, but rather the weight of their vote is directly proportional to the number of citizens who have delgated their proxy vote to them.

Essentially, this is how the electoral system is supposed to work. The electoral borders are constantly shifted to maintain a roughly equal number of people in each electorate and so each representative is speaking for roughly the same proportion of the total public.


Quote:
Effectively you get a referendum on every single issue, except that you delegate someone to vote for you.

This is more or less the US electoral college system, and many people in America feel it is far from a referendum. Granted the electoral colleges are meant to represent a majority of states, not individuals, however the concept is the same. I fail to really see how one system of representatives is any more of a referendum than another system of representatives? Suppose the representative doesn't follow the line he is expected to?


Quote:
To make it more similar to direct democracy, you allow people to change their vote at any time via electronic voting. You could create a dual system with two roles which lets people choose between voting on paper at an election of vote electronically (or at a council office or something like that).

I like the idea of more electronic voting, provided it is on an open and transparent platform.

Personally I would just love for us to run a monthly election online, make voting a choice and then the first month that the government drops its majority in the polls they are out. Imagine the chaos and the endless campaigning, best of all, imagine the government trying to push an unpopular policy ;D

Direct democracy is good, chaos and freedom for all :)

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by freediver on Apr 13th, 2007 at 3:32am
I have updated (pretty much replaced) the main article on electoral reform. Let me know what you think:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/electoral-reform/electoral-reform.html

This is more or less the US electoral college system, and many people in America feel it is far from a referendum.

The US system of 'propositions' is like this, however the rest of their political system is not. It is based on single member electorates so has the same problem that MP's do not really speak on behalf of all of their electorate, just the ones who voted for them (which can be a minorty under the US's voting system)

Granted the electoral colleges are meant to represent a majority of states, not individuals, however the concept is the same.

No, that system is designed to prevent the public from having a direct say in who is elected president and is even further removed from the actual issues the president votes on. The US founding fathers deliberately tried to avoid democracy because they feared the will of the people.

I fail to really see how one system of representatives is any more of a referendum than another system of representatives?

1) It is not based on single member electorates.

2) It is not based on fixed terms in parliament.

3) MP's are only voting on behalf of those citizens who actually support them.

It would be possible for citizens to adjust their proxy prior to a vote in parliament so that the outcome of the vote was effectively a referendum. They could then change their proxy vote in time for the next big issue to be voted on. Rather than voting for a single person and having to 'take the good with the bad' in terms of how that person votes in parliament, citizens can change their proxy at any time if necessary on the odd occasion that their usually preferred candidate does not intend to vote how they want them to.

Suppose the representative doesn't follow the line he is expected to?

That is always a risk, but there would be plenty of MP's available to delegate proxies to, so that MP's career would be very short lived. Unlike our current system where MP's can make up for one unpopular policy with lots of PR and other more popular policies by the time the next election comes, such an MP would simply lose support.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Shithouse Rat on Apr 14th, 2007 at 1:08am
Liked your article, freediver. Generally agree with your analysis of voting methods, but still have big problems with the practicality of "in time" Direct Democracy.

Some further questions:

On what basis does a delegate/proxy gain a seat in the parliament under the proposed DP model? Is it intended that the fringe members would enter and exit the parliament "in time" as their votes change?

Do you not believe that public opinion in general is fairly volatile on the kinds of issues which parliaments are usually required to address? How would the role and power of the media change in a political system which was responsive to changing opinion from moment to moment?

Do you envisage legislation changing from day to day as refinements, or corrections, or replacements, are made? How do people keep track of what is current law? Does a fluid legal framework even make sense - isn't it an oxymoron?

Is there no benefit in a coherent policy platform, as opposed to an ad hoc composite of popularisms? Does a coherent package not require some time to settle, and perhaps some acceptance of the occasional unpopular means to the greater good? What kind of politician will pursue the unpopular in the face of immediate retribution under DP - and what are they doing now under the current system?

I'd be interested to see an example of this method in practice.  :o

What makes you think I am a Christian?
Just a hunch. Feel free to deny it if you wish.  :)

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by freediver on Apr 14th, 2007 at 5:34am
On what basis does a delegate/proxy gain a seat in the parliament under the proposed DP model?

Looking at the QLD parliament, which has 89 seats, the 89 candidates with the highest number of supporters would gain a seat in parliament. To enter parliament, you need to gain more votes than the member with the least support (the '89th' member). There is a potential problem in that all votes must be directed to a sitting MP and that while you are not a sitting MP only individuals may direct their proxy vote to you, which you must then direct, as a group, to a sitting member. You get around this by including a provision whereby if you can show that the sum total of your proxy votes from individuals and from other candidates who are prepared to direct their group of proxies to you if you enter parliement is greater than the that of the 89'th member, then you may enter parliament to replace the 89th member.

If you were directing your group of proxies to say, the 87'th member, and by removing those proxies he would become the 89'th member and you would be able to replace him, you would simply redirect your votes temporarily. However, you would be unlikely to stay in parliament as you would be the 89th member and chances are that some other aspiring candidate would have more votes than you, but less than the old 89th candidate (prior to you bumping your 87th down to 89th by redirecting your group of proxies). That other aspiring candidate would then replace you. If the guy you used to direct your proxy votes to was still around he could then re-enter with the promise of your proxies, unless the other people directing proxies to him can no longer be bothered. So you would either end up back where you began, or you would bump your favourite MP from parliament and have to direct your proxies to some other MP.

This system would require, in addition to a candidate directing his group of proxies to a sitting MP, allowing him to assign other candidates to whom he would prefer to direct his proxies if they could enter parliament.

Alternatively, you could just not bother and require candidates to obtain enough proxies directly from individuals to enter parliament. This would create a slight barrier to entry, but would reduce the frequency with which minor MPs enter and leave parliament.

Do you not believe that public opinion in general is fairly volatile on the kinds of issues which parliaments are usually required to address?

No. People are not going to change their minds on individual issues any more than they cuirrently switch between parties. Probably less so, given that the party choice is often a tradeoff between issues. It would mean that the ruling coalition did not have free reign, because they would lose power if they tried to impliment an unpopular policy.

How would the role and power of the media change in a political system which was responsive to changing opinion from moment to moment?

I don't think the media would be any more or less powerful. I do think it would be more diverse, as the ruling coalition would not have so much control over the issues of the day.

Do you envisage legislation changing from day to day as refinements, or corrections, or replacements, are made?

No, it would take just as long for legislation to get through parliament, perhaps longer as you would have to mandate that the public be given reasonable time to alter their proxy votes. I would suggest at least three days from a bill hitting parliament or being modified to the vote on it. For most things it would be far longer given the tendency of polticians to argue back and forth.

Is there no benefit in a coherent policy platform, as opposed to an ad hoc composite of popularisms?

You would probably end up with that as the ruling coalition would form a policy platform. People would not rush out and change their vote regularly. Given 89 people trying to eek out a niche in the political landscape, chances are you could find one you could support for the long term. The political process could be speeded up, as once the ruling coalition had implimented their platform there would be no need for them in the public eye any more. The public might then switch the balance so some other coalition who wants to change some other area of law could come to power. However, implimenting changes takes time and the government does have a role of day to day managment. The public would come to fear to much rapid change, given the inevitable cosnequences, and vote for a stable coalition, provided it remained an effective manager.

You wouldn't get a situation where a coalition takes 10 years to impliment a core policy, which seem to be used these days to hold onto power.

Does a coherent package not require some time to settle, and perhaps some acceptance of the occasional unpopular means to the greater good?

If it is for the greater good, the majority will eventually support it.

I'd be interested to see an example of this method in practice.

So would I. I concede that it is would be an 'experiment.' I think many clubs and societies allow proxy votes which could end up operating in the same way, however most members would turn up and vote in person. There would also be some initial instability, until the public and the candidates got a feel for the system.

Title: Electoral changes in WA to cut imbalance
Post by freediver on Jun 29th, 2007 at 11:47am
I had no idea WA had such an undemocratic system. Does anyone know if it is just because they haven't adjusted boundaries in a long time?

http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/electoral-changes-in-wa-to-cut-imbalance/2007/06/28/1182624068695.html

A redistribution of Western Australia's electoral boundaries will remove the huge imbalance between metropolitan and country seats, Premier Alan Carpenter says.

The Electoral Commission on Friday will announce its electoral redistribution based on the government's 2005 "one vote, one value" legislation, giving MPs electorates with an average 21,000 voters.

Under WA's current electoral system, country votes are worth more than city votes.

Rural WA, with just a quarter of the state's population, has half the seats in the upper house and 40 per cent in the lower house.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by IQSRLOW on Jun 29th, 2007 at 12:08pm
Although achieving electoral equality, due to the lower south west city-centric nature of WA, this makes it easier for the ALP and the Greens to f*uck over the rural sector

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Abd on Nov 4th, 2007 at 1:44am

Shithouse Rat wrote on Apr 14th, 2007 at 1:08am:
On what basis does a delegate/proxy gain a seat in the parliament under the proposed DP model? Is it intended that the fringe members would enter and exit the parliament "in time" as their votes change?


Because I periodically search for "delegable proxy" I came across this discussion. DP has been independently invented in at least four or five places around the world over the last ten or twenty years. My own work goes back about twenty years, but I did not start publishing anything until roughly 2002 or so.

Most thinkers on the subject have proposed DP for electoral representational systems, but, as has been noted, it is largely untried for that, aside from the Demoex work in Sweden. I, too, thought of it first as a political device, but realized that this suffered from extreme difficulty in implementation, political institutions are ordinarily highly conservative, and the existing models are so thoroughly entrenched that even radical reformers tend to use them them when structuring their own movements. (That is, they set up oligarchical structures, openly top-down, or they set up electoral systems which suffer from the same problems as the status quo, just, generally, with different faces.)

To be brief, I realized that DP would have to come first in NGO, where peer participation was, from the beginning, desired, where consensus was sought and considered useful, and where some means of balancing out participation bias (the typical problem of direct democracy) was desired. I call these organizations Free Associations, hence my current work is with FA/DP democracy. However, the question here was about the possibility of governmental structures.

Warren Smith, better known as an analyst who found Range Voting to be close to an ideal election method, also invented what he called Asset Voting. Asset Voting could be considered a form of Single Transferable Vote where the transfer of votes is under the control of candidates receiving the votes. If a voter votes for one, that person may reassign the vote at will. In the original Asset Voting, voters could vote, for as many candidates as desired, a fraction of a vote, with the restriction that all the votes must add up to no more than a total of one full vote. Again, each candidate "owns" the "assets," i.e., the votes they received, until and unless they pass those votes on. Smith, inventing Asset Voting, was not aware of Delegable Proxy, but it's pretty easy to see that this is similar to a Delegable Proxy system, and, in fact, Delegable Proxy would be a great means for the candidates holding assets to coordinate the vote reassignments.

Further, Smith did not notice what happens if ballots allow write-ins. It becomes possible for voter to have an almost completely unrestricted field of who to vote for. What Asset does is to convert a secret ballot election, with anonymous voters, into an open election with a reduced set of "electors," who are public voters. Thus composing an assembly can become a deliberative process and as fully democratic as possible. The only restriction is the necessary one: it is impossible for large democracies -- absent some mechanism like Delegable Proxy -- to carry on deliberation in the same way as is known to work on a small scale. What Asset/Delegable Proxy can do is to reduce the size of a representative assembly to one which is manageable.

It should be understand that, at this point, this is not a fixed concept, so when someone asks "How would this work?" there is no single answer. In fact, it could work in many different ways, and, in particular, it would not come all at once, full-blown , as a direct democratic system. Rather, it would come in stages. Perhaps:

(1) Asset Voting replaces an STV system for some Assembly; while representation could be district-based, what becomes possible with Asset is state-wide representation (province-wide, jurisdiction-wide); this would come when it is considered valuable to have full participation in an Assembly from all groups. I think it likely that most seats in the Assembly would have defined districts, and that electors would tend to combine votes in such a way as to make this happen; however, the system is not so constrained, and this allows some "districts" to be state-wide.

(2) Because there is now a reduced set of public voters (the "electors') it becomes possible to implement direct voting. The "seats" really are representation for the purpose of deliberation, electors could vote their votes directly; but where an elector does not vote directly (and most would not, I'd predict), the holder of the seat votes. Each seat represents the same number of votes in an Asset Assembly, so, probably, direct votes would be reported as fractions of a full-seat vote.

The rest is details. What frequently happens when a system like this is proposed, which really does fundamentally restructure a democracy to make it far more fully participative, is that people will project upon it characteristics of existing political systems, whereas the Delegable Proxy concept  is really outside the box (and Asset is DP but with a secret ballot layer, and any voter who wants to become a public voter may do so, simply by registering as a "candidate" and voting for himself or herself). As such, we will probably have to see demonstrations outside of government before it happens inside.

For further info, see beyondpolitics DOT org.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by locutius on Aug 11th, 2008 at 10:39am

Sprintcyclist wrote on Apr 6th, 2007 at 7:53am:
It would be nice to have a direct referendum for their pay rises and "generous" allowances. :-)

We have to assume, pepole who make political decisions often make better political decisions than "amateurs".


This is something I have thought about since the ill fated, ill concieved and ill marketed Australia Card and the advent of ATM technology.

This is a concept that I think will not be implemented until there is a core change in the way we view represtative authority. The politicians do not want us to have the power of decision making. It diminishes their own power and prestige. It would also eliminate a lot of the grubby little deals they make behind the scenes.

The public through the use of a smart card ie Photo ID or license with a chip and PIN  could be given (x) number of weeks to vote on a particular issue, piece of legislation or a referendum. It would reduce the cost of holding referendums, elections etc. Could allow an immediate registration of a vote of no confidence in your elected member, or allow you to fill out a poll or questionaire, providing instant feed back. The link between the identity and decision of the card holder would have to be secure/secret. The system would only have to know that the card has only been used once for each decision or vote.

There would be a need to improve the education system so as to give people a greater knowlegde on how their political system works and their role within it. There used to be a subject called Citizenship Education taught in high school, that would be a start but I think such education needs to begin in primary school, possibly with certain limited voting rights that would have citizen involvement from a very young age. Therefore the potential for politically involved adults.

Who knows, it may even lead to the demise of those discusting institutions of cabinet/caucus where decisions and grubby deals are made in my name, but are secret. No place for this in a real democracy.

Title: Re: Direct democracy in Australia
Post by Exotic Cheese on Aug 11th, 2008 at 7:09pm
Here is when direct democracy will come into effect in Australia...

When Bechtel try to privatise the water and the greatest want in life is no longer a bigger television and a new ford/holden.

...I look forward to this day but don't expect it in the next decade or more.

Australian Politics Forum » Powered by YaBB 2.5.2!
YaBB Forum Software © 2000-2024. All Rights Reserved.