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Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic (Read 12964 times)
Auggie
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #45 - May 28th, 2017 at 10:56pm
 
Quote:
There you go with the old 'privatisation' concept - privatisation has been proven time and again NOT to deliver the services it is supposed to replace when run by government.

Your agenda is clear.... more 'privatisation' of everything, regardless of cost to the end user, who always pays for the extra layers of administration etc.

You've been around her long enough to realise and understand that privatisation is a failed policy that has rendered no real benefit to society as a whole - but only to the insiders who get in on it.  Everybody else pays more for the same service.


You're not understanding what I'm saying....

The private entities don't set prices - the government does. That's socialism at its finest. If the private companies don't charge at the specific price, they're punished.

I don't understand what the issue here is....
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #46 - May 28th, 2017 at 11:08pm
 
Auggie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:52pm:
Aussie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:48pm:
Quote:
He doesn't vote on behalf of an electorate. He votes on behalf of individual people who delegate their vote to him. He doesn't know what they all want. There could be a million of them. But if they don't like how he votes in parliament, they delegate their vote to someone else.

That's why it's called voting by delegable proxy.


Who is 'he' and how did he become 'he?'


I apologize for my gender bias when using the third-person pronoun. You know, in many European languages they use the 'he' pronoun when describing a group of people, even if there are women in the group. In fact, if there's one man in a group of 100 women, it is correct to use the masculine pronoun.

I know it's sexist.... and I apologize.


No need for you to apologise.  That post was not yours.  I was Effendi's. 

Effendi....who is 'he' and how did 'he' get to be 'he' in the first place?
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Auggie
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #47 - May 28th, 2017 at 11:12pm
 
Aussie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 11:08pm:
Auggie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:52pm:
Aussie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:48pm:
Quote:
He doesn't vote on behalf of an electorate. He votes on behalf of individual people who delegate their vote to him. He doesn't know what they all want. There could be a million of them. But if they don't like how he votes in parliament, they delegate their vote to someone else.

That's why it's called voting by delegable proxy.


Who is 'he' and how did he become 'he?'


I apologize for my gender bias when using the third-person pronoun. You know, in many European languages they use the 'he' pronoun when describing a group of people, even if there are women in the group. In fact, if there's one man in a group of 100 women, it is correct to use the masculine pronoun.

I know it's sexist.... and I apologize.


No need for you to apologise.  That post was not yours.  I was Effendi's. 

Effendi....who is 'he' and how did 'he' get to be 'he' in the first place?


Whoops. Haha. See Grendel, I don't even know what posts I wrote...
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #48 - May 28th, 2017 at 11:42pm
 
Auggie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:44pm:
Setanta wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:32pm:
Auggie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:25pm:
Setanta wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:12pm:
Poor Caesar Augustus, he wants the dictatorship and defacto dissolution of the senate that his uncle achieved by coup d'etat by crossing the Rubicon in 49bc, he just can't see it, or can he? Are you seeking a principate?



Setanta, you have no idea what you're talking about.


Ah, but that doesn't stop me from talking about it... A bit like you.


My goal isn't to implement a dictatorship; it's to improve our political system. I believe in Federalism, and because I believe in Federalism, I believe that the States should have input into the Commonwealth.

If you don't believe in Federalism, then you won't support this measure.


Like you want to give politicians carte blanche with extended periods of power and no redress for 5 years? Sounds like time limited dictatorship to me, what if they choose to extend their term? Let them do it and see how it works out? Seek redress later, if you can?

Your ideas, while good thought experiments, are not that good.
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #49 - May 29th, 2017 at 9:28am
 
Auggie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:56pm:
Quote:
There you go with the old 'privatisation' concept - privatisation has been proven time and again NOT to deliver the services it is supposed to replace when run by government.

Your agenda is clear.... more 'privatisation' of everything, regardless of cost to the end user, who always pays for the extra layers of administration etc.

You've been around her long enough to realise and understand that privatisation is a failed policy that has rendered no real benefit to society as a whole - but only to the insiders who get in on it.  Everybody else pays more for the same service.


You're not understanding what I'm saying....

The private entities don't set prices - the government does. That's socialism at its finest. If the private companies don't charge at the specific price, they're punished.

I don't understand what the issue here is....



No point in 'privatising' it then, is there...... so you are advocating that the extra costs involved in a host of superstructures of management, ceos, board members, directors, shareholders etc - be borne by the taxpayer through government spending, and these should all be paid out of the funds made available from the Treasury for the venture under discussion (healthcare, social security - you name it)?

Precisely the battle line currently drawn by the Libs - this seeking to transfer through their hold on government massive amounts of public money into the pockets of their mates, families and cronies.

It's called theft as a servant - for those who struggle with English.
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #50 - May 29th, 2017 at 11:37am
 
Auggie wrote on May 28th, 2017 at 10:48pm:
Quote:
He doesn't vote on behalf of an electorate. He votes on behalf of individual people who delegate their vote to him. He doesn't know what they all want. There could be a million of them. But if they don't like how he votes in parliament, they delegate their vote to someone else.

That's why it's called voting by delegable proxy.


The issue I have so far with this idea is that in any democracy, most voters are apathetic and don't have the time to commit to politics 24/7.

Those who do have the time and knowledge will ultimately be the ones to communicate with the proxy or elect the proxy, which results in a kind of oligarchy - similar to what we have now.

For e.g. if you had an electorate of 1 million people, what percentage of those people would actually be involved in the delegate? And whose to say that their say is considered? The delegate can't communicate with every person, so ultimately they're going to vote based on the information they're given, which is determined by a smaller group of people.

I think in theory it's good, but in practice it will produce the same result, if not worse. Having defined terms means that the member in question can act with a degree of independence and security without having the anxiety of losing her seat.

My view is that representative democracy is effective because we elect one person who is dedicated full-time to representing the electorate. Let's fact it, they need to do constituency work otherwise, they're not going to get elected in that electorate.


Anxiety about losing their seat is a good thing. It's what makes them represent the people. You can't have it both ways. You can't have apathetic voters who are too lazy to change their delegation and politicians who are too fearful of people changing their delegation. This will actually make politicians work harder to get people's attention and get engaged, because you can longer simply get a free ride on the back of a partisan institution.

If every single person is lazy and apathetic, the result would be identical to what we already have, where people just vote for the same party every election, state, federal and local. It could only improve on that. It will give people more options. If there are 80 members of parliament, there are 80 different competing platforms. People are far more likely to find someone who agrees with them on a range of issues.

It will improve it in several fundamental ways:
* It will give people more options to choose from when they vote.
* It will allow them to have a say, if they choose to, on every bill before parliament.
* It will force every single MP to work for every single vote, rather than just towing the party line. They will actually have to engage the public and convince them to vote for them personally.
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #51 - May 29th, 2017 at 4:32pm
 
Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 9:28am:
host of superstructures of management, ceos, board members, directors, shareholders etc - be borne by the taxpayer through government spending


No, the 'superstructure' of management etc. are not borne by the tax payer. Each company is private and individual and must be responsible for its own costs. If they want to participate in the insurance scheme, then the Government would stipulate that they have to offer a 'universal package' at a fixed price. Everything else: recruitment, administration, etc. would be under the guise of the private company. The Government would have costs mainly related to compliance and funding for the 'universal' package, but nothing else.

So, in short, no cost to the taxpayer. In fact, less cost to the taxpayer.

Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 9:28am:
Precisely the battle line currently drawn by the Libs - this seeking to transfer through their hold on government massive amounts of public money into the pockets of their mates, families and cronies.


Be careful not to conflate privatization and competition. These two things don't mean the same thing. What the Libs want to hand out the social security to ONE private company who will have a monopoly on it. What I'm proposing is to have competition within the sector, thereby encouraging the provision of better services.
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #52 - May 29th, 2017 at 4:36pm
 
freediver wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 11:37am:
Anxiety about losing their seat is a good thing. It's what makes them represent the people. You can't have it both ways. You can't have apathetic voters who are too lazy to change their delegation and politicians who are too fearful of people changing their delegation. This will actually make politicians work harder to get people's attention and get engaged, because you can longer simply get a free ride on the back of a partisan institution.

If every single person is lazy and apathetic, the result would be identical to what we already have, where people just vote for the same party every election, state, federal and local. It could only improve on that. It will give people more options. If there are 80 members of parliament, there are 80 different competing platforms. People are far more likely to find someone who agrees with them on a range of issues.

It will improve it in several fundamental ways:
* It will give people more options to choose from when they vote.
* It will allow them to have a say, if they choose to, on every bill before parliament.
* It will force every single MP to work for every single vote, rather than just towing the party line. They will actually have to engage the public and convince them to vote for them personally.


So, what about issues to do with recall of delegates? Can a person be elected as a delegate and then three months later be recalled? If so, wouldn't this cause more instability for the delegate?
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #53 - May 29th, 2017 at 7:16pm
 
You mean instability for the MP? Sure. Turf them out. Democracy is not for their benefit. They can have a nervous breakdown over it for all I care.

There are ways to handle it so it doesn't get rediculous - what I would call hysteresis - to prevent regular swapping out of MPs. Also, you could either rank preferences, or let your delegate pass on your vote on the way out, in the situation where your first preference is at risk of losing his seat.

Overall, it would be fairly stable. Something equivalent to the 80:20 rule will still apply. I would expect the most popular politicians to hold 10 to 20% of the vote each, and the 'weakest' half of the MPs to be squabbling over 5% of the vote between them. Coalitions would still form to get legislation through. The political parties would survive, but in a weakened state. People would still back the parties to the extent they provided stability, and a lazy option. My initial proposal is only for a Senate, so we would not have to worry about executive government (the adults in charge). What it would mean is that there is effectively a 'cheap' referendum on every single piece of legislation.
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #54 - May 29th, 2017 at 7:24pm
 
When will someone, anyone, tell me who 'he' is and how 'he' gets to be.....'he?'
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #55 - May 29th, 2017 at 8:07pm
 
freediver wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 7:16pm:
You mean instability for the MP? Sure. Turf them out. Democracy is not for their benefit. They can have a nervous breakdown over it for all I care.

There are ways to handle it so it doesn't get rediculous - what I would call hysteresis - to prevent regular swapping out of MPs. Also, you could either rank preferences, or let your delegate pass on your vote on the way out, in the situation where your first preference is at risk of losing his seat.

Overall, it would be fairly stable. Something equivalent to the 80:20 rule will still apply. I would expect the most popular politicians to hold 10 to 20% of the vote each, and the 'weakest' half of the MPs to be squabbling over 5% of the vote between them. Coalitions would still form to get legislation through. The political parties would survive, but in a weakened state. People would still back the parties to the extent they provided stability, and a lazy option. My initial proposal is only for a Senate, so we would not have to worry about executive government (the adults in charge). What it would mean is that there is effectively a 'cheap' referendum on every single piece of legislation.



My concern is that you can turf the bastards, but they will still get paid fat for life, so the more PMs we turf, the more it's going to cost us....

They should be obliged to hold that office for six years or more to qualify for the special PM treatment in 'retirement package'.
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #56 - May 30th, 2017 at 2:09pm
 
freediver wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 7:16pm:
They can have a nervous breakdown over it for all I care.


Well, that's not really what we want. We want MPs to be able to do their jobs properly, otherwise no one will want to be an MP.

freediver wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 7:16pm:
There are ways to handle it so it doesn't get rediculous - what I would call hysteresis - to prevent regular swapping out of MPs. Also, you could either rank preferences, or let your delegate pass on your vote on the way out, in the situation where your first preference is at risk of losing his seat.

Overall, it would be fairly stable. Something equivalent to the 80:20 rule will still apply. I would expect the most popular politicians to hold 10 to 20% of the vote each, and the 'weakest' half of the MPs to be squabbling over 5% of the vote between them. Coalitions would still form to get legislation through. The political parties would survive, but in a weakened state. People would still back the parties to the extent they provided stability, and a lazy option. My initial proposal is only for a Senate, so we would not have to worry about executive government (the adults in charge). What it would mean is that there is effectively a 'cheap' referendum on every single piece of legislation.


After thinking about this, I think you're on to something, and I'm willing to support it. If I may offer my own two-cents, I think the system could be beneficial in the following fashion:

1) the country would need to be divided into small electorates, thereby allowing for closeness to the elector. Say the Senate has 76 seats, then there would need to be 76 constituencies (of equal population - say, 100,000 approx.): this would ensure that each delegate's vote is equal. The number of senators could potentially be more in order to ensure 'closeness' to the electorate.

2) delegates would be in their position for a minimum time of six months; this would ensure at least some degree of stability for the delegate (one could increase to a year, possibly).

3) the delegate would his/her office so long as they are recalled - after the first six-month period. This is a kind of 'negative' power. Instead of having people go to polls every six months, it would be assumed that the delegate has the support of the electorate until there is a recall by the electors in that electorate - a process would have to be developed to facilitate this.

4) prescribe term limits as a stop-gap measure in case of abuse: no person can be a delegate for more than 6 years in his/her lifetime; or they can't serve more than 3 terms in a row (or a combination of either). This would ensure frequent rotation in office; although depending on the rules, existing delegates may be able to re-serve.
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The questions that remain in my mind are the following:

1) can the Senate (consisting of such delegates) propose laws to the Parliament; or do they only debate and vote on proposals by the Government? If the latter, then we should consider instituting MMP proportional representation in the House of Reps (as they do in NZ currently) to ensure that a diversity of ideas are considered in policy (due to a greater likelihood of coalition governments - not the Coalition).

2) does the electorate vote on the budget every year? In theory this is good, but the issue with this is that what the people want may not be what is fiscally responsible. Sometimes though choices have to made and people may not be willing to vote on those choices - this is one of the benefits of representative democracy: sometimes the Government has to think about running the country.

3) can the Senate (consisting of such delegates) amend the budget? Or do we retain the current rules where the Senate cannot amend appropriation and supply?

4) what about the State Governments? Do they get an input into Federal legislation, or do you advocate abolishing the States?
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #57 - May 30th, 2017 at 2:12pm
 
Grappler Truth Teller Feller wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 8:07pm:
My concern is that you can turf the bastards, but they will still get paid fat for life, so the more PMs we turf, the more it's going to cost us....

They should be obliged to hold that office for six years or more to qualify for the special PM treatment in 'retirement package'.


That's why any changes also need to take into consideration remuneration packages.

Interestingly, I learnt only recently that since 2004 Federal MPs no longer get a special pension: they instead get Superannuation like everyone else at 15.4% (although the percentage is higher).

I think this is a huge step in the right direction. Also, MPs are required to donate a portion of their salary every year to the political party (not only during their term of service but after they leave service as well).
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #58 - May 30th, 2017 at 2:14pm
 
Aussie wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 7:24pm:
When will someone, anyone, tell me who 'he' is and how 'he' gets to be.....'he?'


Nobody?
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Re: Constitutional Convention on OzPolitic
Reply #59 - May 30th, 2017 at 2:21pm
 
Aussie wrote on May 30th, 2017 at 2:14pm:
Aussie wrote on May 29th, 2017 at 7:24pm:
When will someone, anyone, tell me who 'he' is and how 'he' gets to be.....'he?'


Nobody?


I assume that it was just gender bias in using the Third-person pronoun. It's quicker to use He than to use He/She.
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