[DG]
Albert's reasoning (see his posting) makes a lot of sense. Why do half
a
job when there's a prospect of doing the whole job? I know the
Australian
Democrats have a policy favouring PR and another policy (buried in the
fine
print but not pressed by their parliamentary wing) favouring
citizen-initiated referenda. I believe a move towards PR will generally
strengthen the voice of the people but it's still representative
democray
which means government OF the people BY the politicians FOR their power
brokers and ultimately their corporate sponsors. To be more democratic
it
needs to be backed up by a great many more opportunities for binding
referenda on key issues (e.g. sale of public assets, regressive tax
packages
etc) instead of spurious "mandate" claims. To save cost it might even
be
possible to run referenda using a statistical smapling procedure, with a
fullscale refereendum if the sampling doesn't lead to a result at least,
say, 60% either way.
[AL]
Actually I think that PR, with or without Citizen-Initiated-Referenda
(CIR)
does far less than half the job - e.g. such systems exist in some
European
countries that have essentially the same social system as Australia and
the
same problems - as you say, they are "representative democracies" even
those
with CIR, with all that implies.
My view is simply that the two party state in Australia has reached a
point
of absurdity where a popular movement could force a significant change
in
the electoral system by introducing full PR and thereby give people a
real
sense of empowerment - that would in turn lead to opening up a higher
level
of political debate in Australia than exists at present.
[DG]
In parliamentary terms there are probably limited opportunities for
raising
the PR question, though if the corporate business parties in NSW move
further on the Upper House that's a golden opportunity to make a fight
of
it. However, there are many opportunities to push referenda even
without
constitutional amendment -- e.g. a challenge to Howard to put items like
his
tax package (aimed against the lower-income groups which have expanded
considerably in sizeas a result of LabLib policies over the past 20
years or
so) to the people or otherwise the Senate won't pass it. It seems that
politicians who shirk this kind of measure disrespect the people.
[AL] Yes, both a referendum to raise the quotas for the upper house (and
any move to coerce people to vote in favor of candidates they want to
vote against), could be golden
opportunities (in NSW).
I doubt that demands for a referendum on the GST would be a similar
golden
opportunity. It would fit more into taking sides with the ALP against
the Coalition
on an issue which is really a quite artificial policy difference between
them of
no direct interest to people opposed to both.
The 1998 Commonwealth election was a "golden opportunity", which we
missed, though
the aftermath could be important if we get our act together.
To me the next national "golden opportunity" is the republic referendum.
Still waiting
for any responses to the subject thread "Vote No
http://www.neither.org/vote_no/confound.htm "
and my article at that link.
