Creating a better democracy - some initial thoughts...

Is it really necessary, in a country with a population the size of Australia, to have three levels of government?  

Historically, the notion made a lot of sense.  The colonies/states were fiercely independent and struggling to find a balance of power that would allow for a federation at all.  It almost didn't happen.  Over 100 years later, Australia is a very different place, much more aware of the things that both unite and divide us.  Why should we be constrained by the priorities and concerns of long ago?  Why can't we have a discussion about the type of government that will suit modern Australia.

I'm certainly not proposing to throw the whole constitution out the window.  It has served us well.  That doesn't mean that it can't be improved.

Consider this alternative model:

1. A Federal government responsible for matters of national importance, including taxation, fiscal management, defence, national infrastructure, telecommunications, environmental matters, etc.
2. Regional governments responsible for service delivery in areas such as health, education, housing, community facilities and services, etc.

The idea is not so radical - that's kind of what we've got now, but in practice, it there is much duplication and unnecessary waste.  So let's clean it up with what we've learnt over the last 100+ years.

Obviously local governments are currently necessary - it would be impossible for a centralised state government to provide local services like garbage collection and town planning across the entire state, but regional governments on the other hand could provide the same services as local governments currently do.  This restructure could also serve to improve our democracy as each Region would elect representatives for the Federal government and it would be clear that the job of those representatives was to represent the interests of their regions on a national level.

Again, this idea is hardly radical, it's pretty much what we've got at present.  A problem with the current system is that people don't identify as members of their electorates - they identify as members of their state, socio-economic group, generation, etc.  They should elect members of parliament who represent their electorates, but they don't because their electorate is not an entity they can identify with, it is merely a geographical boundary which defines them once every 3-4 years.  By changing this focus, we could have the opportunity to develop real communities, of local people, working together for a common goal.

Without that sense of community, we struggle.  In order to engender that sense of community, we need to empower the Regional governments with a large degree of control over their own destinies.  To my mind, we do so by allowing each Region to have charge of their hospitals, schools, aged care facilities, transport, etc. so that decisions about how those communities are run are made by the communities themselves.  This addresses some of the problems with current State governments making centralised decisions for widely disparate regional areas. 

How would this work in practice?  Take, for example, education.  The Federal government could produce a national curriculum, but it would be up to the Regional governments to implement that.  Each Region would decide where the schools were placed, how to allocate resources, what teachers to hire, what funding priority to attach to sports, arts, technical education, etc.  Regular meetings of interested parties could be held to allow the community to participate fully in the education of their children. This is hardly possible on a national or state level, because the interested participants simply either live too far apart, or have so little in common to make consensus next to impossible.

We need to eliminate the multiple strands of taxation and replace them instead with one single tax.  The Federal government should administer and collection this tax, which is distributed to the Regions by head of population.  There should still be some provision for additional funds to be provided on the basis of need, hence why Regions should elect strong representatives who can put their case to the Federal parliament.   Safeguards should be put in place to protect minority groups and to ensure against stronger Regions 'ganging-up' on weaker ones (though that is also the role of the Senate).

At present, our federal government collects the great majority of taxation revenue, and then decides when and how to divide that up amongst the states, who are left with the difficult task of trying to maintain hospitals, schools, etc. with ever slimmer pieces of the financial pie.  Reviewing the taxation system and revising the constitution to provide a clear statement of responsibilities should be a priority.

Then again, after having another look myself at s.51 of the Constitution, it seems to me that the areas of responsibility are already well established, but the priority we attach to each area is not.  Maybe this is the real problem?  There is no apparent link between taxation, federal and state governments and the services they are meant to provide - they aren't working together for a common goal, they are competing.   

It all then comes back to the fact that our federal representatives aren't representing the needs or desires of their constituents, they are representing an ideology, voting along party lines.  In that case then, rethinking our electoral laws and our levels of government is essential.  Maybe we don't actually vote for our federal government separately, each Region elects representative(s) who can best promote that region's priorities.  That was always the way that it was meant to work - so what went wrong? 

Obviously this is a very broad outline of a very complex discussion - and I've raised more questions in my own mind that I have been able to answer.  At the heart of it though I am advocating improving our democracy by improving our sense of community, improving participation in our democracy, removing multiple layers of taxation and reviewing/streamlining the areas of priority/responsibility of each level of government.

At the heart of it, I suppose what I'm really saying is that our democracy could be improved by:

1. Combining State and Local governments and replacing them with Regional governments; and
2. Improving cooperation between the various levels of government so that they are working together, instead of competing against each other. 

What kind of Australia do you want to live in?

It occurs to me that I can go on and on about current events, but in order to ascribe any particular meaning to them, I must first examine my personal philosophy.

I really, really hate it when public discourse gets derailed by accusations of who is left/right, who is this or who is that.  I hate labels, and I don't subscribe to them.  I think that they limit discussion and an objective view of all the issues at play.  I want the logic of my argument to speak for itself and not to be distilled into meaningless placards.

That said, I think you could probably broadly say that I fall mostly to the left (it would be impossible for me to have such radical reform ideas and still be considered a conservative).  On the other hand, I place a high regard in the lessons that can be learnt from the history of our political system. 

I think we take too much for granted - I think we are limited by a lack of imagination, by an assumption that we can't change the things that need to be changed.  I don't believe that.  We can change anything we set our minds to - it is our right, and responsibility, as citizens, to shape the society in which we live.   

So the point of this post is to ask the question - if you could completely redesign the country, what would it look like?

For me, the list is a very long one, but it starts like this:

1. Revise the constitution to provide for two levels of government, Federal and Regional.  The regional governments would have powers somewhere in between our current State and Local governments.  The Federal government would be solely responsible for taxation, and funds would be allocated to the Regional governments by head of population.  Regional governments would oversee service delivery.
2. Revise the taxation system to provide for one single method of taxation, probably transaction or consumption based, with no deductions or loopholes. As soon as you introduce deductions then you introduce a way for clever people and companies to beat the system, and a way for corruption to flourish.  So no deductions = no loopholes.  We all pay our fair share, and we all share equally. 
3. A debate about what we want our government to achieve.  I believe that government should be involved in business, limited to the basic services that we require as a society to survive, that we should expect our government to provide to us from our taxation.  Such services would include electricity, water, roads/public transport, military/disaster relief, justice/police, education, banking/fiscal management and environmental protection. The free market can rule in any other arena, just not in the ones that we, as a society, consider essential to our survival.
4. A bill of rights. 

I guess to a free-market capitalist, some of these ideas will seem positively socialist.  Personally I see them as more in the vein of true democracy.  We have something we like to call a democracy, but it is a very poor facsimile thereof.  Why shouldn't we have a discussion about what democracy means to us?  Why shouldn't we explore and examine new ideas, perhaps even, radical ideas?  Are we really so sure we're on the right path?

I am under no illusion that any of these things can happen overnight.  On the contrary, I honestly believe that changes of this magnitude will take generations - but we at least need to start the discussion.  

I hope over coming months and years to expand upon these ideas and generate complete vision of the Australia I want to live in, and I hope, if nothing else, to generate debate.

And I ask again - where is our empathy?

Anti-homeless studs.

Apparently these are outside a block of flats in Southwark Bridge Road, London.

The photo was originally captured by Andrew Horton of Surrey and has been shared widely on Twitter.

What kind of warped mind thought this up?

How on earth did anyone think that this was acceptable?

Simply appalling.
   


Further reading: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/07/anti-homeless-studs-london-block-uproar

Australia's youth and the Federal budget

The 2014 Federal budget was appalling in a lot of ways - but the one that particularly sticks out is the especially mean-spirited treatment of Australia's youth.

The goal appears to be getting young people into work or further education.  In itself, that is an admirable goal, but the methods of achieving this have absolutely no hope in hell of making a difference.  Well, that's not exactly true - they will make a difference, but there is very little hope that this will be a positive one.

Let's start with the deregulation of university fees. There are two main issues here:

1. Creating a tiered system of tertiary education not based upon intelligence, skill or future potential, but upon how much one is willing (or able) to pay; 
2. The devaluation of education for education's sake.  The decision to go to university must be a career choice, and we expect that 17-18 year olds have enough self-knowledge to be able to commit to spending tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars on a degree that will satisfy their future career aspirations (because they'll be paying for it for a very long time). 

As a young person with no exact idea of what I want to do with my life, I might perhaps wish to spend a few years working before I commit to accruing such a large debt.   That's would be all well and good if the youth unemployment rate wasn't around 13% (much higher in some areas).  That's not to mention that there are very few jobs that one can get these days that don't require some experience, or some post-secondary study.  And let's not forget that anyone under 30 won't qualify for unemployment benefits for the first six months. 

So what is a young person to do?  If they can't get a job then they will have to study.  Universities and other tertiary education campuses become dumping grounds for students who have no inclination towards higher education, and no desire to be there.  It looks good politically though because it keeps them off the unemployment statistics. 

Then we have to consider the huge debts that we are forcing our young people to incur that will need to be paid back, with close to commercial rates of interest.  The young people of Australia already have very little hope of ever being able to afford a home, and their future education debts combined with house prices and cost of living simply push this slim hope into the impossible.

We are essentially forcing our young people to supplement our taxation revenues into the foreseeable future - to become indentured servants.  We are offering them very little in terms of incentive - just the slim hope that they might be able to find a job after they finish studying - no guarantees though, and they'll still have to wait six months to access the dole if they can't find a job. 

Our universities should be places of higher education for those who are so inclined.  We should stop requiring higher education for roles that can and should be learnt 'on the job'.  We should tackle the problem of youth unemployment so that the kids who want a job won't be forced into study, won't be forced to incur those debts.  At the very least, if we are going to force them into higher education, we should make every attempt to limit the costs of that education.

Is this really the Australia that we want to live in?  Is this really what we want for our children?

The value of capitalism (or not...)

Why do we accept that some roles within our society are inherently more valuable than others, and why aren't we asking ourselves what we value, and why we value it?

There has been some recent dispute about executive salaries, and why the top end of town apparently deserve to earn mega bucks whilst the great majority struggle along on minimum or average wage.

The dispute has so far seemed to come down to the dollar value, in the sense that we have been acclimatised to believe that our contributions to our society are not sufficiently worthy unless and until we are making money.  My premise is that the only jobs which allow us entry to the higher echelons are those that have a profit motive. 

Surely we have it wrong... Why do we accept that at CEO should earn a huge salary and at the same time accept that a teacher should earn only a small proportion of that.  Surely the education of the next generation is something we should value more highly than the garnering of more wealth.

What about a nurse, a nursing home worker or even a doctor - we're all going to get old and/or sick one day - so why do we seemingly accept that the value that those workers could give to our lives, or our wellbeing, is worth less than those higher up the capitalist ladder?

How did we get it so mixed up?  How did we actually come to believe that our CEOs were worth more to our society than our teachers, our nurses or anybody that actually makes a difference in our lives?  Because apparently we did make that decision, or why else would we so readily accept that these huge executive salaries are justifiable.

The central draw of capitalism is the idea that we all have the chance to succeed, that one day, if we work long and hard enough, if we really try, we too might climb higher up the ladder.  That might be true, but one of the only ways to the top is to be engaged in a profession which has money at its core.  Are we really chasing the right dream?

The system, as it currently stands, assumes some heirachy of value, of worth.  It does so in two ways:

1. Within companies and businesses: so that those higher up the ladder are paid more, for their experience and skill (i.e. for their ability to make money, or manage others to make money)*; and
2. Across society as a whole: by categorising some jobs as having a higher value (salary). 

Why don't we value all contributions to our society?  Why do we accept that some of us who choose to contribute to society outside the quest for profit are worth less to our fellow humans than someone who exploits us for profit?  Why aren't we questioning what is really of value to us as a community?  Why do we blindly accept that the pursuit of profit is more valuable to us as a society than the people who contribute to our wellbeing?

I'm starting to sound like a socialist - but that's not what I'm advocating.  I am simply wondering why we blindly accept the status quo, why we don't ask why it is the way it is, why we don't value all contributions which allow our society to function, why we don't question that profit is the driving force in our society?

* Relative value within capitalist organisations is not addressed in this post, which instead focuses on relative value across our society.

Infertility and acceptance

This is one of those personal topics that I tried to keep separate - I'm not exactly sure why though...

I am an infertile woman, I am married to an infertile man.  Neither of us has been told that there is absolutely no hope, neither of us have been told that we should just give up - the chances are immesurably slim (when adding both our problems together), but the doctors try to keep our hopes up and refuse to tell us that it's not possible...

Infertility is a curse - a huge, horrible curse that lies across our sex-life, our marriage, and our happiness.  We've been coping with it a long time now, and we've actually become quite adept at managing our expectations, but the reality remains that it's just not going to happen for us, save for a miracle (and I don't really believe in miracles, despite how hard I try).

I spent a lot of time tonight commenting on an article at The Guardian. It was an amazing article, and well worth a read. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/06/i-know-the-pain-of-infertility-and-talking-about-it-helps.  We need to talk about infertility, we need to appreciate that there are stages of infertility, that there are stages of acceptance.

For those suffering through infertility - you need to know that it's not your fault, you need to know that you are worthy, you need to know that you're not being punished.  I spent so long thinking that I was being punished, that if I could just be good enough, worthy enough, I would be rewarded with what I really wanted.

It's not about worth - other than the self-worth you apply to yourself.  Your worth is not measured by how fertile you are.  I have a lot to offer this world, but I did once think that I could only measure that worth by my fertility, by how much my potenital children could learn from me.  I am so much more than that - I can be so much more than that.

I absolutely want to declare at this point that I have experienced very nasty, horrible thoughts towards those more fertile that I am. It was very hard not to - because I assumed that I was less worthy, because if I had been worthy enough, if I had been 'mother-material' then it would have happened for me too.

It just doesn't work like that, does it? We all have our burdens to bear. My burden has been infertility, perhaps a greater burden would have been to be able to get pregnant, only to realise that I wasn't, or couldn't be, the parent my child needed me to be. More than feeling unworthy in myself, I'm not sure I could have handled the realisation that I wasn't enough for my child, for the one person in the world I was charged with protecting. Surely that would have been the harder task...

I'm still not completley happy being childless, but I have come to appreicate that you can't always get what you want - and there is value in that lesson too. 

Drones and Summary Execution

How is it possible - in any sense of the imagination, that our society could believe that drone strikes are either necessary, required, or in any way justified?

It's 6 June today.  6 June 1944, D-Day, 70 years ago.  How on earth could we ever tell those men who fought for our freedom that we value their sacrifice so lightly that we have retained absolutely no concept of the rule of law?

I'm pretty sure that those men would have been similarly appalled at the threat to our way of life (to the extent it can be said to exist). The fact that we have forgotten what they fought for, the fact that we seemingly no longer value the right to a trial, evidence, and conviction prior to punishment speaks absolute volumes.

Yes, I too am concerned about being blown up in my neighbourhood market - but I am not so concerned that I am willing to throw away thousands of years of logic and due process on a whim. That right is what our forefathers fought for.

There is absolutely no justification for drone strikes - none.  The fact that any government of ours should support them is appalling - and scary.  I honestly, literally, shook in my boots earlier today when I finally realised what crimes were being committed in my name.

If you break the law, if you plot against the government, if you commit a crime - you should be charged, come before a jury of your peers, and, if found guilty, be sentenced.  There is absolutely no justification for summary punishment - the entire idea goes against everything we should believe in, everything our forefathers fought for.

Further reading: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/05/two-australians-were-killed-by-us-drones-of-course-thats-our-business

Wider aim...

I have, to date, tried to keep this blog to my political musing.  I thought that my purpose was better served by separating the various parts of my psyche and sharing my thoughts only on discrete issues.  The result, however, has been for me to fail to convey any cohesive sense of who I am, or what influences my thought processes.

And so, this post marks the end of that demarcation. It also serves to demarcate the end of my strict reliance on proof.  It's a blog - it's my opinion.  Disagree if you will - I welcome that, but as long as my original thoughts are based in logic and I know that I can support them - then challenge away!  Fight me - I welcome that, I encourage that - I want to convince you, and I want you to convince me (I'm under no illusion that I'm right - I want to be proved wrong)...

Here we go!