Australia

A New Federation, New Republic, a New Hope!

This page was initially based on proposals to rationalise Australia's State & Federal government bureaucracies for improved accountability, efficiency & effectiveness — building on a shorter article of mine from June 2016 (published here or as a pdf here).  It has been further developed to cover even more fundamental & comprehensive constitutional reforms, to rescue our failing Western democracies (with applicability to all nations).  It includes, amongst other things, additional proposals for:

• implementing a Bill of Rights (whilst ensuring courts do not override Parliament on issues of contention);

• improving defence & foreign policy by establishing a "Ministry for National Security" (with reference to an expanded discussion in a sub-page on war, which includes a solution for Israel-Palestine); 

and, most importantly,

• separating professional Government Executives (Ministers & PM) from the elected Parliament (ending the archaic "Westminster" system) — to be instead appointed and held strongly accountable to a broadly representative Senate (comprised of "multi-State Senators" from many political parties), who in turn could be held more tightly accountable to public opinion through continuous "real-time electoral representation".

A full summary of proposals is at the end of this page, and also here's a draft policy-platform & constitution for a political party that could help progress the refinement and implementation of these reforms.

A multi-issue referendum to protect everyone's rights

Australia has gone through a pseudo-referendum (expensive survey/plebiscite) on same-sex marriage (that unleashed intolerance from both sides), which supporters of the cause (the majority of the population) opposed because of its divisive nature, and a minority saw as a means of thwarting change.  We seem to have lost the plot!  A referendum should be a rallying call for a vision that unites the overwhelming majority of Australians, and regardless of its merits, same-sex marriage (SSM) is an issue focussed on minorities, which fails to achieve that.  Likewise, many other single-issue proposals (such as creating a "republic" or changing the flag) struggle to motivate enough people by themselves.

The SSM "survey" didn't even produce the "overwhelming" result in favour that was claimed, and if the Australian Bureau of Statistics is to retain any credibility it should acknowledge the huge statistical bias in the completed responses (that political decisions prevent them adjusting for) — which is revealed by a survey of poll responses & intentions part-way through the campaign (which itself could have inappropriately influenced subsequent votes) showing, "Among those who have already voted, 72% voted yes compared with 26% who voted no", but, "Among people who say they will not vote, 64% said they did not support same-sex marriage and just 13% said they did".  

These statistics could well give the "no" side a legitimate reason to question the validity of the final outcome, which, for a "survey", rather than a voting poll, is supposed to provide an estimate of overall community views. (Given the stronger yes vote in earlier returns, I correctly estimated the final % of those voting in favour would be 60-65%, which with a turnout of about 77% means the % of the total population supporting SSM may be only slightly above or even below 50%.)

I think the public should have boycotted the survey, rather than give it any semblance of legitimacy.  I find it repugnant that anyone's basic rights should be subjected to such a process.  I mean, whose rights will the masses vote on next?  The disabled, blacks, Jews?!  (However, this comment on the basic rights of couples is not to dismiss legitimate debate about matters like surrogacy and the rights of children to know their biological parents, or the option of having purely different nomenclature such as "union" for gay couples, with "marriage" reserved for a traditional man-woman partnership.)

Without constitutional protection of their freedoms, the public seem to behave like boiling frogs with their passive response to these and other NSW "police state" laws, such as allowing Police interrogation of 14 year-olds for two weeks without trial (whilst existing laws can still imprison 10-year old children – which is especially common if they're Aboriginal – even for minor offences like stealing food), along with further terror laws based on "thought crimes" (applied with prejudice against Muslims to back up the West's wars against Islam) that can extend sentences based only on a suspicion of intent – irrespective of original offence – and make it easier for police to "shoot to kill".  These attacks on civil liberties are compounded by warrantless searches & the removal of the right to silence, plus restrictions on public gatherings or the right to protest on Crown land (especially about Aboriginal deaths in custody, with false claims about Covid-19 transmission used as an excuse to "justify" heavy-handed restrictions, even while many other more-risky activities continued).

Then we really were taken for fools on 1 April 2022 – a 'dark day for democracy' – when despite widespread opposition from human/civil rights groups, the NSW Parliament rushed through "draconian" and potentially unconstitutional anti-protest laws in less than a week, giving the Government & Police the most vague & broad powers, whilst also  being selective (by allowing protests about some matters supported by the Opposition Labor Party, but not others), and leaving a constitutional court challenge of this "deeply anti democratic" legislation as the last line of defence for people's basic liberties.

The Federal Government clearly can't be relied on to protect basic civil rights either.    Besides trying to punish charities for anyone associated with them committing a minor transgression in a protest, Australian Government secrecy has become a global embarrassment due to its attacks on whistleblowers (especially through the double standards applied and the disgraceful court judgments jailing David McBride for 5 years for revealing war crimes by Australian forces in Afghanistan), along with the use of secret trials to prosecute & imprison people on the grounds of "national security", plus restrictions & attacks on journalists trying to report crimes & human-rights abuses, or even just politically-embarrassing matters (such as the Government's criminal bugging & exploitative abuse of Timor-Leste — a fine way to repay their sacrifice in WWII).

Despite support from judges and two thirds to 80% of voters for an anti-corruption body, the reluctance of the Liberal-National Government to tackle corruption was well demonstrated by its much-delayed and ultimately inadequate proposals (which even then were a result of pressure from judges and the Labor Opposition, after a federal Senate select committee provided recommendations in September 2017, which created policy pressures that may have led to Malcolm Turnbull being deposed as Prime Minister).

Yet the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) finally established by the Federal Labor Government still has inadequate protection for whistleblowers and is hobbled by public hearings being limited to "exceptional circumstances", so having commenced operation in July 2023 it had apparently done nothing after a year, despite having no shortage of issues to look into, and worse is itself corrupted by its lead Commissioner acting corruptly by blocking investigation of one of the worst examples of illegal government activity ("Robodebt") — because the NACC is not truly independent when its Commissioners are ultimately only appointed with the approval of the Government.

Meanwhile, having called for greater openness when in opposition, having got into power, it switches to an unrelenting attack on transparency as it proposes to drastically curtail public access to just about all advice to government, especially if it's controversial, through proposed changes to Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.

The entrenched culture of secrecy in Government and the jailing of whistleblowers pursued by both major political parties – whose support for openness when in Opposition is revealed as insincere once they're in Government – reinforces the systemic problem of governance & accountability, which I address through proposed reforms below.

Whilst I propose a specific solution for Israel and Palestine, the more general issue seems to be a deep disconnect between the morality & motives of our political leaders and those of the “moderate majority” of the population.  As always, tackling the underlying issues comes down to a matter of governance.  The repeated, widespread failings we see in Western democracies won't be addressed by hoping better people take over unchanged institutions, when the problems reflect fundamental & systemic failings in the accountability of our archaic democratic/electoral systems, parliaments, government bodies and the media.

Western mainstream media serves the interests of its owners and governments

A fundamental problem in our democracies is that our governments seem to be led by politicians who are more concerned with their position & power than doing what's best for the community, and they are too easily swayed by pressure from powerful, vested interests – not least a media controlled by a wealthy elite in collaboration with major corporations and global governments – or by a fear of negative public sentiment (often driven by media propaganda), which causes them to devote more effort to appeasing narrow interests and publicity management than to quality public sector management.  Accountability to the public is of course essential, but the current system relying on the election of political leaders by mostly poorly-informed (or misinformed) voters every few years, is simply inadequate.

One key feature (of many) that turns supposedly "independent" western news media into government propaganda outlets is the practice of "client" or "access journalism", which denies access to those journalists who are too critical of the government and rewards those that are supportive (or at least go easy on it in the areas that really matter to the Establishment) with exclusive "scoop" news stories.  This practice has worsened as the internet has devastated news media's advertising revenues and business model, causing it to slash journalist jobs and become even more dependent on the ready supply of government media releases (or even secretly, pre-written articles) — so taxpayer-funded Ministerial offices are full of former journalists now effectively secretly writing government propaganda for "private" news media outlets.  This needs to be stopped by ensuring government media communications & questioning of Ministers are overseen by a truly independent person, accountable to a balanced committee of Parliament (reflecting the broad views of voters and not dominated by any single political party) — as I propose more generally for government oversight and accountability below.  I also discuss the potential to improve the accountability of news media to the public (as diverse shareholders) through the concept of "Capitalist Co-ops" here.

National security policy is captured by the military and foreign interests

In relation to foreign policy, the military/defence & overall national security, we need the same changes as those required to improve the management of public services in general — in particular, stronger accountability of leaders to a more balanced parliament that is a better reflection of broad community views, as I discuss further below.  This would make it harder for the USA to get away with bullying Australia to effectively act as a platform for launching US wars. 

National security policy also needs to be subjected to greater challenge through the long, bureaucratic development process that occurs before final decisions are made by government.  Whilst such work needs to be done by experts in the field, that also makes it susceptible to being captured by blinkered views & vested interests, particularly military/security chiefs (with no project delivery capabilities or real accountability) and the profit-seeking defence industry, which can result in the (mostly ignorant and servile) elected members of government being presented with few or no options, and no time to develop realistic alternatives.  In that respect, one of the underlying problems contributing to currently poor defence decisions & priority-setting is the government budget process (which needs a total transformation anyway), as it tends to entrench historical spending patterns and ways of doing things.

To address these issues and adopt a more strategic approach to national security issues — encompassing all the scenarios of global conflict & terrorist risks, refugee pressures, border security, economic/trade, cyber-attacks and other risks, and the broadest range of options for managing these (not least through non-provocative engagement with China & Indonesia, and a truly defensive approach, such as the "Echidna Strategy", based on strength but not aggression) — we need to develop a holistic, integrated approach to homeland security, international diplomacy and military defence, by establishing a "Ministry for National Security".

That is just one of many public-sector governance reforms that I discuss following, starting with the aim of tackling the major "bread-and-butter" issues in public services — which could really motivate the majority of voters in any multi-issue referendum that simultaneously addresses civil rights.

New federation roles for public service delivery

In debates on Australian constitutional structure that can at times be more emotive than rational, it is sometimes suggested that the States provide some kind of protection for people's freedom from the tyranny of an all-powerful Federal Government.  However, given the States evidently can't be trusted to protect our rights (& actually are more often denying people civil rights, as discussed above), if we're pursuing referendums & constitutional change, maybe we should just abolish the States?  Or, more practically, drastically reduce their responsibilities.  This country is over-governed, which means bureaucracy and buck-passing clouds accountability and obstructs reform progress, plus there's not enough talented politicians & public servants to fill the excessive number of places available (basic supply and demand economics).  Also, of course, there's the needless waste, complication & policy inconsistencies that result from having politicians & bureaucrats replicated across nine State, Territory & Federal governments, when for most public services one administration centre would suffice. (I use the term "bureaucrats" loosely to mean paper shufflers / policy advisers like I used to be, as opposed to the "front line" workers who are needed to actually deliver services.)  Nor is this wasteful duplication offset by supposed competition between States promoting innovation and greater efficiency, as some self-interested defenders of the status-quo like to claim.  Rather – from my observation – it simply enables the mediocre to justify itself through comparison with the atrocious, whilst the soul-destroying bureaucracy of COAG reduces collaboration efforts to the bare-minimum, lowest-common-denominator position of the most recalcitrant State, if not grinding any reform efforts to a complete halt.

But as bad as these higher levels of government may be, the incompetence resulting from over-governance is probably trumped by the mediocre wannabe-politicians left over in local councils, which is especially observable in their economically-illiterate handling of development controls (such as flood management requirements), which contribute in no small way to a lack of affordable housing.  Although small councils could in principle obtain economies of scale through outsourcing of services and back-office functions, this doesn't give councils the "informed purchasers" needed to manage and ensure the accountability of consulting & contracting firms, who sadly seem only too happy to exploit council ignorance and disregard public benefit if it pays them more.

So I suggest we target an 80% reduction in the number of politicians & bureaucrats across Australia (starting with the grossly inefficient & unjust Child Support Agency!) — which I'd say is quite feasible, especially in NSW once Sydney's local councils have been amalgamated into fewer regional ones, when we'll hardly need a State Government (and why else would you go through the political cost of amalgamations?), given that:

• Strategic land & transport planning could be managed in Sydney by the Greater Sydney Commission (or similar), which was expected to adopt increased "community participation" (aka elections?) through "further reforms to come".

  • Melbourne already has a similar Metropolitan Planning Authority, and Brisbane already has a single council, whilst the other State capitals are too small to worry about! 
    (They tried to amalgamate Perth councils but gave up.)

  • South Australia could merge with the Northern Territory (with some devolution to, and rationalisation of the 68 & 17 local councils in SA & the NT respectively), and in the longer term Tasmania could be merged with Victoria, with Hobart & Melbourne effectively merged using a high-speed rail line to cut travel times between the cities to less than two hours (or under an hour with a 1,200 kph Hyperloop).

  • All roads will also need to become more commercially and transparently funded, as electric vehicles cause fuel excise revenue to dwindle and be replaced by more efficient user-pricing (tolls).

• Health, education and family-support/community services would be more efficient & responsive to individual needs if managed by genuinely competitive Human Services networks (such as Primary Health Networks) funded directly by the Commonwealth (Federal) Government according to their customer base (which can also be a bribe to get the governance changes agreed).

• Justice applied through consistent national laws & systems (along with reforms to deliver an efficient, competitive, accountable and truly independent court system) should ensure equity for all Australian citizens & organisations, and facilitate:

  • the removal of legal inequities across States (such as inconsistent abortion laws when I first wrote this, though differences are now reduced since recent changes in Queensland & NSW, and note I emphasise the need for consistent rather than necessarily slack abortion laws, which I discuss here);

  • reform of sentencing laws, not least to address the disgraceful and worsening over-representation of Aboriginal people in prison as a result of minor offences (e.g. related to driving, cannabis or even just "offensive language"), with especially tragic responses in Western Australia & the Northern Territory (NT).  Revelations of institutional abuse of children detained in the NT must surely be the final straw on a broader picture of social & economic waste (including being the only place in the developed world that has not eradicated trachoma), indicating a failure of all political parties that warrants the NT being shut down (as Mick Gooda suggested) and merged with another State;
    (I suggest it merge with South Australia to form 'Central Australia', as it was in the past, and perhaps we should even merge both with Western Australia too.)

  • reform of police force roles & accountability, which could transfer responsibilities from or to State governments or – given the concerns raised above about State police authoritarianism –more locally-accountable district forces (and perhaps give the Federal Police something better to do than intimidate journalists, chase refugees and assist with the overseas execution of drug smugglers!);

  • the efficient & effective operation of a single national corruption regulator for all industries (perhaps addressing prior problems with the Federal-level ABCC and the NSW-level ICAC) — through a National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) that's genuinely enabled in its mission through openness and accountability to a more balanced parliament (as per the further reforms proposed below).

• We already have a national electricity grid & market and, after exhausting all other stupid options, we should also have a sensible national greenhouse emissions trading scheme.

• The environment in general needs national regulation, with some degree of political independence (which was finally being pursued in 2024, but hobbled by the mining industry that our politicians answer to), to protect it from the narrow interests of State governments — as demonstrated by the Queensland Government's decision to approve the Carmichael coal mine at the expense of the Great Barrier Reef (a direct and indirect disaster for the Reef through climate change).  This decision (& their complicit collusion in Adani's lies and corruption) reveals that State's financial mess and should seal their fate in any resistance to a change of Federation powers — it's not their Barrier Reef to destroy; it belongs to everyone! (and already since 1995, half the corals on the Great Barrier Reef have died due to climate change induced coral bleaching).

• Sport is one area where there is likely to be popular demand to maintain the semblance of States to underpin historic pride and friendly rivalry.  So, heavily-rationalised, residual States could remain to manage sport, along with arts/culture and perhaps other current services of smaller State-level agencies, supported as necessary by regional councils &/or other devolved entities, with funding from the Commonwealth and/or slightly increased regional council rates replacing States' grossly inefficient stamp duties (which would deliver significant economic, equity and budget volatility benefits, along with improved housing affordability, as part of broader tax reform).
  — State governments could be aptly rebranded as agencies for Arts, Recreation, Sport & Entertainment, although sadly the acronym has already been taken!

• And finally, we could to all practical purposes effectively shift the national capital to Sydney by linking it to Canberra with high-speed trains (& eventually also to Melbourne & Brisbane) — which would help to attract better talent to the Commonwealth Government, because public servants and politicians could then still live in Sydney!  It might also attract more "normal" people, including a better gender balance, especially if the parliament operated more normal working hours.
  (NB. This benefit of high-speed trains is just a bonus on top of the primary rationale of supporting Australia's population growth and addressing its economic & housing affordability problems.)

It would be an impressive achievement of the Reform of the Federation process, which would deliver massive efficiency and productivity gains for Australia for decades to come, including solving current problems of "vertical fiscal imbalance" — the mismatch between accountability for most public service spending by the States and revenue-raising (taxes) to fund this that is mostly done by the Commonwealth.  I hate to say it but maybe even Tony Abbott could then take some credit — for at least commissioning a "Reform Of The Federation" White Paper, even though the position he advocated showed his usual lack of consistency.  Subsequent proposals that were put forward to address the problem of vertical fiscal imbalance — by giving States the power to vary & get a share of income tax, to fund cost pressures in hospitals and education — were quickly rejected by South Australia & Tasmania with the dubious argument that "it'd create a lot of confusion across the federation, it'd be very impractical to administer", and dodged by the other States, who of course want the money first, before they talk about accountability.  Now that's failed — because the States don't really want accountability for how much they spend — the underlying problem can easily be solved!

As indicated above, a new agreement on Federal & State roles that drastically reduced States' responsibilities but enabled them (except the NT & Tasmania) to formally remain in place for sport and other smaller services, could reap all the desired efficiency and equity benefits whilst avoiding the emotional barriers of total abolition.  It would then be up to each State to choose how much they rationalise their bureaucracies in accordance with the reduced responsibilities.  Queensland, for example, which already has relatively few, large councils and only one house of parliament, could choose to make little in the way of further changes.  On the other hand, NSW could scale back its parliamentary representatives to a single house (with voting similar to Federal reforms proposed below), and move them to the aptly titled new Powerhouse (Museum) in Parramatta, consistent with the future planning strategy for Sydney!

A New Republic for a New Federation

The changes described above should provide a more efficient governance structure for managing public services, but they would not address the overarching structure & operation of parliaments, nor the archaic democratic systems that consistently produce such inadequate, ideological & self-serving political leaders — who despite being elected seem not to represent the views of the "moderate majority", and lack the objectivity and professional expertise required to manage public services in an efficient, effective and unbiased way.  For the biggest, most important and complicated management jobs in the country, we put a bunch of egotistical, tribal monkeys in charge — why?  And what can we do about it?

Clearly, whilst it seems absurd for Australia to have a British monarch as its head of state, simply changing that alone will do little to change the nature of Australian politics or improve the effective operation of its parliaments and governments.  This is especially true if a "republic" was founded on a minimalist-change model – simply replacing the current Governor General with someone formally appointed by the Australian Prime Minister, rather than the British Monarch – so as to deliberately avoid changing the fundamental nature of the current system (based on the lie of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", when it is so demonstrably & utterly broken).  In turn, this means a proposal for a republic based only on intentionally tokenistic change, will, for good reasons, probably struggle to gain popular support.

We don't need and should not have an elected President!

On the other hand, if the establishment of a republic is to involve more substantive change to our systems of government, it needs to be very clearly based on reforms that aim to tackle the problems we have, and not make them worse.  In this respect, it would be crazy to embark on constitutional reforms that replicated the dysfunctional US system, where the elected President has significant powers but is in perpetual conflict with the elected Parliament ("Congress").

Australia already has enough blame-games and buck-passing between upper and lower houses (and between State & Federal Governments), and there's no need to create a position with more powers than the current Governor-General (GG), nor even to have such a position at all if they're not even going to show common sense by disclosing to the public that a rogue PM has seized the power of multiple Minister positions.  We only need one political leader (the Prime Minister) — we don't need or want to create confused accountability with an additional, competing President.  Rather, we should preferably just replace the GG with clear, constitutionally-defined procedures to follow in the case of certain predictable situations, like "blocked supply" or a vote of no-confidence.

Moreover, as the US shows, presidential elections inevitably limit candidates to only those who can afford to campaign across an entire nation (making them captured by donor interests), or already have some celebrity status, which doesn't exactly promote quality candidates who have the common man/woman's interests foremost in mind.  Besides, there's too much store invested in powerful individual leaders already, which often attracts the worst kind of people — self-promoting narcissists.  When a system only enables wealthy megalomaniacs to get elected, we shouldn't be surprised that the system only serves the interests of wealthy megalomaniacs.  A competition for one person to claim a single elected position also ultimately creates a two-horse race in which the winner tends to get little more than half the vote and is thus opposed by almost half of voters (or much more in the UK).  It is inherently divisive.  The solution to that problem is not to create a fight between two power-crazed men (typically), each seeking a false "democratic mandate" to justify the policies they want to impose on a nation (despite the winner invariably being opposed by almost half the electorate, or more); rather we need to ensure power is held by a balanced parliament that incorporates the diverse views of the people, so that representative body can hold the leader properly accountable — as I describe below.

For the same reasons, the powers of our leaders should be reduced as much as practically possible.  For most decisions, most of the time (except in times of urgency), it is not necessary or desirable to give all authority to one decision maker, rather than a balanced, representative committee that can benefit from a diversity of knowledge and perspective.  It's ridiculous to expect one individual to have the right answers to everything.

But if we really must have some kind of GG – in case some ultimate human judgement is required in exceptional, unforeseen circumstances of constitutional failure – then we clearly need a more transparent and non-partisan parliamentary process for selecting him or her than the current one (not since 1977 has a GG performed so poorly at the Melbourne Cup — the consequence of another dismal captain's pick by the former Minister for (sic) Women!).  So I suggest we simply copy the proven corporation board model, by giving such powers to the Chair of the Board, a.k.a. leader/"Speaker" of the Senate, who would be chosen by the Senators (who themselves should constitute a balanced representation of overall community views).

But this relatively modest change, based on the corporate board model, also provides direction for more fundamental and important reforms to Australia's constitution, in order to modernise the currently archaic & dysfunctional "Westminster" system of parliament & democracy...

A professional Executive overseen by a balanced Senate with real-time public voting

It's often said that Australia's 3-year election terms promote short-termism, but would 4 or 5-year terms really be much better?  A more transformative reform would be for Treasuries to adopt long-term budgeting practices.

For elections, paradoxically, it may be better to copy the corporate model of essentially continuous elections, where an elected Board (parliament) representing shareholders (voters) can change the CEO at any time.  In principle at least, the timeframe for "election" then becomes so short (the next Board meeting) that the CEO has to focus on longer term measures (reflected in the corporate world, in theory, by the share price).

Democratic governments could adopt a similar model, with Senators forming the equivalent of a corporate board, who could appoint the Prime Minister (PM) and replace him/her at any time.  A balanced Senate that broadly represents the diversity of public opinion could be elected through the "multi-State Senators" voting system I propose below, and then select a PM (& other Ministers) who would command the broadest support of the Senate — preferably using the "Condorcet method" applied to Senators' rated preference votes (which would avoid the political tension that comes from giving a President the ability to make a subjective choice on who that may be).  Any Senator could nominate their preferred PM, which could be themselves or another member of their party or, more preferably, anyone else outside of parliament (according to their own party rules, which may typically but not necessarily give the party leadership authority to determine who they will nominate).  It's important that strong & open competition for executive positions is promoted in this way, unlike in the US & EU, where members of Parliament/Congress are typically given a single choice to approve or reject (nominated by the President or worked out through behind-the-scenes politics), which in practice makes it very difficult to appoint an alternative in a timely manner.  These process details matter!

What sort of person might be chosen as PM by such a system?  Well, someone in the political middle who is good at listening and understanding the legitimacy of various different perspectives, and skilled at developing creative, outcome-focussed solutions (rather than pursuing ideological agendas) that can garner the largest, broadest amount of support from across the political spectrum.  In other words, someone quite different from most current politicians!

Despite the PM not being directly elected by the public, accountability would be improved by the stronger powers of a balanced Senate, and in turn, the accountability of the Senate to the public could be further strengthened through near-instant, electronic (online) public voting (that had bipartisan support in 2016) — which could make elections essentially continuous, so voters could change the party that their vote is allocated to at any time, with the weight of Senators' votes in parliament then changing in real time according to their currently registered electoral support.  In practice this mechanism would probably need to be limited to restricted issues, such as a vote of no confidence (to change the PM &/or call a general election) and perhaps other specific legislation, subject to certain conditions and thresholds, such as a two-thirds majority of all eligible voters.  Access to online voting could potentially be restricted to those people who can demonstrate a bare minimum of political knowledge through pre-screening questions (basic multiple-choice questions, like who is the current PM).  Also the public may still be required to reconfirm their party vote every few years for periodic elections, or else lose the weight of their vote in parliament.  However, I don't think people should be penalised for not voting, because abstaining can be an important indicator of the true public feeling about the state of democracy and the choices, or lack of, that they're offered, whereas compulsory voting – which was established by a collusion of the major Australian parties to fight off independents – hides the indications of disillusionment and can be used to deflect from the need for bigger reforms, whilst turning elections into an almost 50/50 coin toss dominated by the masses of apathetic & ignorant, who might otherwise abstain (because if you subject disinterested people to media that's dominated by the major two parties, then force them to choose, you tend to get one of those two chosen).

Some might think that a system in which a balanced Senate has greater capacity to change the PM at any time would be liable to create instability, but it could hardly be less stable than the current Australian & UK systems!  On the contrary, a PM who is accountable to the collective parliament (which is in turn continuously accountable to voters) – rather than a small bunch of extreme or disgruntled MPs in one party – is likely to be more balanced and representative in their actions, and less likely to be controlled or overturned on the whim of a few, as has been the case so much in recent years (over the decade or so to 2022) in both Australia and the UK, where the entire government leadership retains power through the support of an unstable minority of vested interests.

Then, with a PM chosen to more closely represent the balanced views of the parliament & people (rather than a single political party), that PM could nominate a balanced & professional team of Ministers (alongside alternatives put forward by MPs/Senators) for endorsement by the Senate to form a Cabinet or governing "Executive" that is not necessarily comprised of elected MPs — similar to other non-"Westminster" systems around the world, although the broken US plutocracy may not be the best example of this because of the colluding Republican-Democrat duopoly that's maintained by its rigged and entrenched two-party system (reinforced by "lawfare"), which through the corruption of money and winner-takes-all elections exaggerates & exacerbates divisions in public debate & society (even though opinion polls show the vast majority of Americans have quite balanced and moderate or "liberal" views on a wide range of issues, from abortion to gun control, taxes, labour unions, environmental protection and war).  This real manipulation of US democracy dwarfs any influence that Russia could possibly have (through false claims about election interference).

Holding leaders accountable to a balanced, representative parliament

Separating the executive management of government from the parliamentary body to whom they are accountable (a balanced Senate, as I propose below) would not only enable the appointment of more competent & less ideological, tribal & power-hungry Ministers/Executives, it could also encourage a more balanced approach by attracting ordinary, decent, non-partisan people as parliamentary candidates who actually want to do the job of holding the Executive Government to account (rather than those seeking election as a route to attaining direct power for themselves) — assuming of course sufficient popularity of independents or political parties that adopted this practice of nominating government executives from outside their group of elected members (I don't suggest this approach should be enforced on all parties through the constitution).

Although it may seem hard to imagine the idea of governments not being dominated by existing political parties, in local government it is quite normal.  For example, in 2021, over 70% of NSW local councils had less than 50% of their councillors from the Labor or Liberal parties, and over half of councils had no such councillors at all.  The ability of independent candidates and new, small parties to compete for election on a fair & equal basis should be assisted by drastic cuts to private & public funding of political parties, offset by the development of new online systems, overseen by the independent electoral commission, that help voters easily access all candidates' information and facilitate engagement with them (e.g. with open messaging systems and ranking of responses through user "likes"), as well as monitor the activity & voting of elected members of parliament.

As I argued above, the accountability of Executive Government to a balanced Senate would be vastly strengthened if the Senate had the power to fire (as well as hire) individual Ministers (& the PM), and this would prevent the Executive from showing such disdain for accountability mechanisms, as is so often currently exemplified by their contempt for "freedom of information" (by both the hypocritical major parties) and for journalists (or control of them through "access journalism", by only giving them access to news if they toe the line), along with a disregard for proper parliamentary processes (e.g. in both scheduling/cancelling and repeated shutting down of debate).  This should more than offset any perceived loss of electoral accountability arising from appointing professional Ministers who are not directly elected (which may be considered particularly important for leaders drawn from the corporate sector, given CEOs may be twenty times more likely than the average person to be psychopaths or sociopaths).

A similar appointment & accountability model should also apply to other important positions in government, such as representatives in foreign embassies and other international institutions, like the UN, as well as the currently politicised Council of the Order of Australia (which should award those voluntarily serving the community rather than failed politicians & other high-profile achievers who have already been rewarded by their employment).

Note, however, that the anticipated strengthening of accountability depends on having a balanced & representative Senate that is not dominated by one party with a majority of seats (with that party in turn potentially being dominated by its leadership).  Whilst the current Australian Senate is reasonably balanced (& rarely dominated by one party) due to its use of a proportional representation voting system, its constitution is far from ideal (especially if it is to gain more power) due to the disproportionate number of seats given to small states (i.e. not all Australian votes have equal value).  But if these deficiencies can be rectified (as I propose below), then with a more representative Senate properly overseeing a more-professional governing Executive, the immature & aggressive pantomime that is the lower House of Representatives would be made redundant and could be scrapped — which would also improve the efficiency of the legislative process.

Like well-functioning corporate boards, the PM & their Executive team would then be required to submit papers to the Senate several days in advance of meeting (published on the internet as per below), so Senators had time to read them and potentially submit questions in advance (online, so the public can see) before finally grilling the Executive in person on issues not adequately addressed.  This would provide much closer scrutiny and stronger accountability than can ever be possible through elections every few years by a public that mostly doesn't have the time or interest to be across all the issues in sufficient detail to be able to make a well-informed judgement of Ministers' performance — even if we had better, unbiased news media.

The same governance structure can be used to depoliticise the public/civil service, which should be a public service, not the government's political service!  The lost tradition of independent, frank & fearless advice can be restored, whilst ensuring its accountability to the public, by having the most senior executives & board members of government departments and agencies appointed by a more representative, balanced parliament (or committee of the Senate), rather than by Ministers who are more concerned with protecting their own interests and position within their political party.  Recent examples of how the Australian public service has been politicised – especially and most disgracefully by even the Chief Medical Officer during the Covid-19 pandemic – are covered in this 2020 article of mine.

Under the current Australian Constitution (in 2024), which requires Ministers to be elected, this approach of reporting to a balanced committee of parliament would have to be done voluntarily, with the Minister chairing that committee but effectively allowing the committee to appoint and hold accountable a professional departmental CEO who would directly & transparently report to it.

Re-establishing a neutral, apolitical bureaucracy that genuinely serves the public would enable the public service to advise the whole parliament and the public, not just the Executive Government, thus promoting more-informed political opposition and debate.  That function should also be strengthened by repeal of the anachronistic "Cabinet-in-Confidence" secrecy that has become an insult to democracy (reflected by Ministers treating government documents as their own personal documents, to be shredded as they like for purely political reasons).  Instead, Cabinet papers should be released automatically on the internet by default, unless an exemption is sought & approved by a committee appointed by the Senate.

A balanced parliamentary subcommittee is especially important for overseeing government communications with the news media, so as to prevent the government from controlling the media through who it does and doesn't brief for news.  This is fundamentally critical to rectifying the current failure of western democracies that I discuss above.  Establishing genuinely independent oversight and funding decisions is also especially important for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) public news & current affairs service, which needs to be accountable for some of the extreme views it broadcasts, but not through secret direction from the PM or politicised board appointments, which all parties have been guilty of.

Democratic participation in policy development

By tackling the politicisation and secrecy of political information, the governance & accountability reforms above provide a platform for more-informed and substantive public engagement in the political process, rather than relying solely on the inadequate system of periodic elections, which enables governments to make bad/unfair decisions that get forgotten or outweighed by other issues by election time.

For this reason I used to support the idea of direct online voting for all policies, as advocated for Australia by onlinedirectdemocracy, MiVote and voteflux.org, but it could lead to tyranny of minorities (like queer people) through denial of their basic rights via simple majority votes.  As Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government; apart from all the alternatives".  Perhaps if the constitution protected individual liberties (which, as discussed above, we need anyway!), then direct online voting on specific policies could be enabled in certain circumstances, such as if supported by a given number of public petitions &/or Senators.  Fundamentally however, it is just not realistic or reasonable to expect the entire general public to spend enough time to become sufficiently knowledgeable on all public policies to be able to make good decisions.  We each have a different role to play in society, and that's why we need politicians and public servants who will make informed decisions for us (but in line with our values).

A different approach, advocated by The New Democracy Foundation and people like Nick Gruen, is to have random members of the public selected for a period of "Senate duty" (similar to jury duty), where they would be given the information and authority to make or delay decisions.  Potentially such temporary public members of the Senate could perform their duties part-time and/or by working remotely (perhaps in parallel with an existing job).  My suggestion is that 20%, say, of a reformed Senate be comprised of such public members, who would not have a vote on predefined constitutional matters (like electing the governing Executive) but would participate in a legislative review committee (or a "citizens' assembly") for a specific new law proposal and vote on this proposed law (only) along with the rest of the Senate.  This would force the regular elected members of the Senate to argue the case on policy merits, rather than voting solely on party political lines.  In principle, that outcome could also be assisted by having secret electronic voting in the parliament, so Senators could freely vote against the directions of party leaders & "whips", although this seems hard to reconcile with the need for accountability to voters through transparency on what their elected representatives vote for or against (it may be possible if their voting was only made public just before elections but that would limit public pressure at the time of critical votes).  It would be more preferable for new political parties to specifically constitute and promote themselves as being different by allowing their elected representatives to vote freely according to their conscience and best judgment, as I propose below.

An alternative, indirect way of facilitating broader public participation in democracy would be to tackle obstacles to mass online membership & control of political parties, so they are less dominated by zealous enthusiasts, extreme factions & tribal political warriors, and more strongly influenced by the “moderate majority”.  A specific measure that may assist this could be for the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to establish a voluntary register of political party affiliation.  Any political party's membership-administration-unit could then access this database (if authorised to do so by the AEC) to check whether a member of the public applying to join their party was already registered with another party (which party this was need not be disclosed to the applying party), so the administrators could be more confident that applicants were not simply seeking to join for disruptive purposes.  This could enable parties to more easily build a mass online membership based on ordinary, moderate, low-engagement people (who could vote online for their preferred election candidates, and potentially also on party policies).

Multi-State Senators

The last component of structural democratic reform that I propose, to deliver a more balanced, representative parliament, is an alternative voting mechanism to the current proportional representation (PR) for the Senate, which I call "multi-constituency members":

The problem with PR is that whilst it ensures political parties get members in proportion to their party's vote, it typically has a very weak connection between individual members of parliament and local voters — especially when people are appointed from "party lists", which give too much power to central party managers.

But at the other extreme, although single-member constituencies (as used in Australia's lower house) have a stronger local link between individual MPs and voters, this is at the expense of parochial politics (i.e. MPs more concerned with local than national interests), which leads to "pork barrelling" (e.g. through poorly conceived infrastructure projects and routine politicisation of community grants, which has reached pandemic levels in spread, magnitude and brazenness) and also tends to give a majority of seats to one party without requiring a national majority of votes as a "mandate" to govern.  Even if one party does get a majority of votes (over 50%), this is not really a "mandate" to impose their policies on nearly 50% of voters who don't support them.  The reality is that the support for each political party rarely changes by more than a few percent from one election to another, so a small swing in votes producing a change in government is an artificially constructed change of power that generally doesn't reflect any major change in voter opinions.

These flaws in the electoral system result in inherently unbalanced & unstable governments – swinging between the control of one dominant, major party and another – which is why a second chamber of parliament is then seen as necessary to moderate the power of the unrepresentative lower house (providing so-called "checks & balances").

So rather than have an innately dysfunctional, conflictual structure of parliament with one unrepresentative "lower house" and another obstructive "upper house", it seems much more sensible and efficient to have an electoral system that builds balanced & diverse representation directly into a single house of parliament — as New Zealand & some other countries do with a partly-PR, "Mixed Member Proportional" (MMP) system (which has helped New Zealand avoid extreme & corrosive "populist" politics suffered by many other nations).

This spreadsheet provides draft examples for 20 (or 24) Multi-Member Constituencies (MMCs), where each MMC comprises 12 (or 10) twin-paired sub-constituencies (one of 240 in South-East states paired with another one of 240 in North or Western states), and each MMC elects 12 (or 10) Senators (with voting similar to the current method for electing Senators in each state), giving a total of 240 Senators.

Obviously this Multi-State Senator model needs to be worked out in more detail, simulated and refined to ensure it produces a more representative outcome (perhaps in combination with the idea of real-time weighting of Senators' votes), before being put to a referendum.

Summary of initiatives to create a more representative and accountable government

In short, the above outlines a range of measures to restore & modernise our archaic, failing democracies and improve the efficiency and responsiveness of government to public needs and opinion — in particular by:

1. Creating a single, balanced & relatively stable chamber of parliament (say the Senate) that is truly representative of the diversity of public opinion & values (with the seats for each party being broadly proportional to their total vote, so no single party has total control and the artificially divisive two-party system is broken), whilst retaining a tight, direct link between elected senators and their constituency voters, with all votes having equal weight, yet also ensuring all senators adopt a holistic view of national needs (rather than a parochial focus on a single local area) — through distributed multi-member constituencies (or "multi-State Senators").

2. Strengthening the accountability of elected senators to the public through "continuous, real-time, online voting" (potentially affecting the weighted vote of each senator, and/or enabling a general election to be triggered by public demand at any time).

3. Separating a professional "Executive Government" (including PM , ministers and other public sector leaders) from the elected senators to whom they would be more tightly accountable — so experienced & competent executives (preferably, rather than directly elected "career politicians") are appointed by, and able to be fired at any time by the (balanced) Senate, and the power of individual executives is reduced as far as practically possible (except when urgent decisions are necessary) by ensuring they are regularly held accountable to, and require the approval of a Senate subcommittee for all major decisions (much like a corporate board).

   • Further depoliticising the public service by enhancing freedom-of-information (especially by scrapping "Cabinet-in-Confidence" secrecy, by default) and ensuring public communications (including engagement with news media) are also overseen by a balanced Senate committee (instead of being government propaganda dictated by ministers).

4. Pursuing a range of other measures to reduce the prominence of self-serving "career politicians" within tribal political parties, and instead promote ordinary, independent citizens playing a role in government, by reforming Senate rules & processes and investing in democracy-enhancing IT/internet systems (overseen by the independent electoral commission) that reduce the cost and other barriers to ordinary people participating in the democratic process (including the many dual citizens in Australia).  This could include:

   • Appointing randomly-selected citizens to perform "Senate duty" (similar to "jury duty") for a temporary period and/or to vote on a single, specific piece of legislation;

   • Measures to facilitate being a part-time, temporary and/or work-from-home senator;

   • Online systems that facilitate mass membership & control of political parties by the "moderate majority" (or "sensible centre"), rather than the minority of zealous, tribal activists that currently run parties;

   • Internet portals that provide voters with simple, "one-stop-shop" access to information provided by all election candidates (at minimal cost to those candidates, thus reducing the barriers to standing for election), and then easy public monitoring of Senate and Executive activity (such as each Senator's vote cast on all matters, questions asked of the Executive, etc.) and structured, open messaging between the public and Senators on specific policies/legislation;

   • Budget reforms to guide longer-term, strategic fiscal management, whilst enabling voters/taxpayers to choose which services should be funded by a small portion (say 1%) of their taxes — to enhance direct democratic decision-making and encourage public engagement in policy matters (supported by improved public information from service agencies, to inform these public choices).

5. Protecting individual rights & liberties from authoritarian governments through a "Bill of Rights" (focussed on key priorities), whilst ensuring contentious matters can still be determined by a supermajority of parliament (or voters), rather than by an unelected and politicised judiciary.

   • Possibly enabling local control & self-determination in Aboriginal communities by allowing alternative, voluntary ("opt-in") laws for managing certain specific issues, such as recreational drugs.

6. In Australia especially (but also of some relevance to other nations) — clarifying the role of State and Federal governments providing particular government services, in order to reduce bureaucracy, stop duplication & buck-passing, and improve accountability, especially wherever the governance of services (including justice & human services) can be reformed so they are directly accountable to users.

7. Establishing a "Ministry for National Security" that will challenge existing approaches (instead of being captured by armed forces hawks), reduce wasteful military expenditure and needless antagonism towards other nations (to avoid war), and develop a comprehensive, integrated and optimal approach to defence, foreign policy and diplomacy.

Whilst the above concepts all require further detailed development, in combination they provide the basis for the reforms we need to address our falling faith in democracy and return power to the people, through the Senate (and similarly in other countries, especially to modernise the UK's archaic system).

Here is a draft policy-platform & constitution I've produced for a generic political party that could advocate for and help to progress the refinement and implementation of these reforms.  Most importantly it envisages a party that shares common, high level values – such as support for professionalism, ethics, equity, plurality (diversity of opinion) & peace – but which would appoint separate professionals to run Executive Government and would expect its elected MPs/Senators to vote independently in Parliament according to their own principles and judgment, not by dictat from an authoritarian party leadership.

A new day, flag and anthem for a united Australia!

Finally, a new Australian republic will need new, uniting symbols — for its national day, anthem, and especially a new flag.  

Clearly a new modern, independent, multicultural Australian republic should be founded on Aboriginal recognition and celebrated on a new Australia Day that represents a uniting day of national celebration for all Australians, rather than the annual insult & mourning for indigenous people that is "Invasion Day" of 26 January (which only became a consistent national holiday in 1994 anyway).  Nor is it really appropriate to be focussed on the founding of Sydney (much as I like it here).  But since as a republic we would inevitably lose the "Queen's birthday" public holiday, we could keep 26 January as a solemn, commemorative "National Sorry Day" (currently held on 26 May), or rename it to "Immigrant Day", and choose a replacement "Australia Day" public holiday from a range of possible alternative dates, such as:

• the last Monday in January or the first Monday in February (to give everyone a long weekend at the end of summer),

• 1 March (as Ian Macfarlane suggests) — which would commemorate the date in 1901 that the first Commonwealth Government began taking control of many of the functions formerly exercised by the colonies,

• 9 May, when Australia’s first parliament was opened in 1901 (as well as the date when Parliament shifted from Melbourne to Canberra in 1927 and when the current Parliament House was opened in the bicentennial year of 1988),

• 27 May, when Australians voted to change the Constitution so that Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them,

• 30 July, which was the date on which Australia Day was first celebrated.

Then maybe we could add a further bonus "Aboriginal Dreaming" holiday (for chillin' & pondering the meaning of everything) — preferably later in the year, given NSW currently has 9 public holidays over the four months from Xmas day to Anzac Day, and (excluding the "Queen's birthday" in June) only one over the rest of the year ("Labour Day", itself moved to October from "May Day").  Potential dates of significance to Aboriginal people include 17 September — the date in 1790 of the first apology to Aboriginals and conciliation with European settlers — or earlier options such as 27 May – when the 1967 referendum recognised Aboriginal people as full citizens – or "Mabo Day" on 3 June recognising them as original inhabitants with land rights.

So that just leaves the anthem, and let's face it, the current one is rubbish!  The problem is not just its dodgy (yet short) history and offence to Aboriginals (including that "fair" originally meant "white"); it's also a real dirge — the "tune" just feels so lame!  As an alternative I like, "I Still Call Australia Home" (the Qantas advert), but I & others would struggle with the high notes, so I think the only decent option (backed by many others, including former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett) is "I am Australian":

We are one, but we are many,

And from all the lands on Earth we come;

We share a dream and sing with one voice:

I am, you are, we are Australian!