 candidates in their own preference. This is how the Prime Minister and Prime Speaker are chosen.
English: Ballot Box showing preferential voting (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
STAGE TWO – ONGOING POLICY PARTICIPATION & VOTING (Voluntary)
I would propose that all ISPs and email providers, provide the current email address for their Australian customers – the Australian government obtains an exemption from the SPAM act allowing them to email all citizens and provide them with an opportunity to register for Policy Voting. Here’s how it would work:
1. All Australians are provided with and opportunity to take part in parliament policy. The government subsidizes up to $35 per hour up to 2 days per year (16 hours) for any registered voter who engages in the voluntary system. This would cost approximately $3billion dollars per annum; a small price to pay for true democracy (in comparison, our welfare system alone costs $316 billion).
2. Once the registered voter confirms they would like to be involved, they must fill out at online profile that:
a) goes through their personal details, if they change jobs, family situation, income…etc
b) confirms their personality type
c) confirms their politics type (eg authoritarian, libertarian, center…etc)
d) confirms their education and fields of expertise
3. Citizens may input their recommendations for community and national priorities into their profile (although certain priorities are guarded where small portions of community have big impact e.g. agriculture)
4. Portfolio ministers must request policy submissions from citizens once a year – all citizens can be notified when these are being asked for, orthey can switch all off except those that are related to their field of expertise. This ensures citizen input into a yearly planning process.
5. Yearly policies are then pulled together by: Knowledge & Wisdom Ministers, groups of experts, citizen panels and citizen reps (each citizen can apply to be selected for types of panels and will be selected representatively and randomly by geography but no person can be selected more than once in 5 years). Separately opposition ministers come up with other alternative policies, they become the “red team”, who don’t see policies until they’re done and can help point out any holes or provide alternatives to fill gaps.
6. For major policies, all citizens may be provided the voluntary opportunity to vote. A completely independent body will prepare:
- An overview of suggested policy
- A comparison to opposition policy
- A standard template that shows financial AND social or environmental impacts
- A full version of the policy which die-hard participators can suggest amendments to on the fly.
- An easy to understand video will be created for each policy so anyone can understand proposed changes in 5 mins. ($10m allocated for 200 a year to these type of communication materials).
7. Each voluntary policy voter must read the material and prove understanding by answering quiz questions on the policy before voting on the proposed policy. They are also able to input amendments.
8. At the time they vote they can also see what others are saying on social media and traditional media in a real time feed if they choose. (more research would need to be done on this in terms of whether this may create “group think” problems.)
9. Votes are auto-recorded and amendments are mass-analysed by computer to find common themes for further investigation. Once the policy has been reviewed and updated based on amendments from all parties, it goes to all party Minsters and People Reps to take the final vote.
10. Votes by Senators in the House of Peoples Representatives are also recorded
11. If a House of Peoples Representatives Senator vote does not match the people they represent, a mandatory vote will may be asked for from people of that area whom the senate leader represents. If the senate rep fails to match the people in their area 3-5 times, the people can request a re-election for the minister in that area. If the Senator defaults 10 times, an automatic re-election for that Senat