hrough a process to verify those chosen ministers have the required experience in order to run for that house.
However, there are no special skill requirements to run for election into the House of Peoples Representatives.
1. Online voting is made available for all citizens. Citizenship kiosks are also set up in places where few people have the internet.
2. Votes can be cast online over the period of 1 week, however home based voting lasts for 6 days which ensures that if the internet is not working on the final day (where there would be a rush), those people have the opportunity to attend a kiosk based voting booth. Voting online will provide 500k vision impaired Australians the right to a private vote, something they have not enjoyed to date.
3. Before voting, every Australian must spend 30-40 minutes reading about the ministerial candidates (this is the time it takes for most Australians to go to the voting both today any way so this time is simply being re-appropriated to their education instead). They can also complete a survey based on personal values and wants – system will suggest candidates and political parties based on these.
Parties may not provide “how to vote” cards.
4. In online voting, candidates will be randomly presented in each different voting session to prevent effects of donkey voting and rogue “how to vote” cards.
5. Federal government voting occurs in two stages, the first of which is mandatory:
STAGE ONE (Mandatory)
– Voting individuals in to the House of Knowledge and Wisdom. People can choose OPTIONAL PREFERENCING both “above” (to parties) or “below” the line.
- Voting individuals in to the House of Peoples Representatives. People must vote for a local candidate who may or may not be a part of a political party
- Voting for a Prime Minster and Prime Speaker candidates. People can nominate any number of minsters (in preference) for those roles. The top 5 candidates are presented to the representatives who ultimately win the HoR and Senate seats and those people then vote on the nominated 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 geogra