 a party, but a group of minster by minster opposition, there to provide alternative policies to the incumbent government, and to question existing policies: not to be roadblocks but to play devils advocate to the government and the Australian people.
Map of the Australian states / Mapa dels estats australians (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
THE RE-IMAGINING OF STATE AND FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Councils and senate electorates are aligned, so instead of 150 electorates and 564 councils, there are simply 250 Councils. The responsibilities of councils remain the same, but they work directly with ministerial electorates and because of this new alignment, enjoy much better communication and speed of necessary change. This will also increase the size of the House of Peoples Representatives.
2. State government in its current (constitutionally separate form) is dissolved because we assume that people’s new power to vote on individual policies will ensure that the states are properly represented without the need for a separate government. This will also ensure much better alignment and billions is administrative savings.
3. Instead, there will be a state based minister for every portfolio. The federal government is then responsible for the creation of policies that were formerly state based activities (e.g. health and education), but the state based representatives are responsible for state level input into the plans and for the implementation of those plans.
4. Voting for Council, State, House of Knowledge & Wisdom and House of Peoples Representatives all happen at the same time (or at least within the same month), to ensure best alignment of the values of the people.
VOTING: EMPOWERING THE PEOPLE
Voting in the House of Knowledge and Wisdom is for a MINISTER, not for a political party. This means we no longer have situations where people without knowledge of the area are chosen simply because they have been working in party politics for a long time. Political parties may present a list of all ministers, but they must go through 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