Tony Abbott, on the run yesterday, rejected Julia Gillard’s policy of having a Citizen Assembly to help clarify the problem of Climate Change. He claimed we already have a citizen’s assembly—parliament. But party politics has amply demonstrated that it cannot be relied on to define the objectives and sieve the arguments, to reach solid conclusions in any satisfactory time frame.
In fact, our democracy, with its manacled attachment to political parties and loyalties, ensures parliament is a place of unseemly behaviour, deliberately aggravated obstruction, ludicrous confusion, and wasted time and talent. And the election process suffers the same problems. After the election the new parliament will be the same.
The actors’ roles may change but not the plot.
Serious matters, which parliament cannot resolve, will linger on undecided, subjecting concerned people to prolonged angst, for no other reason than the incompetence of parliament. The ballot for elections must be replicated in parliament to control all voting. Then, a change of government will never be needed—and in fact will never happen. The members, all independents, will see to it that the will of the people will influence parliament continuously—true parliamentary government.
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