Activism is democracy's failure. Ballot NOW!

So many problems there are that governments (and we) face and so long do they take to decide, and how often the decisions are so unsatisfactory, for the simple reason that the people are far from involved in preliminary discussions.

On Monday Age/Voice 8/11, reports 2010 John Barry Memorial Lecture on 11th Nov. 'The role of activism in criminal justice reform' by the Vice Chancellor's Fellow Peter Norton AO.

My problem is this. It is calmly assumed that 'activism' is the important necessity to get such a problem duly attended to (along with dozens of other government problems).

Under the existing circumstances one could not be surprised but, isn't that a terrible indictment on the state of democratic government and the disconnect between a caring people and their government. So we have to rely on loud noise in the streets for harassed government to be pushed to act.

It is the isolation of the people from government by the party system - and their dis-empowerment, that produces a defeatist despair in the face of so many problems which cannot be truly solved without the widespread concurrence of the community. Retired Judge Gebhardt once said that democracy is a moralising force in the community. But it is plain that aspect of democracy is working feebly and incompetently at best, when we consider the crime among youth, the irresponsible, and often fatal, manner in which cars are seen (or just heard in the wee small hours) hurtling through our streets.

Moreover, law abiding citizens are now less inclined to be involved in incidents for safety sake. Gebhardt's viewpoint is underlined by the comment of Al Smith, Governor of New York in 1923: 'The solution to problems of democracy is (simply) more democracy!'

The point is plain. Our democracy's intimate connection between people and government has never materialised to bring the community unity that can extend the moralising process community wide. Gangs and murderers should be terrified, not law abiding citizens.

A fragile government is formed

In a day of high drama, Julia Gillard was granted the right to form a government—of sorts—with the tenuous promise of the backing of independents—with support more conditional than anyone has ever had before, in attempting to form and maintain government .
Rob Oakeshott, the key architect of this traumatic arrangement, described its future operation as ‘ugly but beautiful’. It is a scenario to delight independents but give the new government many a headache, with guarantees limited to support for supply and opposition to frivolous no-confidence motions. He has cobbled together this combination of open, independent voting by some five independents without any limits to the dysfunctional operation of the adversarial two-party system.
There will be little legislation which can escape controversy. Oakshott’s idea, as he suggested, is that the word ‘mandate’ would have no place in this parliament, meaning the power of the government to legislate will be based, virtually, on the PM’s persuasive ability, throughout the life of the parliament.
If the Prime Minister can manage to carry important legislation through the Lower House successfully she will be a tactical magician, not to mention a political diplomat of outstanding calibre.
Oakshott’s attempt to achieve a non-partisan parliament with a handful of independents, is a bold attempt and is to be commended, and has achieved much improvement in executive accountability.
However a ballot parliament would be far better able to achieve his desire for a non-partisan parliament with far less trauma and waste of time. When will we see sanity prevail?