As I got older I started to learn the basic differences between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party and why it was that my family were Labor voters. Like any child I took it at face value and so I started to follow the party ideology... at least as it sat on paper.
But now, I no longer see the value of party politics. And the biggest problem I have with it is that it is actually quite undemocratic. Democracy as a form of government was idealistically a system where everybody has a say in the policy and direction of the government. Obviously as it was not practical for us all to be in the same place for a vote all of the time, democracy evolved into a representative democracy, where people elected someone to represent them in a parliament.
The representative democracy obviously is flawed in that everybody will not agree on a certain issue within any constituency and thus their opinion isn't being completely represented. It is far from a perfect system.
But what we have currently in Austrlia is not a good form of democracy. What we essentially have is two major political parties (Labor and the Coalition [who while technically are 2 seperate parties in the Nationals and Liberals, there are very few issues that they don't vote the same way]) that together form 99% of the lower house and 91% of the upper house.
The biggest problem with political parties is that they don't really allow politicians to actually represent their constituents. In the Labor party, if a politician votes against the party line they are at risk of expulsion from the party. In the Liberal party it is incredibly frowned upon. There have been very few cases in recent memory of politicians crossing the floor on an issue. One notable was Barnaby Joyce when the Nationals essentially held the balance of power in the senate.
Why this is a problem is that a politician cannot even vote on what they believe themselves. The voters are essentially electing a politician to be a vote for their party on whatever issues they vote on. And I don't see how this is acceptable. If a member of the Labor party were voting on, say, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol, and they personally believed it was a bad idea, plus they had received hundreds of letters against the policy but very few for it, they still would have to vote for the policy if that is what the party decided!!! The perfect example of this is Peter Garrett who has either had an incredible change in ideology or is voting against his own feelings and for the party line on many issues. It is truly a disgraceful system!
What I think would be a better system is if we did away with party politics completely and have anyone with political aspirations become an independent politician. They are duty bound to consider the opinions of their constituency in their decision making and they are free to vote however they feel best inclined on any issue. They as a parliament elect a Prime Minister and then elect a Ministry how they best see fit. The Ministry are then responsible for writing policy that the parliament vote on.
Many will say that nothing will get done, that party politics allows things to happen, things to evolve, but there is nothing to say that this would not happen with a system of independents, that the politicians will back the ministers they elect. I think they will find a way of making it work.
The other incredible change that has happened in the last 20 years that has never been a feature of representative democracy in the past is the internet. The internet has opened up an incredible resource for politicians to communicate their thoughts and beliefs with their constituents. It allows these constituents to communicate their own thoughts and beliefs instantly and regularly. There is nothing to say that a politician could not poll his constituents on every issue before going to a vote.
And the biggest problem with this issue is apathy. People vote for a certain political party because it is the easy thing to do. It is so much easier to vote between one of two, or even a few choices than having to actually do some research and discover who it is running! The effectiveness of the major parties could be diminshed at the next election if people were to reject the major political parties and just vote for an independant. But things will never change as long as those in control allow people to see politics as unimportant, boring and petty. When a disagreement over a Ute is the most pressing political discussion for as long as it was, what hope do we have!
Please comment away... I'm sure you all have some arguments against my points!!! I would love to hear them!
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