Our Democracy: Party Politics, Mediocrity And Us…

As a Victorian, after a lacklustre election campaign, and my own disullusionment with constant party political rhetoric in the media at the expense of rational public debates, I read with interest Cassandra Wilkinson’s article ‘Government Needs To Be Simplified To Overcome Crisis Of Medioccrity’.

Cassandra makes the following comments about our political ‘ennui’:

A Simple Way Out Of Mediocrity

In Australia there is a political crisis without rioting in the streets – voters are becoming aware of the growing size of our missed opportunities.

Too many fellow Australians are missing out. Most of us want to do better at sharing our success, so wealth means something more than money…it means ‘decency and opportunity and flourishing’.

Making everything simpler would help. We should start with our confused federalism arrangements. This would help avoid confusion, blame shifting and lack of accountability.

“Everything from running the surf club or providing after school activities for kids to holding a raffle for the fire brigade has become so overcomplicated that government is increasingly looked to as a provider of services we used to run ourselves.

Simplification means limited and explicable tasks accounted for regularly in plain English…

Simplifying everything supports effective devolution…

The work done with our money should be undertaken as locally as possible to keep government accountable and allow voters to compare their local results with what their neighbours are getting. It also means that each local area can learn from the mistakes and successes of other communities instead of all of us gambling that a one-size-fits-all model designed in Canberra will work in every community…

After simplifying and devolving, we can begin to compete.

The real competition we need is on product, not price – competition that develops a market for finding better solutions to persistent ‘wicked’ problems.

It’s no surprise we are disappointed in politics and politicians. We have let them create a job that is too big, too complicated and too centralised for anyone to do well…

We voters have played our part, of course. We demand too many things we don’t really need…demanding the increasing regulation as we demand ever-greater safety and risk-free living..

Taking back as many jobs as we can for ourselves and ensuring government does its part as locally as possible will restore democratic authority to the voters and release the political clas from a cage of its own making.”

Very well said!