Saturday 24 June 2017

The People Have Lost Faith In Their Elected Public Servants

It’s nearly a year since the last Federal election was held. The Liberal/National coalition was beset with a loss of 14 seats leaving the coalition with 76 seats; just one above 75 to gain government.

It was a win by a whisker!

Under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, and with the use of a presidential style logo bearing Malcolm Turnbull’s name (the Australian flag was tossed aside), the coalition managed to lose 14 seats which pales into insignificance when compared with that of the former leader of the coalition, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, where the coalition managed to secure 17 additional seats  at the previous federal election!

  
Ever since Turnbull tripped over the line, it appears that the electorate at large has become disenfranchised, not only with the coalition but with labor as well.

The people now appear to be entirely lost with the electoral process and have also become disenchanted with the apparent incompetence of our federal, state and territory elected public servants.

The focus during election campaigns has tended to be swamped by the leaders of the political parties rather than with those people who are putting themselves forward for a chance to represent the people of the various federal electoral divisions.

A point to make here is that, like the phrase “head of state”, the phrase “prime minister” does not appear in Australia’s constitution.

In other words, there is no provision in the constitution for the people to elect their Prime Minister. 

At election time, the job for the people is to elect a person to represent them in their particular federal division of which currently total 150.

That said, maybe there are other ways the people could be better engaged with the electoral process. Here are some ideas that could be considered.

First up, the launches of each of the political parties manifestoes should occur simultaneously so that the stealing of ideas is restricted.

A. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), at public cost, should be responsible for the organising of “Town Hall” meetings in each of the electoral Divisions so that each of the candidates for a particular Division can:

1. Inform the people of any political party they represent and/or have represented in the past or state that they are an independent candidate.

2. Present a 5 minute presentation of their Manifesto to the people of that Division.

3. Be subject to questioning by the people of that Division for no more than10 minutes.

B. These meetings should be held simultaneously across the country and that the only people who can attend those meetings must be on the electoral role of that particular Division.

C. The AEC is to provide a pamphlet to all attendees of the meeting and is to detail the information of each candidate including a photo of the candidate, political party alliance, contact details and a summary of their manifesto. An electronic version of the pamphlet is to be made available on the AEC website.

D. A video and/or audio record of the meeting is to be made and can only be aired/screened/streamed on the next day after the meeting and is to be made available up until polling day.

All other costs for running as a candidate shall be the sole responsibility of the candidates themselves. This action is to prevent people from  running for office and gaining monies if they don’t win the vote in their Division as is the case now.