The member for Cowper

A model for the newly elected representative for the Cowper electorate:

Whether you voted for me or not, I gained more than 50% of votes in the last election and I have accepted the responsibility to convey to the parliament your intentions for how our community can contribute to and benefit from government.

My first task is to work towards establishing two way communication with each voter so that I can let you know what's happening in parliament and you can tell me whether I'm doing what you need me to do.

To do that effectively I'll have a couple of helpers. I'll introduce them to you when they are settled in.

As soon as I get to know my way around in Canberra - who does what and how - we will migrate this temporary home to cowper.gov.au - don't bother looking there yet - it's a vacant lot! It has remained untended by the local representative - a member of a conservative party - ever since .gov.au was invented - about 30 years ago.

Once we move in we'll offer each voter in the electorate a space of their own - cowper.mygov.au/space - and an email address @cowper.gov.au

You'll be able to redirect that email to your own private mailbox if you wish and set your preference for how you would like to interact with me - by email or by text if you want me store your mobile number.

What I propose is this:

Whenever a bill comes up for debate in parliament I will send you a link to a poll asking you whether you are in favour of the bill or not. You will be offered a precis of the bill with a link to a full description and prompted to respond with a simple yes or no. The poll will naturally have a closing date before the bill is presented in the house.

I will take the result of the poll into consideration when casting my vote in the house. If a majority of voters in the electorate have voted in favour or against the bill then that is how I will vote. If not, I will vote according to the platform on which you have elected me taking into account the poll result and any other information I can gather about the wishes of the people in the electorate who have been able to convey their wishes in other ways.

The tally of our poll will be shown on our web site and a history of all the polls we've held and how I've voted in the house.

Disclamer: I will vote against bills that are too convoluted and clumsy hoping they will be defeated forcing the proponent to redraft. (Some of the motions that are put to the house are bizarre to say the least!) I'll communicate this on the site but won't hold a poll.

Obviously this will work best if all or most of the voters in Cowper participate so when we get going whenever the opportunity presents I will be encouraging that (but I won't bomb your letterbox with glossy brochures!).

Our site will have other features which you will be free to use - along the lines of a "ning" as described at ning.com - so there is scope for a lot of discussion, articles of interest, publicity for groups - a lot of information can potentially be made freely available to the voters of Cowper.

Two thousand and twenty two

 So much angry. Best vent.

Slave owners rewarded their human property with barrels of salted pork.

A parliament is a group of people, or owls.

To control us our owners have created imaginary 'divisions' and periodically cunningly compile a list of names of people from which they demand that we choose one for each division to join their parliament where they are rewarded with wealth and privilege. Some even acquire power.

To justify their privilege these people present their notions for how to sustain their existence to the group. Those who persevere with having their notions accepted can see them embodied into rules that apply to everyone not in the group. But not to themselves. They make special rules for themselves.

Nobody from outside the group can participate.

Here's what I have been gabbing about of late:

To me the most important deficiency in our democracy is the absence of a charter of rights. As Geoffrey Robertson delights in reminding us, "real democracy only exists if politicians give the courts power to defend citizens against abuses of their human rights by governments and public servants". Among other things, this implies that we the citizens can oblige our parliament to hold referenda (and hence control change to the constitution) at our request. In the absence of this charter we remain forever slaves to those who seize and hold power. The Uluru statement needs a referendum. The government said no. That is intolerable!

Chapter 8 of the constitution contains a single section. 128. Mode of altering the constitution. It rules that the constitution can only be altered by an act of parliament* and that when a proposed law to change the constitution is submitted to the electors the vote shall be taken in such manner as the Parliament prescribes.

* The governor can override this if the law gets stuck between houses.

A member in favour of a democratic parliament can, with the help of a constitutional lawyer, put forward a bill to amend this section so that a plebiscite can demand that a referendum be held on a specific question. No ifs or buts.

I would like to see a mechanism to enable the will of the people to be able to be conveyed to parliament. This would be a change and a move to improve our parliamentary democracy. When an an elected member gets to the house they will be asked to engage in debate and to vote on bills. How will they know how we want them to vote? They can also present bills on our behalf but only if they know what we want.

Until now the mechanism has been trust and look where that's got us!

Here's another theme: a body - perhaps the aec or abs - should make an app available to the divisions so that citizens could create an account and vote on the bills that their rep is voting on in parliament.

I have a notion that representatives to parliament could run a ballot of all their constituents on every bill being debated in the house. That way they could vote according to the will of the people to the house - democracy.

All that is required is a database with a table, VOTERS, of up to 150000 rows with columns for an identifier and a binary for each ballot held and another table, BILLS, would hold the questions, one for each column in the main table.

Then an interface to create/retrieve a row and to present the current bill with a yes/no response prompt - and a progressive % tally.

Each ballot remains open from when the bill is presented in the house until it is predicted to be voted on in the house.

Of course the data for the VOTERS is in the electoral roll but it is doubtful that governments would make that available - too politically volatile - so it would be up to the rep to get constituents to sign up.The data for BILLS is in the parliamentary calendar for each sitting but it is subject to manipulation by the parties so would require constant monitoring to be kept up to date. Amendments etc.

Quite a challenge but, like online voting, worth investigating. If I was a rep I would feel obliged to provide my constituents with a mechanism to indicate their will on how they would like me to vote. That’s my job!

But it may be just pissing in the wind so don’t get excited about a new lead.

On the other hand, a good tool might generate interest and actually become part of the democratic process like electronic voting will one day.