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Government Reform
What are your best ideas to improve the government in Australia?
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Latest page update: made by ozideas
, Feb 14 2008, 6:47 PM EST
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Keyword tags:
campaign finance reform
campaign reform
corruption
government pay
government reform
perks
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(Showing the last 5 of 15 - view all)
| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | |
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| Anonymous | Get rid of the States | 8 | Jun 20 2008, 9:01 PM EDT by dra_red | |
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Thread started: Feb 22 2008, 1:44 AM EST
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To many levels of Government, duplicating, confusing and costly. Let's ditch the States.
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| Anonymous | Abolish taxpayer funding of political parties | 13 | Jun 1 2008, 4:07 AM EDT by old-bonez | |
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Thread started: Feb 28 2008, 8:38 PM EST
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Public funding of political parties currently benefits incumbant parties but leaves micro parties to exhaust member contributions trying to keep up. The application fees are refunded for major parties but not for micro parties. The whole system is geared towards incumbants. As a basic first step reform public funding of political parties should be abolished.
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| Anonymous | Eliminate voter conflict of interest | 1 | Apr 12 2008, 7:24 AM EDT by Andy38 | |
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Thread started: Apr 11 2008, 8:34 PM EDT
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In business, if a member of the board has a conflict of interest, then they abstain from voting (if they're ethical). The same should apply to voters. Recipients of government benefits, and members of the public service, should not be permitted to vote whilst receiving these benefits. This reduces conflict of interest, and might even stop politicians buying your vote (since if you accept, say, a first home-buyers grant, you'd be ineligible to vote during that electoral cycle).
This might sounds strange at first, but it makes sense the more you think about it, and is consistent with the views of John Stuart Mill. In his words: "as required by first principles, that the receipt of parish relief should be a peremptory disqualification for the franchise." |
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| Edgo | Reform | 0 | Apr 8 2008, 7:27 AM EDT by Edgo | |
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Thread started: Apr 8 2008, 7:27 AM EDT
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We are over governed and over regulated. Our nation was founded on a compromise between colonies that didn't want to lose their power. I reckon its about time our government was shaken up like every corporation in the country has been.
Firstly, abolish all existing council boundaries and make each lower house electorate the new council boundaries. Each of these council to be split into 9 wards. Make the member of parliament for the electorate answerable to the council, basically, make them work and turn them into lobbyists. Secondly, abolish all state parliaments. This would free up funds that are wasted through duplication and spread the power more evenly. Thirdly, reform the senate into representatives from each state and territories to cover each government department. Each state should be proportionately represented. This way people can vote for individual policies involving each department rather than a group of policies as is the case now. Finally, reform of spending. Have a basic credit value for each person in the country covering essential services and infrastructure. All electorates have equal basic funding. The councils may then trade these credits, such as road funding for education or health, with other councils. This way councils will control where the infrastructure is invested. |
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| quagga | Specialisation within the Legislative branch of Government | 0 | Apr 5 2008, 11:26 PM EDT by quagga | |
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Thread started: Apr 5 2008, 11:26 PM EDT
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My idea is to split the Federal House of Representatives into two sub-houses. One is the "money" house, the other the "moral" house.
The money house is responsible for taxation, federal spending (eg: welfare, health, military, federal public infrastructure, etc.), IR, corporations, banking, trade, etc. The moral house is responsible for citizenship, marriage, human rights, personal property rights, general federal crimes (eg: treason), general international treaties and relations (it could override money house trade agreements on human rights grounds), etc. A voter votes for a candidate for each sub-house at election time. Implementing this gives the voter more power and control by way of increased choice. It also allows for specialisation of politicians due to the new division of labour. A moral house law overrides a money-house law for issues where the two houses share powers/powers overlap and they produce conflicting laws. Though the money house should be allowed to embrace and extend the spirit of the moral house law when creating law relevant to its responsibilities in areas of shared power. The judicial system resolves questions of conflict of shared powers. We could introduce a similar split into the lower state houses also: eg, at the state level- the moral house could pass legislation controlling which sort of medical procedures maybe performed (eg: euthanasia) while the money house would build and maintain the public hospitals. In conclusion I would like to point out that the other branches of government are already specialised. The judicial system at both the federal and state level is split into different courts each with their distinct area of responsibility and the executive at both levels is split into many different departments. I believe that if we likewise allow for specialisation by splitting the legislative branch it would positively advance government in Australia. |
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(Showing the last 5 of 15 - view all)
