I’ve not been happy with the state of Australian politics for quite some time – the recent ABC Drum Opinion article by Professor Ian Marsh and former barrister Greg Barnes aligns very closely with a number of the things that make me question if our political system is really working for us as well as it could. Of course, the big question that inherently follows any challenge on the status quo in any situation is “well, what would you propose changing it into?”.

I can’t support a “let’s have an electronic parliament where everyone votes on every measure” that often gets bandied about in online circles – sometimes governments need to make unpopular decisions. Populist policy is – more often than not – bad policy. Also, this sort of system inherently punishes the less educated/fortunate in society – unless you show an active interest in politics (and let’s be honest here – chances are if you do have an interest in politics you’re either a stakeholder in a business or lobby group, or tertiary educated), you’re unlikely to find the time or inclination to have a say on policy when there are other day-to-day stresses and concerns to deal with that seem more relevant and pressing.

I’d put a sizable amount of my savings on a bet – that the majority of people couldn’t tell me who their local Federal MP is, let alone naming one of their state’s Senators. This, to me, is a tremendous part of the problem. As Marsh and Barnes point out, a lot of political issues today aren’t split along simple “class” lines, or even the traditional concepts of “left” and “right” which are increasingly becoming a false dichotomy:

A conservative Catholic might oppose gay marriage but support action on climate change and live cattle exports. She might be sympathetic to refugees. An economic liberal who supports liberalising labour markets might also support action on climate change, but also ‘border protection’ and women on boards. 

You can’t force people to suddenly “pay attention” to individuals within politics – over the past 20 years, Australia has moved closer and closer to elections being “presidential style”, where the focus is more on the leader of each party instead of the representatives you will be electing into Parliament on election day. We continue to see this focus even during the course of the political term – the media rabidly feeds off of anything Abbott or Gillard say or do, providing no insight into what the rest of our representatives are doing (unless they do something controversial, and even then only usually if it involves money or sex).

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that I believe that the concept of two political parties being enough to cover a political spectrum is outdated. I’d love to see Australia take a leaf from Japan’s electoral process and give every single candidate standing for office 5 minutes of public air time – on television, radio and the Internet. Give us some insight into each individual representative and the issues they feel most strongly about. If this youtube video is any indication, you’d also get some absolute pearlers for the media to jump on to – and more importantly, a reason for me to have another entertaining election gathering (complete with the “sip your drink any time a candidate says ‘un-Australian’” rule).

Let’s not even bring “who will be Prime Minister” into the election equation – because, honestly, it’s really quite irrelevant. Once Parliament is elected, have the most qualified members for each Ministerial position take the reins of that particular job. Stop letting it be “jobs for the boys”, and let someone with credentials make the decisions. In the event of multiple people qualified for the position, Parliament elects a minister. Same with the leadership – the mantle goes to the MP that Parliament deems worthy of the role. Let’s abolish the idea that one person makes decisions for the entire country – that hasn’t been the case in quite some time, so why are we pretending otherwise?

This then generates a situation where opposition to a motion is driven by (one would hope) evidence and persuasive argument – not simply “because the other side supports it”. By-elections become a no brainer, there’s no longer the risk of a party “losing control”. Keep the existing conventions of motions of no confidence. Have the Senate resume its original intention as a House of the States, representing an entire State and not an electorate. (Ever noticed how the only people to stand up in the Senate and go “this is not good for my State, so I must object” are Independents? Yeah. The rest will usually blindly do what the party mandates.)

By having the focus be on individuals instead of parties, we may actually see some work being done by backbenchers other than playing Solitaire on their laptops. Of course, what I’m proposing will never happen – nepotism is alive and well in the political scene. You can’t exactly promise someone a sweet “safe seat” if an election is based on the electorate’s view of an individual and their morals/ethics/policies/thoughts as opposed to a party. This sort of system would decimate the power of the “big two” and those that finance their activities (and I’m not referring to the taxpayer.).

The above is a pipedream. It’s probably unworkable for reasons I haven’t even considered. But it’s my alternative. I’ll continue to vote for minor parties after becoming disenfranchised with the ALP, as it’s the closest I’ll get to that pipedream.