Time to Start a Revolution #auspol

I talk a lot about *revolution* as a way of fixing our politics - because something radical needs to be done to lift the standard and the performance and the quality of our parliament and it's members.

I am strongly of the view that the political system is broken and that we need to revert to a non-party based Parliament - where members are elected and remain elected based on their merit - not on their allegiance to a particular party.

In fact this was how the founding fathers envisioned that our Parliament would work. Unfortunately they weren't prescriptive enough and the place has been subverted and corrupted by a partisan party process that has inserted itself between the people and their Parliament.

We currently have the Blue team and the Red team - the so-called conservatives and progressives. Both are legends in their own lunchtimes - and both try to ensure we view them as our only political options. They usually share access to the big seats and take turns in screwing us over. If one of them is on the nose then we give the other a go. But what are we supposed to do when they are both on the nose? The system is broken - we need a fallback.

Ideally we would elect 150 individuals every three years and give them a week or two after the poll is declared to form a government. The smartest 75 or so would get together to select a leadership team and to allocate portfolios and responsibilities amongst and between themselves. There are plenty of jobs for 75 or more smart people in our Federal Parliament - even for 150 people. At least we wouldn't need so many minders, advisers and other hangers-on. And it would kill the make-believe blue/red contest stone dead. I suppose the rusted-ons would need a bit of help to adapt to the new paradigm ;-)

And they could then get on with the big issues facing the nation. Starting with a "Defence of the nation strategy". I read today how Defence has no idea how many new aircraft, submarines and warships it needs - because they have no strategy - because their political masters have no clue how to build one - because... FFS.

Removing the political parties from our politics would just be a start - we also need to remove the corrupting influence of large donations and political patronage. We taxpayers ought to fund our politicians and their election campaigns via the Treasury - with no external funny money allowed. That way we get to *own* them - not the Clive Palmer's and Twiggy Forrest's of this world.

I don't claim to know all the details about how this new political system would operate - but I do know that we need one that is different from the one that we have today.

And there is no better time than the present to start putting it in place. Are we up to it?