Andrew Bartlett comments on the Liberal Government's guidelines for receiving federal money for flagpoles and makes a comment on public cynicism. There is a helplessness when it comes to government. People are incredibly alienated from the government process they supposedly own, or gains its legitimacy from. It can be argued that the Australian political blog scene is more an indication of alienation than inclusion. The only way the people can protect themselves from the failure of representative government is to be injected into the process directly.

Alienation

Andrew Bartlett has an entry on his website about the current Liberal Government process for the flag flying in schools, titled; Flag and Flagpoles . Andrew mentions the statist requirements a school must adhere to in order to the money for the flagpole. He summarizes his post with;

If there's one thing worse than public funding for schools being prostituted in such a blatantly self-serving way, it's that they are going to get away with - presumably because public cynicism has been cultivated in such a way that people think there is nothing they can do about it.

The people are definitely alienated from government, the gulf is huge. Between factions and the media, the government has no interaction with people other than coercion. As a diasporan, I have no direct representative to represent my interests in parliament. Diasporans have to doubly watch out, as they are in danger of being kicked off the electoral roll if they are not careful.

I would argue that the strong political blogging community is not a sign of identity with the Australian political system, but an emergent property of people's alienation from it. Many talented writers and opinionated people have been ignored by government, the faction system and the mass media. Their only outlet is to cry into the constant data swarm of the balkanized internet - to create meaning and political dialogue outside of the governmental process.

History

It is no wonder Australian history is dominated by the likes of Pemulwey, Lalor and Lingiari. There are two stories being told, one that frames the government and state as the central component of Australian legitimacy and authority - the other is this irrepressible tide of individuals being crushed by the weight of government and fighting for their rights.

Australian history is a noble one if we ignore the government telling of it. Otherwise we get stuck with the self-important and unwarranted triumphalism of the abundant state. This is what Peter Botsman called the swindle. The history government is trying to force upon us is thoroughly undeserving and completely at odds with the history of the people. The "culture wars" are another example of the government trying to maintain a monopoly on who gets to tell Australian history, who gets to define justice and what gets defined as "Australian".

Enfranchisement and Participation

I believe the lead up to the invasion of Iraq witnessed the failure of the representative system. It may have been sufficient to contain political leaders and factions in the past, but the proponents of modern politics have manipulated the power of the state, the media's love of celebrity and the control of the message through the media to the point that the representative system is no longer a guard against the common weal being ignored.

The only way to remove the alienation of the people, and to remove the control of faction and the mass media on the political process is by injecting the people directly into the process. Whether by Ratifiers between parliament and the Governor-General , or citizens being chosen by sortition to make up 25% of the Parliament, or even legislation to support spontaneous groups of citizen auditors who dig through governments bone heavy closets.

The wisdom lies with the people, and to be honest I trust a plumber to make better tax decisions than the politicians currently in government. I am willing to bet that tax bracket creep would become a thing of the past if the middle class had a quarter of parliament in their hands through sortition.

Skewed and More Skewed

The representative system is by its structure undemocratic, it propels an elected representative to protect to be mindful of the common weal, or else be punished by the electorate in future. Former aristocratic style representatives of the idle classes also saw themselves as benevolent and paternal, necessary to look over the ignorant chattering classes. Billy Hughes was the last Australian Prime Minister of this kind.

The common weal is destroyed by faction. If a representative system is undemocratic, one based on majority faction is even more so. It skews representation further in what is an already skewed system. It is one designed to route around the input and interference of the people. As it is elections are a pesky annoyance causing the diversion of taxpayer money to re-election and slightly more focus than usual on incumbent policy.

There is good reason that the Australian political system needs rejuvenating: the politicians have had a century under the current system and it has proven itself too weak, too impotent to protect our rights or give us a meaningful and effective voice in the policy and process of government. For this reason the people are going to have to be injected into the process of government directly. It is the only way we can protect ourselves from representative government.

cam