Head to Head

This week’s topic:  ‘That we need more government, not less, in our increasingly complex society’

Peter Whitehead
Who are we if this is true? “Beasts that want discourse of reason”?
Consider what Government means in Australia.

Our early convict managers were promoted out of military or naval ranks for discipline and implementing of orders. Varying governors completed their terms of office in far-flung provinces doing what HM’s man must do until our Commonwealth entered the Democratic Age with a record of subservience to autocratic figureheads.

Universal suffrage and Federation under an obdurate Constitution were yoked with compulsory preferential voting in 1927 to send us down the road of post-Imperial authoritarianism all the way to the WRONG WAY GO BACK signs of life under Howard. Now Barry Humphries’ dentist is accused of having Reds in his bed in his dreams.

Dinky-di Aussies are suspicious of authority. But we vote, most of us. And we put up with a lot of regulation because we are an affluent, civilized group, by and large, happy with near enough.

We are patient with arbitrary speed restrictions on our roads and pay haphazardly awarded fines. We are not queue jumpers and will stoically wait our turn for a fair go. We line up for roll call when required.

It is the ungovernable exceptions that are the problem. No laws rein in outlaws. Yet interfering laws against harmless behaviour incriminate good citizens.

A few weeks back, metal stanchions holding up those unnecessary ribbon mazes in front of airport counters were used to bash a bikie to death. So much for the maintenance of order. Too much regulation has produced life-threatening fixtures. What is a life without liberty?

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” said Ray-gun Ronnie upon inauguration, “From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule…. All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden”.

Aaaah for the clarity of Alzheimers. In a modern Democracy, government must be about the liberation of citizens to govern their own lives.
We could never have enough of that government in a less complex society.

Andrew Woodhouse
I’m tired of hearing that democracy doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t work. We’re supposed to work it.

Sydney Council’s current crises highlights its bereft basic management skills and fundamentally flawed, faustian planning system. We should abandon it, leaving the three Rs, roads rates and rubbish, to run themselves.

This coven of councillors is an ossified circus. It ignores its heritage rules for Jenner, Potts Point, approves bars in Darlinghurst and Potts Point residential laneways, implants silly signs saying ‘No Alcohol’, cloaks Urban Design Review Panel reports, camouflages plans for a critical habitat, Orphan School Park, Glebe, approves DAs under cover of its Small Permits Appeals Panel that its own planners have previously refused via their delegated authority, has ineffective compliance and may not be corrupt, but you’d never know.

This mega-council with $52 million profit and $100 million rates are like Vikings: they arrive, trash the neighbourhood and leave with the loot.
Governments big enough to give you everything you want are big enough to take everything you have.

So is democracy dead? Political parties have certainly undermined it by weakening citizenry. We’re offered a system run by the few for the few (an oligarchy) reducing us to watchers or protesters.

Let’s try a new ‘mini-public’ idea instead, giving us a sense of belonging. Members of the public are elected, lottery-like, deciding outcomes like juries – a true portrait of the people in  miniature – based on extended dialogues, not just three minutes’ worth at Town Hall at one o’clock on a wet Monday afternoon.

It encourages ownership of decisions and a new demarchy where we’d make the big bureaucratic decisions.

Let’s reject ersatz party candidates thrown at us and snatch back our right to choose ’none of the above’ at ballot boxes, forcing out poor councillors.

And I want big, sharp, shears to prune political donations that create ‘special interest’ governments.

If we’d chosen this ancient Athenian-based method, minus chauvinism, we might’ve avoided the current crisis of public confidence in our council, and morphed from mere monitors to real partners instead.

We deserve better government, either more or less.