2007-07-31

Minimalist Demarchy

This would be my proposed model for a minimalist Australian Demarchy.

The House of Representatives
  • All elections for the House of Representatives are suspended indefinitely
  • Each elected member in the house is given a term of office lasting from between 1 to 6 years. This number is determined randomly.
  • Once the elected member's term has expired, the sitting member is replaced by an Australian citizen chosen randomly from the population.
  • This randomly selected member's term in the House lasts 8 years.
  • After this member's 8 years is up, they are replaced by another randomly selected Australian citizen.
  • If the member's time in office ends prematurely (death, resignation, removed from office) then they will be replaced by another randomly selected Australian citizen whose term in office will be 8 years.
  • The selection of a Prime Minister will be handled normally.
  • No Australian citizen with a criminal record will be eligible to be selected as a member of the House of Representatives.
  • The number of members of the House of Representatives will be 150.

The Senate
  • All elections for the Senate are suspended indefinitely.
  • Each elected Senator is given a term of office lasting from between 1 to 6 years. This number is determined randomly.
  • Once the elected Senator's term has expired, the Senator is replaced by an Australian citizen chosen randomly from the population.
  • The randomly selected senator must be chosen from the State of Australia that has been allocated to that seat. Eg: If the Senate seat is from NSW, then a person randomly selected from NSW will be invited to fill it. If the Senate seat is from Tasmania, then a person randomly selected from Tasmania will be invited to fill it.
  • This randomly selected Senator's term in the Senate lasts 8 years.
  • After this Senator's 8 years is up, they are replaced by another randomly selected Australian citizen.
  • If the Senator's time in office ends prematurely (death, resignation, removed from office) then they will be replaced by another randomly selected Australian citizen whose term in office will be 8 years.
  • No Australian citizen with a criminal record will be eligible to be selected as a member of the Senate.
  • The number of Senators is 12 from each state in Australia, with 2 each from the ACT and the Northern Territory (total number 76).

The Governor-General
  • The selection of Governor General will be handled normally.


2 comments:

Ron said...

How does "selected randomly" work?

For the senate random selection from a state - how is "from a state" determined?

I would like to be a senator for 8 years - the life time gold pass etc would be wonderful

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

Hi Ron,

"Selected Randomly" is the backbone of Demarchy. Check out the Wikipedia article.

The idea is that politicians are no longer voted for. Instead of elections, people would be "drawn out of a hat" to serve as members of parliament.

Regarding the "state"
I suppose anyone who is residing in a state for a certain period of time (say 4 years or more) would be eligible. For example, if I move to Tasmania and live there for four years I would be eligible to be randomly selected as their Senator. Anything under four years and I wouldn't be eligible (and my name would not be in a hat).

I think it'd be great to be a senator or member of the house of reps. Moreover I think you or I would do a better job than the bozos that are there now. Unfortunately our system of government prevents competent people from becoming politicians.

Hence my preference to set up a Demarchy rather than what we have at the moment.