Rethink Australia
My friend Rodger Hills has a noble dream: to modernise the Australian constitution. What we have now is a relic of 1901, when the main objective was to federate the colonies. Much of the Australian constitution stipulates how government should be structured so that power is shared between the Commonwealth and the states of Australia.
Rodger believes our constitution should do more useful work for citizens. I reckon Rodger is still on the healthy side of optimism versus delusion. He understands that the political left and right have opposing views about the extent of government involvement in our lives and communities. He doesn’t want to promote interventionist policy, regulation, or nationalism. He appreciates that change is difficult and the political establishment may ignore him at best. But he is on a mission.
Rodger dreams of nothing less than an ethical constitution for a plural and secular conception of The Good Life.
He founded the non-profit Citizens Charter and launched the Rethink Australia campaign to work towards drafting a new constitutional framework that enshrines sufficient liberty for the right and sufficient social prescription for the left. His plan is to involve citizens in deliberative processes to work it out. It will take lots of people and a grass-roots organisation.
If he wants, I’ll help Rodger set up and run the deliberations. You have to support someone who is sincere, earnest, committed and courageous enough to try to realise a Really Big Dream. Oh, and by the way, he could use a bit of dosh, too.
Yesterday I discovered a fabulous service to easily create avatar movies, called xtranormal. When I told Rodger about it, he immediately put it to good use. Here you go:
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