More to democracy than voting
During an interview on ABC TVs 7:30 report, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said, “We know that in Australia the best way if you’ve got political differences is to argue them out at the ballot box.”
No, Nicola, we can’t rely on you lot to work out the problems because you’re too busy being ridiculously, unconstructively, pathologically political. And by the time we get to vote (for representatives, not ideas), the issue at hand has long been forgotten or distorted into a blunt instrument of electoral power. You’re not representing my interests, that’s for sure.
You’re part of the problem, Nicola, not the solution, when you rule out the participatory methods of which I know you are very well aware. Now that you’re a powerful Cabinet member, you have dispensed with the generous view of the public you held as an opposition MP and union lawyer. Becoming an authoritarian goes with the territory for a politician in charge of national policing and public surveillance. Did I mention that power corrupts?
It is certainly not “best” to limit public influence on decision-makers rather than decision-making, to be exercised on a single day every three years. It’s a con.
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