I put the following post on my Facebook account:
So democracy relies on transparency, openness and public debate, yet political party room discussions are secret. Isn't this wrong?
Monday at 22:46 via Facebook for Android
This status update has attracted by far the most number of comments so far. I have reproduced them under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 licence my Facebook content is licensed with.
Gail Plowman, Nick Bursey and 2 others like this.
Oliver Minter i dont think so... politicians need to be able to discuss things however they do it - not everything should be taped and broadcasted - becoz the broadcast WILL ALWAYS BE EDITED AND OUT OF CONTEXT unless u think all australians have the time to have like a spare earpiece listening to the whole context of a meeting whilst we r at work or play?!
Monday at 22:58 ·
Oliver Minter But i'm all for openness and transparency Peter - the new invention of Participatory Budgeting is an example of this - but even this is incredibly complicated - if u want to see citizens on video learning how to vote on their local government budget and exactly where that money should go - i can send u links...
Monday at 23:01 ·
Sarah Holt-Foreman Oliver makes a very valid point. There comes a time when we need to allow politicians to do their job without every utterance being analysed or misinterpreted.
Monday at 23:05 ·
Peter Campbell The problem I see is that none of there utterances inside their top secret party rooms are ever made public unless there is a leak. People vote for local members to represent them, not for a secret society that regularly hold secret meetings pertaining to public policy and legislation. This seems like a serious contradiction to me. If the full context is available, then the record could be set straight. It is in parliament.
Monday at 23:14 ·
Oliver Minter i didnt think ALL of parliament is publicly taped and available - i thought just some of it is.. but maybe i'm wrong.. but i still agree with Sarah... aniway even if someone was to tape me in my own deliberations about an issue - i make many mistakes and change my mind - i wouldnt want media trying to take that thinking process out of my head and into misrepresentation..
Monday at 23:20 ·
Rachel King Eww politicians, dont trust them as far as I could throw one, the media is worse than the lot with their bias and propoganda. I loved this quote: "The modern proletariat is still just as self-satisfied with living in sub-standard conditons as he was at the time of Marx's writing, the only thing that now supresses him from uprising is the constant ...
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Yesterday at 01:34 ·
Oliver Minter absolutely agree with u Rachel.. and unfortunately i am realising that 'Google' is far from a good thing - having one sole company in charge of ordering our internet searches for all of our information needs?! surely thats like saying "i'm happy with only ONE TV channel - thats all i need!!!
Yesterday at 01:41 ·
Rachel King hmmmm, exactly
Yesterday at 01:42 ·
Oliver Minter and pity none of these posts are "shareable" on facebook..
Yesterday at 01:42 ·
Oliver Minter Rachel- i think i'm insane!! Either i forget an enormous amount of important stuff that i have learned VERY frequently or i am just DUMB - becoz i honestly forgot that i felt that way about Google!! Completely forgot... Google is my homepage - its what i feel i need - just like the practicality and predictability of MacDonalds!!
Yesterday at 01:46 ·
Rob Jansson Never underestimate the importance of double speak in controlling the populous.
Yesterday at 04:18 ·
Oliver Minter what do u mean Rob?
Yesterday at 04:21 ·
Oliver Minter i think the whole issue Peter has brought up is important and we mustn't get too down about stuff- we are absolutley in the middle of one of the most important times in history- to me it compares to the wierd syncronicty that led to the hippie/left/socialism movement of the 60's and 70's.. which woz marked by an unprecedented number of pple in the western world becoming extremely politically active which then led of corse to an inevitable tipping point..
Yesterday at 04:26 ·
Oliver Minter i may be being a little too hopeful but all i mean is in the 50's and 60's Television gave information to the globe like never before in the 80's the internet woz born .. but in the 2000's - social networking and and social and peer created news was created - like wikipedia for example .. citizens around the world became more locally policticall y aware - the Global Greens movement didnt come from federal or state based politics but local..
Yesterday at 04:30 ·
Oliver Minter For the first time in all of human history - a political party can make an enormous amount of money just from little individuals like us on facebook...
Yesterday at 04:31 ·
Oliver Minter and that is only possible becoz we have online money now..
Yesterday at 04:32 ·
Peter Campbell Major parties seek the same prize - getting a majority of themselves elected so they can form a government. As they focus more on the prize and less on their notional roots and "visions" they converge onto the same turf. They seek broad appeal, to win over any undecided voters, and to discredit other parties that threaten them. The whole system has devolved into a game like Survivor, with about the same lack of sense and perspective. And a lot of it is secret.
Yesterday at 21:11 ·
Rachel King People who strive for power are the wrong type to be leading anyone. By discrediting opposing parties rather than the focus being upon how they can improve is to their own discredit. It becomes apparent how self serving they all are, give them a wage that equals that of the blue collar man and then see who fights for the PM position (not that it will ever happen)
Yesterday at 21:24 ·
Rob Jansson Double speak and hypocracy are the primary afflictions of modern democracies. These days the most successful politician would publically advocate the importance of transparency but have lots of secret meetings. The tradgedy is that darwinistically speaking what we most often end up with for politicians are people who are really good at deception.
The really good cheaters are allowed to win and rule.
Yesterday at 04:43 ·
Oliver Minter look i agree with the issues raised by peter and u rob- but i honestly think your veiws are too simplistic..Democracy is absolutley extremely complicated and slow.. trying to organise your own test group of say 300 pple takes 10hrs and usually fails.. Local Government and local government citizen participation is the closest evidence we have in ...
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Yesterday at 04:55 ·
Oliver Minter if u look at the youtube and internet versions of world first democratic citizens controlling a governments budget spending it is an absoltute eye opener..
Yesterday at 04:56 ·
Rachel King It seems to me (not wishing to sound like David Ikes right hand man) that no matter who gets in its still the same people running the show, just a different face ( or puppet). Did you see that the Rockafellers have been priming politicians again with their complementary holidays?
Yesterday at 21:03 ·
1 comment:
I think that if you make cabinet meetings public, the secret discussions will simply happen elsewhere.
What I think is needed is the right of recall of politicians by their electors; for example by a petition of a certain percentage of the electorate to call a by-election for the seat.
The other thing that is needed is direct accountability. While I believe that politicians should be accountable to their party platform and not have "conscience votes" on whatever they feel like, at the same time there needs to be a regular mechanism to consult with the electorate -- since none of this happens, of course few of the electorate would now be interested. But a politician should be there to do a job for the electorate, and should be held accountable as to how well they represent people. Then they can have all the secret meetings they like, but can be judged by their voting record on the floor of parliament.
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