In democracy, who leads who ?
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, research fellow in Security Studies at Macquarie Uni raised interesting questions in her article in today’s SMH. She claimed that “Australians yearn for leaders with authenticity and personal integrity.” That raises the question of who leads who.
Representatives
In our democracy we are not electing leaders. We are electing “Representatives”. That means people who will represent us at this conference we call Parliament, to accept our input and direct government to do what we, the Australian, people want.
Who will they heed?
Of course the politicians can only act in accordance with the wishes of those who take the trouble to let them know they want done. Obviously our parliamentary representatives, all 226 of them, cannot possibly know what 28 million Australians want, or please them all if they did.
Power & influence
Our politicians are very responsive to those who let them know what is wanted, by Votergram. This month, 40 years ago, Votergrams were launched to give power and influence to every Australian who wanted it. And they have done just that.
Doubters
I meet many people who say that it is impossible to get government or politicians doing anything anybody wants. Immediately I know they have never heard of Votergrams.
Why they help
Of course the politicians will adopt good, sound, fair and just ideas put to them by the voters who they represent. Those are the voters who can re-elect or replace them. They are the voters on whose votes their careers depend. But many of them really care passionately about some issues.
Democracy two step
To receive the blessing of that power and influence there are two steps. The first is to send Votergrams frequently as your investment in having your taxes spent the way you would like them spent and your government doing what you want. The second is to use the Voters facility to rate how well your local MP and any other MPs are representing you. You can do that each month.
How-to-vote
It will build up for you your own password – protected record of how your local MP and the parties in general have gone throughout the parliamentary term as you are choosing who you will vote for and who you might campaign for. Every Aussie can campaign at election time. They can do it with their family and friends. They can do it in their electorate. They can do it in any one of many marginal electorates. Voters prepared to take advantage of what democracy gives them can elect very responsive parliaments. The business community has been doing that for decades.
A hard thankless job
They could also realise how hard the job of representing 17 million voters, 28 million Aussies all of the time. Many Aussies want the government to do exactly what they want, all of the time But they don’t feel in any way obliged to let the politicians know what that is. Many voters think that everyone wants what they want and so the government does know what they want, even if they have not been told. How conceited and egotistical can you get? There are thousands of differing views. Who would want to be politician? Who would want to spend their time doing what voters want? We voters should take a bit of the load and become quasi-politicians ourselves.
Winners
It is those who ask in the right way who get what they want. For most Aussies to achieve that they will have their say the Votergram way. Cheap and easy!
