Thanks for the link. Will watch with interest, though must say, have never been a huge Sandel fan. Then again, I haven't read anything by him for a long time, so might be misjudging him.
Thanks, Harry. I try and make it ground zero for things you mightn't hear elsewhere and it helps that the audience is amazingly diverse. People with their own views but willing to hear others.
A minor hopeful point. Albanese, more than just about anyone else in public life, is viscerally committed to the two-party system. If Labor can't retain outright majority, he'll be gone inside a year. That might open things up a bit, including the minds of the political journalist class, who accept the two-party framing out of habit and laziness.
I agree, though I wonder who would replace him and how much better they will be. At least in the short term. Generational change precipitated by sustained deliberative government is about the only thing that will do it, I suspect.
Albo (like me in some respects) is a generation behind his chronological age, someone for whom the Labor factional politics that grew out of The Split* were formative experiences. Chalmers, Wong and others entered politics after it was fully professionalised. They'll make deals if they need to, I think.
* I wonder how many readers here will even know what I am referring to
I was born the year after the Split, and about seven years before Albo. It still dominated the culture of NSW Labor politics when I was in Young Labor in the late 1970s. The Left organization was called the Steering Committee, a body that had emerged during the Split. We still called the other side Groupers.
"In the late 1980s the NSW left split between supporters of Anthony Albanese and Jan Burnswoods. Very little was at stake beyond the politics of personality and factional intrigue, though you wouldn’t know it to hear the names they gave themselves and each other. The Burnswoods supporters were known variously as the “Cavalier-ites”, “Mensheviks”, “Radicals”, “Dealers”, “Broad Left”, “Labor Left” or “Soft Left”. The Albanese supporters were known as the “Walker-ites”, “Bolsheviks”, “Ratbags”, “Doers”, “Industrial Left”, “Socialist Left” or “Hard Left”.[lxxix] They had the terms down well enough, but it was a farce; like children playing cowboys and Indians with no conception of what they were taking in vain."
Along with the two-party system that has to go is the 'in his (usually his) own image' style of leadership. Modern political parties don't like to show any of their internal deliberations, as if showing us how they arrived at a policy position is a sign of weakness. Perhaps that has to change too?
I've become really interested by poli.is, and the way in which the Taiwanese government used this tool to deliberately crowdsource / brainstorm a 'plurality' of perspectives, and then used this to guide the policy development process. Other forms of participatory / deliberative democratic processes are available as a concept, but to date have waited for Governments to invite citizens in to participate (and then try to water down their suggestions, if they seem too radical, as happened in the French citizens assembly on climate), but I am curious to see whether the uptick in community independent support might lend itself well to citizens reimagining what participation could look like.
That link didn't work for me. Is this the Audrey Tang stuff? I have her book, but haven't read it yet. Lot's of people I admire hold her in high regard.
A very important contribution Tim, and I think Bec’s suggestion is brilliant because we’re trapped in a cycle of Libs offering white bread and Lab suggesting white bread in a brown bag (and the mainstream media fixated on the bag and not the bread). None are trying to fix our problems, so as Tim writes:
‘I guess the point I am making is that much of what ails us cannot be resolved within the parliament itself but requires a community-level engagement that educates by involvement and provides alternative sources of knowledge that “challenge the integrating, opinion forming and agenda setting capacities of the major political parties.”’
If we had crowdsourced policy alternatives, the social licence from that crowd moves to multigrain and perhaps we could actually shift the dial. This seems like something community independents could help drive, and https://pol.is/home doesn’t look too hard to implement.
I'll have to have a close look at the website, Frank, but I have to admit I have misgivings about straight outsourcing of policy. Like Citizens' Assemblies, I think it needs to be done in a very inclusive and educative way giving people access to expertise so they can chew over the details. I'm aiming for a process whereby citizens articulate the outcomes they want and experts help achieve them. Maybe that's what the site does and as I say, I will have a proper look.
From what I can tell from interviews with Audrey Tang, using tools like this are mainly to inform the policy development and debate, that is- what ‘plurality’ of views are held, and therefore what does policy making need to consider. I believe the policy development itself is still done by government, once citizen engagement / collaboration has allowed a broader range of possibilities to be explored. There are interesting organisations in Australia working in this space too, but mostly focused on either local govt or overseas, but I believe it holds great potential.
Preferential voting unfortunately helps to keep the duopoly in place by propping the primary vote of the major parties back up.
Some form of proportional representation is required to truly reflect the diversity of opinion in Australia and it is a missed opportunity that neither the Greens nor Independents are championing a shift towards it.
Tim I really like your summary of the political situation and I agree totally that we need a different system, one that will really help us to solve problems, rather than deflect us from this task. I like to use a life-boat analogy - is this how people in a lifeboat would work out what to do? By yelling at each other and splitting into two antagonistic groups and having a winner-take-all approach to their survival? I don't think so. I gather it's not how juries work either (having watched 12 Angry Men). It's not how any functional group works. So let's not put up with this in our national politics.
There is a genuine argument for the "battle of ideas" but it presumes a basic shared set of shared values that maybe doesn't exist robustly enough anymore. It's like a vegan and a meat eater can have a meal together, and even if they have different approaches to food, they are still talking about food. The problem is when someone joins the table who wants to nuts and bolts covered in motor oil and insists that everyone else does as well. That's pretty much what Trump is. Maybe Dutton too.
Albanese dealt with Dutton to ensure the formation of a neutered NACC and now, to prevent meaningful electoral reform. The lablibs led by Albanese and Dutton stand for the status quo and represent the oligarchs.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Get what you like, or you'll grow to like what you get."
The neocons made credit available to the working class, to enable our survival while they rearranged the distribution of the national surplus. We are all head down bum up surviving without the time or energy to get what we like.
Our demands go unheard, they love our apathy. Perhaps a general strike would gain their attention.
My my, if ever there was a salve for these uncertain times, then this is it. Quite the uplifting read TD. All I can respond with is - sign me up - I'm onboard.
I'm working on a follow-up--maybe via a contributor--that will directly address this question. In brief, though, I think the secret is to find local organisations already in this space and add your light to the sum of light. Don't worry too much about scale, that will come. As I say, more to come.
A very good summary of the problem and its possible solution can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um017R5Kr3A
Thanks for the link. Will watch with interest, though must say, have never been a huge Sandel fan. Then again, I haven't read anything by him for a long time, so might be misjudging him.
Thanks, john
I think we must all do more thinking out loud if we are to find a solution, Tim. You provide a worthy platform here to build upon.
Thanks, Harry. I try and make it ground zero for things you mightn't hear elsewhere and it helps that the audience is amazingly diverse. People with their own views but willing to hear others.
A minor hopeful point. Albanese, more than just about anyone else in public life, is viscerally committed to the two-party system. If Labor can't retain outright majority, he'll be gone inside a year. That might open things up a bit, including the minds of the political journalist class, who accept the two-party framing out of habit and laziness.
I agree, though I wonder who would replace him and how much better they will be. At least in the short term. Generational change precipitated by sustained deliberative government is about the only thing that will do it, I suspect.
Albo (like me in some respects) is a generation behind his chronological age, someone for whom the Labor factional politics that grew out of The Split* were formative experiences. Chalmers, Wong and others entered politics after it was fully professionalised. They'll make deals if they need to, I think.
* I wonder how many readers here will even know what I am referring to
The split happened well before Albanese's birth, but like all good students of history, he took its lessons to heart.
I was born the year after the Split, and about seven years before Albo. It still dominated the culture of NSW Labor politics when I was in Young Labor in the late 1970s. The Left organization was called the Steering Committee, a body that had emerged during the Split. We still called the other side Groupers.
I found this great quote from Marxist Left Review on the failure of the Labor left
https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-alp-left-in-victoria-and-nsw/
"In the late 1980s the NSW left split between supporters of Anthony Albanese and Jan Burnswoods. Very little was at stake beyond the politics of personality and factional intrigue, though you wouldn’t know it to hear the names they gave themselves and each other. The Burnswoods supporters were known variously as the “Cavalier-ites”, “Mensheviks”, “Radicals”, “Dealers”, “Broad Left”, “Labor Left” or “Soft Left”. The Albanese supporters were known as the “Walker-ites”, “Bolsheviks”, “Ratbags”, “Doers”, “Industrial Left”, “Socialist Left” or “Hard Left”.[lxxix] They had the terms down well enough, but it was a farce; like children playing cowboys and Indians with no conception of what they were taking in vain."
Along with the two-party system that has to go is the 'in his (usually his) own image' style of leadership. Modern political parties don't like to show any of their internal deliberations, as if showing us how they arrived at a policy position is a sign of weakness. Perhaps that has to change too?
I've become really interested by poli.is, and the way in which the Taiwanese government used this tool to deliberately crowdsource / brainstorm a 'plurality' of perspectives, and then used this to guide the policy development process. Other forms of participatory / deliberative democratic processes are available as a concept, but to date have waited for Governments to invite citizens in to participate (and then try to water down their suggestions, if they seem too radical, as happened in the French citizens assembly on climate), but I am curious to see whether the uptick in community independent support might lend itself well to citizens reimagining what participation could look like.
That link didn't work for me. Is this the Audrey Tang stuff? I have her book, but haven't read it yet. Lot's of people I admire hold her in high regard.
Yes indeed - and same here, I've got the Plurality book on my stack of books to read next...
A very important contribution Tim, and I think Bec’s suggestion is brilliant because we’re trapped in a cycle of Libs offering white bread and Lab suggesting white bread in a brown bag (and the mainstream media fixated on the bag and not the bread). None are trying to fix our problems, so as Tim writes:
‘I guess the point I am making is that much of what ails us cannot be resolved within the parliament itself but requires a community-level engagement that educates by involvement and provides alternative sources of knowledge that “challenge the integrating, opinion forming and agenda setting capacities of the major political parties.”’
If we had crowdsourced policy alternatives, the social licence from that crowd moves to multigrain and perhaps we could actually shift the dial. This seems like something community independents could help drive, and https://pol.is/home doesn’t look too hard to implement.
I'll have to have a close look at the website, Frank, but I have to admit I have misgivings about straight outsourcing of policy. Like Citizens' Assemblies, I think it needs to be done in a very inclusive and educative way giving people access to expertise so they can chew over the details. I'm aiming for a process whereby citizens articulate the outcomes they want and experts help achieve them. Maybe that's what the site does and as I say, I will have a proper look.
From what I can tell from interviews with Audrey Tang, using tools like this are mainly to inform the policy development and debate, that is- what ‘plurality’ of views are held, and therefore what does policy making need to consider. I believe the policy development itself is still done by government, once citizen engagement / collaboration has allowed a broader range of possibilities to be explored. There are interesting organisations in Australia working in this space too, but mostly focused on either local govt or overseas, but I believe it holds great potential.
great article Tim.
Preferential voting unfortunately helps to keep the duopoly in place by propping the primary vote of the major parties back up.
Some form of proportional representation is required to truly reflect the diversity of opinion in Australia and it is a missed opportunity that neither the Greens nor Independents are championing a shift towards it.
I was going to get into that, but figured the piece was long enough! I do write about it in the Voices of Us book, though. I think you right.
Tim I really like your summary of the political situation and I agree totally that we need a different system, one that will really help us to solve problems, rather than deflect us from this task. I like to use a life-boat analogy - is this how people in a lifeboat would work out what to do? By yelling at each other and splitting into two antagonistic groups and having a winner-take-all approach to their survival? I don't think so. I gather it's not how juries work either (having watched 12 Angry Men). It's not how any functional group works. So let's not put up with this in our national politics.
There is a genuine argument for the "battle of ideas" but it presumes a basic shared set of shared values that maybe doesn't exist robustly enough anymore. It's like a vegan and a meat eater can have a meal together, and even if they have different approaches to food, they are still talking about food. The problem is when someone joins the table who wants to nuts and bolts covered in motor oil and insists that everyone else does as well. That's pretty much what Trump is. Maybe Dutton too.
Michael West addressed the lablib party attitude to OUR democracy and the funding of it here; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOnT5hOE3s
Albanese dealt with Dutton to ensure the formation of a neutered NACC and now, to prevent meaningful electoral reform. The lablibs led by Albanese and Dutton stand for the status quo and represent the oligarchs.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Get what you like, or you'll grow to like what you get."
The neocons made credit available to the working class, to enable our survival while they rearranged the distribution of the national surplus. We are all head down bum up surviving without the time or energy to get what we like.
Our demands go unheard, they love our apathy. Perhaps a general strike would gain their attention.
I've been meaning watch the Michael West clip, thanks for the reminder.
I think increasingly people are seeing what is happening as less about left and right and more about insiders and outsiders. Maybe.
Whatever the answer is, count me in. Thanks for another thought-provoking article Tim.
I think you were likely way ahead of me on most of this stuff, Louise!
My my, if ever there was a salve for these uncertain times, then this is it. Quite the uplifting read TD. All I can respond with is - sign me up - I'm onboard.
Thanks, Gavin. Hope we can all flesh it out over the coming months. The next election will be really interesting.
Absolutely. Flesh it out & then get the message out - any ideas/plans how to proceed with this & how can one help?
I'm working on a follow-up--maybe via a contributor--that will directly address this question. In brief, though, I think the secret is to find local organisations already in this space and add your light to the sum of light. Don't worry too much about scale, that will come. As I say, more to come.
look forward to it. Cheers