Seven Ideas to Revive Democracy and Maximise Liberty in Australia

There’s a palpable sense of frustration about our political system in Australia. I’m not the only one feeling it; even staunch Labor supporters admit the Albanese Government continues to squander its mandate.

The uniparty is serving up gruel, and we’re all being force-fed.

Over time, big government and entrenched political interests have eroded individual liberty. We need to reverse the trend. Here are seven ideas to revive Australian democracy and maximise liberty in the process.

1. Optional (Preferential) Voting

Australia should restore freedom of choice, scrap compulsory voting entirely and treat voting as a right rather than an obligation. Failing that, we should at least make our preferential voting system optional.

Right now, a federal House of Representatives ballot is only valid if you number every box. If a voter marks just “1” for their preferred candidate and leaves the rest blank, the vote is deemed informal even though the voter’s intention is clear. That voter is disenfranchised. Optional preferential voting, already used in NSW state elections, would fix that and reduce informal ballots.

No one should be forced to vote, or forced to express preferences they don’t hold.

2. Term Limits

I know what you’re thinking – arbitrary rules are not usually promoted by libertarians, how could this possibly maximise liberty? It’s simple – career politicians are a recipe for big government.

With no term limits, statists cling to office for decades, building fiefdoms and losing touch. Forget about expecting them to reform the system – they are the system. Term limits would disrupt the rise of a political class, inject fresh voices and curb careerism

Extend these rules to unelected bureaucrats and we’re onto a winner. Senior public servants have become an unaccountable law unto themselves – a permanent administrative state that ‘rules’ regardless of who wins government. Many bureaucrats have served longer, and are much more powerful, than our elected representatives!

Imposing term limits on politicians and public servants would dismantle entrenched power networks, reduce corruption, and keep our government truly accountable to the voters.

3. Public Primaries

Do you hear that? Hundreds of faceless, factional powerbrokers around the country just collectively gasped. Why should they get to choose who runs for office before the public has even voted?

Right now, party candidates are mostly chosen through backroom deals and insider-dominated preselections. No wonder many politicians are beholden first to factional bosses rather than the voting public. The solution is to open candidate selection.

Thanks to compulsory enrolment, Australia already has a complete and accurate voter roll, so implementing primaries would be quite achievable. You’d simply register your affiliation with the electoral commission and parties could use that data to conduct their selection ballots.

Primary elections give candidates a real grassroots mandate. The result would be more popular, accountable candidates and less control for the backroom apparatchiks inside our political parties.

4. Recall Elections

We’ve all seen it. An election rolls around and suddenly the politician you haven’t heard from in three years reappears to reingratiate themselves with voters, only to disappear again moments after the result is declared.

When an elected representative betrays the public’s trust, citizens should be able to remove them mid-term. Enter the recall election: if enough voters sign a petition, it triggers a special election to oust the offending politician.

The mere threat would keep politicians on their toes. A constant reminder that they serve at the pleasure of the voters who elected them – and not just on polling day.

5. Citizen Initiated Referenda and Plebiscites

As it stands, only Parliament can initiate a referendum, which means ordinary citizens are shut out of the process.

It doesn’t have to be this way, and other countries have demonstrated that citizen initiated referenda can work. In Switzerland, for example, any proposal that gathers 100,000 signatures triggers a nation-wide vote – direct democracy in its purest form. If Australians had a similar right, we could push for constitutional or legislative changes that our ruling political class is avoiding.

Technology now makes direct democracy possible, yet we’re stuck with a representative system that ignores it. Too often, politicians lack the courage to tackle contentious issues. They ignore public sentiment and kick the can down the road. Regular plebiscites would give voters more of a say on important policy issues that require some sort of circuit-breaker.

Citizen initiated referenda and plebiscites would also be a serious check on government: if our elected officials refuse to act, or do not act in the interests of the majority, the public could take matters into its own hands. Demos kratos – people power.

6. Abolish Public Funding

Public funding of political parties and candidates is fundamentally illiberal. This subsidy funnels tens of millions of dollars to party coffers – all courtesy of unwilling taxpayers.

Much of that money, by the way, is spent on advertising, so you’re unlikely to get objective analysis from our mainstream media on this issue.

Australians shouldn’t be forced to fund political messages they disagree with, and polls show around 60% of Australians oppose public funding. If a party or candidate can’t raise enough money from willing donors, they shouldn’t get it from the public purse by default.

7. Multi-member Electoral Divisions

We’ve got a winner-takes-all electoral model. In our single-member electorates, a huge number of votes exhaust – anyone who didn’t vote for the sole winning candidate is effectively unrepresented.

A better approach is to have multi-member lower house electorates with proportional representation. That means each electorate would elect multiple politicians, instead of one, so that political minorities can win their fair share of seats.

Multi-member districts are essential for achieving truly representative outcomes. In such a proportional system, if 20% of voters in an electorate prefer a minor party, then 20% of that electorate’s seats would be won by the minor party, instead of 0% as is often the case now.

We might need to enlarge the House of Representatives to make this work, but that’s a small price for a Parliament that reflects the electorate.

Multi-member electorates would help break up the two-party duopoly, create more competition and more diversity of thought in Canberra. We’d have a Parliament less able to ignore minority views, and less likely to rubber-stamp big government. Voters would be represented locally by more than one person. If you weren’t happy with one of your representatives, there’s someone else you can go to, and there’s nothing wrong with healthy competition!

Conclusion

These reforms may seem radical to the political class – some are certainly more feasible than others – but they’re common-sense. They would empower citizens and rein in the ruling elite.

By making our system more competitive, accountable and representative, we can limit the size, power (and arrogance) of government, and maximize liberty in the process.