> >Selection of candidates comes before election of law makers/judges and
>>the selectors are not members of the ruled class in a bourgeois democracy.
>
>The selectors are the 'powerbrokers' and other moneyed interests who
>know their
>class interests. Bourgeois democracy is just that, democracy for the
>bourgeois. To be sure, the working class votes for the candidates
>selected for
>them. But, they certainly don't control the State--the laws are not in their
>hands. As long as they don't threaten the rule of Capital (i.e. they do not
>become class consciously organized), they will continue to be encouraged to
>vote for the major party candidates of their choice and even attend the church
>and liquor store of their choice. The rules and regs differ in each
>capitalist
>democracy, but the result is the same : the continued rule of Capital.
The powerbrokers in Australia's major political parties do have an enormous influence on the selection of candidates. In the ALP, one problem is in the trade union movement, since the representatives of a union which is affiliated with the ALP controls a voting bloc proportional to its thousands of members. Another problem is that membership of the ALP has declined drastically and, like the modern union movement, it is infested with careerists.
But that is irrelevant to my point. This is Australia, not the USA. There's nothing in our system to stop candidates independent of the old political parties getting their name on the ballot paper, or starting new parties that are more democratic. Thus offing the electorate the chance to simply abandon the corrupt parties. And people do it all the time. The problem is getting the actual electorate to vote for these alternatives, the problem isn't that people with different ideas can't get their name on the ballot.
But that's democracy, the electorate knows the old parties are corrupt and self-serving, they are entitled to vote for that if they want, surely?
>Further information below:
>
>Coghill has noted the problems with party preselections, including the fact
>that very few people actually vote in many such ballots, yet winning
>candidates
>often end up with a parliamentary seat. Not only are such preselections
>unrepresentative, but they are easily manipulated by party powerbrokers. He
>talks of a 'fracturing of the relationship between politicians and citizens'
>that is swinging many voters to minor parties, and worries about the threat
>they pose to Australian democracy.
This fellow's arguments bear me out. His concern, you will note, is precisely that voters are starting to abandon the corrupt major parties and vote for new parties and independents. This is a "threat" to democracy according to this drongo.
>Coghill wonders if Australia should look for alternative arrangements, and he
>has floated the idea of party preselections being replaced by party primaries
>as run in the United States of Americasomething spoken of by Wayne Swan MP
>(ALP) as well. Instead of a party's candidate being chosen by intra-party
>processes, this would be done by a public vote.
This amounts to the proscription of political parties. Or at least new political parties offering radical new manifestos. If a political party can't determine who its candidates will be, then of course it can't control what policies it will offer to the electorate either. Every candidate would then be worse than an independent, without any party discipline.
This would obviously make new political parties impossible. The old existing parties would continue to function in name only, but with no power to influence anything. They would be reduced to fan clubs.
As in the USA.
But its not likely to happen, no need really. Unlike the US, Australian political government is relatively powerless.
> He believes this would
>introduce a process whereby voters would be able to vote in the party
>preselection process as well as in a general election. Although he notes the
>problems in America with the great cost of such primaries,
As if cost is the problem. What a charlatan!
> he thinks this is a
>practical weakness that could be overcome. The overall benefit,
>though could be
>immense,
The "benefit" being sabotaging the rise of the Greens as growing political force? Might not work, the Greens political party actually started out (here in Tasmania) without any political party as "The Green Independents". They were independent candidates backed by environmental campaigners and had the most disciplined voters and organisation ever seen in Australia. Even without a political party.
One of the first (THE first?) to win election to parliament as a (green) independent was an American from California named Norm Sanders, an old environmental campaigner. Bob Brown, founder of the Greens, first came into the Tasmanian parliament as an independent. Five Green independents won the balance of power in Tasmania's parliament before they got around to created a political party structure. However they did have the backing of an enormous network of disciplined and experienced environmental activists. Even Green voters were highly disciplined, almost 100% voted the advertised Green ticket straight down the line. It scared the old parties how that happened.
Obviously the Greens, as a political party representing a minority philosophy, could not function in an environment where they had no control of the selection of Green candidates. They'd have to wind up the party structure and go back to standing as independents. The same would go for any socialist party candidates, a socialist party, representing a minority viewpoint can't survive having its candidates and therefor its political manifesto being controlled by people with totally opposing viewpoints. (As we observe in the USA.)
Presumably, the foul little Coghill (whoever he is) would also want to take the next logical step, severely restrict the ability of independents and new parties to get on the ballot. In the name of "extending democracy".
Who is he anyhow, it wouldn't surprise me if he was a yank. Who else but a yank would be such a fool as to describe introducing the American restrictive ballot access system as "extending democracy"?
> and he states that Australia 'should explore the possibility of
>extending democracy to allow voters to affect the selection of political party
>candidates to public office'. In support of this Rowena Johns'
>research for the
>New South Wales Parliament suggests that primaries are an improvement on party
>ballots due to their being 'more democratic', and she has suggested that it
>'should remove much of the incentive for branch-stacking
Yes. It would remove the incentive to have political parties entirely. But of course if the real motive was improving party democracy, it would be simple to mandate that internal party preselection votes be carried out by the Electoral Office. As internal trade union votes often are.
If that was the real aim. But anyone floating the idea of American style primaries can be presumed not to be motivated by any concern for improving democracy.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
>full: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rp/2001-02/02rp21.htm#partypre
>******************************************************************************
>
>There was some reporting in the press a few days ago about political donations
>from tobacco interests.
>
>The Liberal Party apparently has no restrictions on accepting donations from
>tobacco, while Labor has a ban on money from only the two Australian-based
>manufacturers, British American Tobacco and Philip Morris. Labor has no ban,
>however, on money from tobacco retailers.
>
>ALP national assistant secretary, David Feeney, when queried about
>the anomaly,
>said, "We are not interested in unilateral disarmament in the face of the
>Liberal Party, which would accept money from slave traders if it was allowed."
>
>
>full: http://bloggers.laborfirst.com.au/bloggers/blog.asp?entryId=67241
>
>Read "The Perthian Brickburner":
>http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
>
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