The trope given by many commentators is that Royal Commisions are expensive both in time and money.

i postulate the use of AI to search for keywords in all submissions and giving weighting to those of particular date, or reference.

I am in favour of a Royal Commision but I suspect we will have to wait until the next government.

i am in favour also of the groundwork in terms of interviews and opinions beginning as soon as possible.

Be very careful what you wish for.

Aged Care Royal Commission has damaged, not helped the situation. Financial Services Royal Commission - banks stopped lending until the government realised that people live off credit and told them to start lending again.

A Royal Commission is run by lawyers. What they do is determined by the scope. The scope needs to be really tight and focussed on the right things. Lawyers to look at "the effectiveness of our democracy"? No thanks.

Royal Commissions, with the best will in the world, are both time-consuming and expensive. There is usually a better mechanism, like a citizen jury. We already have a massive report into Robodebt. Just today a senior public servant was suspended without pay.

In our democracy, there are already too many reviews on everything (social housing, indigenous affairs, health of all sorts etc etc) and not enough action on the right things. A Royal Commission will disappoint, after a long time and more money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Ricky T,

I agree that Royal Commissions are expensive and often not properly acted upon. There would be little need for them if our politicians acted with honesty and integrity and in the interests of the common good. A truely independent, well staffed, constructively critical, and persistent press would also help. Until these things are fixed, judicial reviews are one of the few tools left where cleansing light is shone upon a government system hobbled by partisan politicians who are deservedly mistrusted by the public.

Regards 

Glenn

Glenn

I share your concerns about the problems; it's just that I don't think your solution will work.

The decay of democracy is a global problem in the Anglo world. The USA and the UK are the most obvious examples, but it's hard to find a healthy democracy anywhere. Why?

I agree with your couple of points - a mainstream media that is biased & generally hopeless, plus a load of grifting politicians who are in it for their own ends, whether ego, fame, religion or financial advantage. But I would add some other reasons - social media & the insidious reinforcing of people's prejudices, the power of moneyed interests to advance their own agenda, a much larger population that has interest in other things (gaming, drugs, gambling, sport etc.) than politics, social inequality, divisive education, the rise of virtue signalling, Big Pharma and other lobby groups. And that's just to start.

You can hold a RC in Australia and find a whole load of stuff I'm sure. Virtues will be signalled, faults will be found, scapegoats will be blamed. But then what? For the response, it gets handed back to ... exactly the people are the problem in the first place! And even if they want to (they don't), they couldn't fix the underlying issues (they could do better on some of the Australian ones, but won't want to).

I don't have an answer, sorry. Aristotle suggested a benign dictatorship. Not sure that's workable either. Or maybe a couple of essays from my youth implied the answer: "democracy is government by the third-rate: discuss" and "is democracy the least bad form of government?"

Thanks for the good points in discussion. I like to look for ideas as solutions and suggest point 8 of our popular positive PwC plan (search PwC on IdeaSpies).

It's that the Thodey Government Review be reviewed to adopt recommendations that were rejected. 
https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-wont-have-a-bar-of-public-service-intrusions-on-governments-power-128880

Hi Ricky T,

I think we are in strong alignment on the problem and need for action if our democracy is to deliver what we expect of it.

If you have not already done so, have a read of Martin Wolf’s latest book:

https://www.ideaspies.com/posts/a-society-where-all-individual-interests-are-seen-to-be-seriously-considered

Cheers 

Glenn

Looks like an interesting book, Glenn.

While it seems to work better in small population, wealthy, well educated societies like Switzerland and Norway, Martin’s refrain of “all citizens should engage more” rings as unlikely to succeed in Australia.

I do have some faith in the citizens’ jury idea for addressing key policy issues, such as “who pays for aged care?” Or “what shall we do about the drugs problem”. I.e. a representative sample of the population engaging with the issue at hand.

Ricky T,

It is very concerning to see the lack of a strong citizenship ethos in Australia, and this could lead to the continued erosion of our liberal democracy.

Martin's book demonstrates the forces that have been weakening liberal democracies worldwide. Australia has most of these at work, with the added challenges of fragmented loyalties due to a high proportion of recent migrants with varied cultural backgrounds and the coddling impact of a prolonged period of economic stability and growth driven off the back of a mining boom and a sustained high level of migration. It is not hard to envisage our country slipping into anarchy and chaos if a severe depression confronted us. Setting a platform for a more cohesive and mutually supportive citizenry who accept shared responsibility for national wellbeing is a challenge our nation's leaders need to embrace.