"With the loss of trust in our political institutions and politicians today, we need a political summit to build consensus on democratic reform and the restoration of trust. Such a proposal, if carefully explained and implemented, could produce real political and policy dividends for its advocates and more importantly, for Australia. “Democracy” has been narrowed down to a view that it is only about elections and not about well-functioning institutions. the highest bidder."John Menadue, Pearls and Irritations 19/9/21https://johnmenadue.com/john-menadue-our-democracy-is-decaying-from-within/?mc_cid=1022438797&mc_eid=ff9389eb5b 

“Senator Cash said she wanted to bring on a national ICAC bill by the end of parliament’s current term, but would not say if the current proposals would be significantly rewritten. “This is a bill we have to get right … I do intend to bring something to the parliament,” she said.” Richard Ferguson - The Australian 3/9/21 The long-promised establishment of an ICAC for our federal government has been delayed for too long. Ongoing delays call into question the commitment of federal politicians to bring their behaviours into line with those expected of other leaders and professionals within society.

The recent UAP spam campaign and continued baulking of transparency of political donations by both major political parties, once again brings focus as to why we should trust our politicians to set the rules that they play by.  It is us, the public, who pay the costs of political governance, choose who is to govern, and are subject to the decisions made by politicians. We deserve a high level of transparency, integrity and honesty in all that our political parties and politicians do…and should not have our personal phones invaded by political spam of questionable sources and quality.

PM Morrison is talking about the need for State Governments to deliver on “compacts with their people” over the opening of the country post the 80% COVID vaccination level.   Every government in the Australian federation is elected with a compact to govern responsibly and keep to their commitments. We have seen too little of this over recent decades with many commitments made and walked away from due to the political risks of implementing a policy where a vocal minority group, or favoured party support group opposed.   We expect our politicians to serve the common good and live up to their commitments.

Grattan Institute publication points the way to clearing the reform path:   “Institutional changes to ministerial adviser roles, to processes for appointing and dismissing senior public servants, to ministerial influence over government contracts and grants, and to controls over political donations, campaign finance, lobbying, and post-politics careers would all help to break the gridlock in policy reform. These changes would also promote the emergence of champions who are usually crucial to the prospects of reform.”   “Without institutional changes, Australian governments will not deliver many of the policy reforms that would.”"Gridlock: Removing barriers to policy reform"  John Daly     https://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Gridlo

In this week’s issue of ‘Pearls and Irritations’ Andrew Podger AO, retired Australian senior public servant and Professor of Public Policy at ANU, calls for serious reform of our democracy:   https://johnmenadue.com/andrew-podger-our-democracy-needs-serious-reform/?mc_cid=af92e21ba9&mc_eid=ff9389eb5b   Podger highlights the way the Australian government shows “so little appreciation of the principles of responsible government and the institutions which protect them.” He lists five ways to fix this.   A roadmap for ways of improving how our democracy works can be found at: