Perth / Western Australia

Interesting to see ABC seem to be prompting the questions around more democratic changes as a solution to the LGA issues.

I don't hate the idea, compulsory voting seems to be a key difference in our health as a democracy in the world. But I tend to agree with Tony Simpson's comment on it,

Former local government minister and current Karratha councillor, Tony Simpson, said compulsory voting was an interesting proposition.

"The only problem is that compulsory voting brings in party politics," he said.

I think the reliance on one system of democratic governance, ie party adversarial politics, is likely to lead to under-serving of easily under-attended sections of the community or debate areas, say, for instance housing policy.

^Btw, I say that in full knowledge that LGA councillors often already have strong party links.^

I think we should be looking at different ways of democratic delivery. I think Citizens Assemblies are an interesting option. Randomly selected groups of community members in controlled information supported environments.

Doing this at the local level, because all politics are in the end local. They avoid the Party system, while not removing it; would hopefully drive higher community engagement and connections; peer groups, such as juries, have historically made better and fairer decisions than single specialists sitting in judgement. (I mean, this last point is the whole point of why countries like Australia think democracy is the way to go, so it seems fairly aligned).; theres evidence from Europe coming in where these have been employed to great success in certain circunstances; also demotes regulatory and political capture by vested interests as as big a threat.

As a result it could break through the othering and politicisation of seemingly intransigent issues that are endlessly debated with little to no progress made in one direction or the other.