Another election, another term of broken promises.

The two party system is broken and it is the same the world over. There is a lack of confidence in all parties, in all countries. We've had mutiny here in Australia (Gillard / Rudd) and similar issues with the UK leadership. The public in France have zero confidence in their PM and we all know how things are going in the US.

The recent Brexit fiasco in the UK has empirically proven that the entire political system is completely self-serving, and whilst the idea of a publicly elected representative is democratic in nature, in practice it is anything but. Regardless of your views on Brexit, it should be a wake up call to all, and not just in the UK, but anywhere that a two party system is employed. The 'us and them' philosophy serves only those in a higher power - to divide and conquer, a political philosophy that is perfectly implemented with a two party system.

So we are now at the point where political reform is needed. The system is broken, politicians are now no longer actually representative of the people, not that they were of course, but now we have proof. That reform is needed now. 

So how do we fix it? 

The solution is very simple...

The public vote directly on policy. The parties will still create policy and propose policy reform, but instead of discussing and deciding policy behind closed doors in parliament, they need to lobby the public to gain support for the policy, as it is the public that gets the final vote. In this manner any policy put forwards that does not serve the best interests of the public, or does not follow public opinion, is unlikely to get voted in.

The politicians can then cary on with their posturing and arguing, but on a platform that best serves the people. Not only are their arguments made under the public eye, but for a policy campaign to be successful, it will have to include all of the elements needed to sway public opinion. It will also change the political landscape to one that actually suits the core skills of the average politician, namely acting.

It will give a larger voice to the independents and smaller parties, and will prevent policy being rail-roaded by the larger number of parliamentary seats. 

Your vote, your say!

It also opens up the possibility for ANYONE to promote policy to the people. Do you have something you are passionate about? maybe reform on single use plastics? Do you have a Facebook page with 100,000 followers? How about being able to put that power to actual use. Here in Australia, as with other countries, traditionally you need to collect signatures to petition parliament. Only when you have the needed minimum amount (10,000) can you submit them. If you get over 100,000 signatures it can be considered for debate in parliament, but there's no actual guarantee that it will heard, or that it will then have any effect. Especially when you petition for a reform that contravenes agenda. When you can directly canvas the voter and the voter has the ultimate power, you bypass this process and it is completely unaffected by agenda.

I think amazing things would happen when the power of the vote lay with the actual public. Of course it also allows mainstream media to have a large influence, but that's not really any different to how things are now. Social media also brings some balance as well. If ever there was a time that such an idea could work, it is now.

This is how we implement political reform. A change like this would completely change the political system and I think for the better. Of course will still need elected government to actually implement policy and take care of the day-to-day running of the country, but even this would end up reformed as a result of public policy voting being implemented. Additionally maybe the office is awarded to the party who has the best KPI's for policy success. Think about that for a second.

But how do we vote?

That's the easy part. We live in the age of information technology, online voting is a very easy thing to implement. And don't believe the naysayers who will tell you that it is not secure. With ID tokenisation (eg confirmation codes sent to your phone) it is almost impossible to hack. In fact banks have been using the same kind of tech for years.

And how do we make this happen? Well, that's the hard part. Every large scale piece of political reform in the history of the world, ever, has only come about when the people have rallied together against the current system, and not in a placard waving singing and chanting protest type manner either (that is what basically happens every election time). No, we are talking an orchestrated, simultaneous action that leaves no choice but to implement reform. A revolution, of sorts. It doesn't even need to be a physical revolution.

Unfortunately we are all too busy being divided and conquered. Public opinion is split in the US, as it is throughout Europe. Everyone's attention is distracted from the real political game, which is happening right under peoples noses.