Demarchy

The solution to the poll-driven, apathy rich, misinformed wonder that is Australian politics is at hand.

Demarchy is the appointment of randomly selected people to rule a country. If a randomly selected segment of the Australian public were chosen to rule, the arguments in favour of demarchy roughly seem to go:

• There wouldn't be any pressure on them to be elected, play to the media, or pander to specific interest groups. All that they would have to do is make policy decisions which are best for Australia
• They would be informed by experts in areas of specific policy, and make a decision based on the information given to them, like a jury, and not on uniformly held idealogical principles.
• As they are 'the people', they truly represent Australians, and are not in the position for power or honour, but so that they can bring to the policy making decisions the views and needs of the Australian public.

Of course, there are many problems with the concept of a demarchy, not least that a randomly selected group may not be representative, and that it could just be a deadlocked room full of opposing views.

But then again...when a democratic election runs like this...

Gillard and Abbott (in unison): Boat People! Boat People! Fuck! Boat people! Needa stop the goddamn boat people! Shit! Imma stop them first! Oh God! You can trust me to stop these boat people! Oh God they're going to....umm....threaten our way of life and shit, just trust me! Oh for the love of God, the boat people!

Gillard: Let's have an informed debate, Mr Abbott, free of empty rhetoric, vague directional metaphors, and scare-mongering. The Australia population deserve better. A debate, so that Australians can see what their real choices are.

Gillard and Abbott: TAXESBOATPEOPLEMOVINGFORWARD REALACTION TRUE ECONOMIC SENSE TRUSTECONOMYSAFETYTAXES INTEREST RATES BOATPEOPLEAGAIN MININGTAX CAN'T TRUST THEMKEVINLEMON HEALTHCAREREALREFORM CHANGE FOR WORKINGFAMILIESMOVINGFORWARD REAL ACTION DONTFORGETTHEFUCKINGBOATPEOPLE!

Gillard: I'm going to be the real Gillard from now on! I'm throwing out the rules!

Abbott: See? I love women! It's ok, I love women, therefore the Coalition's policies will be better! You can't trust the government on environmental action though!

Gillard: Not a big Australia, but a sustainable Australia.

Abbott: Oh, and also boat people. Those tricky fucking boat people.

Commentators: It'll be interesting to see which campaign strategy works out in the end. They're both trying different tactics, taglines, buzz words, advertisements, sliming, soundbites.

Off you go now Australians. Go vote. Make a truly informed choice. Australia has a remarkable level of citizen involvement, you know. Our compulsory voting system ensures that we have a healthy democracy.