An example of how election-based democracy is really just cronyism with added spin. My local council like…

An example of how election-based democracy is really just cronyism with added spin. My local council like many others is looking to dramatically increase rates, to provide basic services. They've hired a company to survey residents about the change, and they rang me yesterday. /1

The key question was 'would you prefer that council significantly increase rates to retain basic services, or cut services to keep rate increases lower?' I said 'neither'. Silence on the other end of the phone line. Then, 'um, what would you prefer?' /2

'I'd prefer State and federal governments funded local government adequately to meet the basic needs of people who live in towns and cities, rather than piss away $250 billion in tax cuts to people who don't need them, and then expect ratepayers to pick up the shortfall.' /3

Chuckle at the other end of the line, and 'that's a good answer'. It won't go anywhere of course, and she has to act within the brief she was given. This is where though I think the average Australian knows very little about the corrupt way our federation is administered. /4

Nearly all the revenue powers and revenue go to the federal government, because originally they did the most things. But now nearly everything impacting the daily lives of Australians is administered by State and local governments. Leaving the feds with truckloads of money.../5

...to dish out any way they like. And because we're an election-driven, populist democracy, the way they like is nearly always in targeted grants that they can use to pervert constitutional responsibilities, for example by trying to impose ideological change in education../6

...or health care by 'tying' grant funding to KPIs they design. And of course to buy popularity in votes in electorates, and to give away to buddies, like tax cuts to the wealthy. All made possible by us vesting ultimate power in elected politicians. /7

Once you do that, popularity is the King of the country. Which decades of populist propaganda makes us think is the 'democratic' thing to do, even though we know that popularity is really just marketing. And you can market anything, it's infinitely manipulable. /8

If we're going to keep this ridiculous system of elected governance, let's have a party that stands for infrastructure alone. Nothing else. For the basic services in the community, schools, hospitals, roads, childcare and aged care, housing etc. The genius of infrastructure.../9

...is that it automatically commits a society to multi-generational things. Infrastructure needs constant maintenance and renewal. It bypasses popularity, it's mostly engineering. Get the skilled government departments to maintain a list of all key infrastructure and plan.../10

...what needs doing with it. Nothing else then gets done by any elected politician until those infrastructure needs are met. No ideology gets applied, just engineering and administration (engineering includes 'human resources', like ensuring a supply of teachers and carers). /11

The reason politics has become a bear pit of rigid ideologies is because it's a populist, election-driven system. Those ideologies are what's used to whip up popularity. Most of what government needs to do though is practical stuff, particularly now the world is more complex. /12

It needs engineering and administration way more than it needs any ideology. Notice the country 'runs' just fine in caretaker periods during elections, when public servants are running the country. That's because they always do, elected show ponies just get in the way. /end