A MODEST CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

I have a modest proposal for a modest amendment to the Australian Constitution, which in its present form I broadly support in the belief that it has served us well over the 120 years of its operation. Please make no mistake. I repeat: it has served us well. In the international constitutional stakes, it is a front-runner, and the Americans would do well by studying it. But there are problems. These I believe are highlighted by the way we appoint two important categories of decision-makers: jurors and politicians. . Jurors are appointed by random (off an electoral roll) selection. But arguably, they have the greater responsibility; literally a life-and-death one until not so long ago in Australia. . For very good reasons, jurors cannot self-nominate. Anyone who hung around court houses buttonholing passing court officials , judges and lawyers, offering their services as a juror and extolling their manifest fitness to ‘serve’ in the manner of campaigning politicians would probably be arrested as a public nuisance; and rightly so. . So I suggest that the logical choice in manner of such selections is between: 1. As for politicians, so for jurors or 2. As for jurors, so for politicians. . And that, in my opinion, is a lay-down misere. . Candidates’ names, and a large number of them, should be drawn at random (‘out of a hat’) from the Federal electoral rolls. Each of these people should be asked to make a statement of general political outlook and position, with possibility for open questioning on specifics by any elector. They should be well paid for their trouble to that point, and offered the possibility of a political career with generous BUT MEANS TESTED superannuation for life after election for a third term. They and they alone should qualify to have their names put on the eventual ballot paper for possible election to parliament (by optional preferential voting.) . Think of our present crop of politicians as people who have urged their way onto a jury. Ask yourself: how you would rate your chances of a fair trial in a civil or criminal case if during the presentation to the court being made against you by learned counsel for the prosecution you looked at the faces in the jury box and saw looking back at you the likes of Barnaby Joyce , Cheryl Kernot, Meg Lees, (who as hijacking leader, did in the Australian Democrats) , Craig Kelly, Gareth Evans, Michaelia Cash, Eddie Obeid, Paul Z (For Zegna) Keating and Bob Hawke (both of the ‘Hawke-Keating Hijack’ which did in forever and ever amen the internal democracy of the ALP) Ian Macdonald, Bronwyn Bishop, Craig Kelly, Peter Dutton, Pauline Hanson, Eric Abetz, Bill Shorten, etc, etc. Even, Holy Bible ever in hand, Scott ‘Scummo’ Morrison? (I could go on.) It is truly the stuff of nightmares. . One principle I think to be very important, and which is easily lost sight of. Rank at times has trumped ability in the reality stakes of war, (Lord Haig, British Commander in Chief in the First World War being a prize example). But the modern trend is simple: armies which are well led win all the battles. Those badly led have a marked tendency to lose. As Napoleon put it, "there are not good regiments and bad regiments; just good colonels and bad colonels." (Or words to that effect.) Moreover, army officers in the British tradition since the disastrous Haig have been appointed on the basis of recognised ability rather than family connections. The British Army commander of greatest note in World War 2 was General Montgomery, the son of a rural parson who had spent his formative years in Tasmania. Unlike the disastrous Haig, he rose through the ranks through ability and hard work, rather than through feudal-style connections. Those raised while being told all the time that they are born to rule also show all too often that they are born to blunder. . Historically, British people who had decision-making power were tribal leaders and chieftains, who had to be forever watching their own backs and rivals. That drove their agricultural societies towards absolute monarchy and feudalism, with everyone knowing their place, given a rank and privileges according to it, and the most the senior given titles and a seat in the House of Lords; which practice dates back to Magna Carta of 1215. Many modern members of the landed aristocracy of England can trace their ancestry back as far as the said Magna Carta, and historically have fought to retain their feudal privileges against the steadily encroaching bourgeois classes of the towns and cities, which led them to fight the Civil War of the 1640s. Democracy in Britain is still a work in progress, and will continue to be so, at least as long as the Brits have that unelected house and no constitution beyond a list of traditions and precedents. . My proposed change could be phased in over whatever period of time, giving say the self-nominated pack of politicians a run for part of the electoral cycle, and jury-style appointees a run for the rest of it. Catch-22: Under the present constitution, both houses of self-nominated politicians would have to vote for holding a referendum on it, and by a massive majority. Once put to the people, I think it would be a lay-down misere; a certainty. . Worth a try, surely. Put it this way: over the years in Australia, juries have worked one helluva lot better than have the parliaments: at both federal and state levels; and certainly far better than those hotbeds of secret lobbying and corruption called local councils.