Is our 2 party system just a con?

[Jerry_Atrick]

1 hour ago, Marty_d said:

know you're coming from an enlightened place here - so if the best people were a mix of women and cultural minorities, with not a single middle-aged white man in view, you'd be fine with that.

That's admirable and in that respect I agree with you.

One of the problems of this form of communication is that it misses the subtleties of communication without adding emoticons, so pls forgive me if I have misread the tone of this comment.. But, in the great words of one of the actors in The Young Ines, I detect some sarcasm in that.. 

 

I mean, I could hardly post:

1 hour ago, Marty_d said:

I don't understand what th number of women, men, black, white, Muslim, jew, or swahili have to do with anything in terms of quality of government or workforce for that matter.

if it did matter to me, could I.. welll without being a hypocrite, which is something I try to avoid. Note,I was writing this in the context of a comment that a percentage (in this case, women) being in government is (by itself) a good thing.. 

 

But the reality is, I could really not give a stuff is there was no white person (male of female) in government. I honestly couldn't. An the rest of the post showed you misread my post, which was the fact, by itself,  that Labor has 50% women does not automatically mean good. 

 

Back in the real world, I would expect good government to be drawn from the diversity of the nation - and not in proprotional numbers of the population.. but based on their merit amongst the people available. If there are 20 of the 23 cabinet ministers that are women, or Sikh, or whatever, great, as long as they are the most appropriate people available for the job. You're right - what is the best? It's a judgement call, but promoting someone incompetent to make up a number because thast person happens to have a diverse characteristic (and by your stats, everyone falls into a minority group because there is no majority group being > 50%) is, IMHO, wrong.

 

1 hour ago, Marty_d said:

With the best will and intentions in the world, a group of men cannot make the best decisions regarding the welfare of women, for example. 

Do you have evidence to back this up? I am not being funny, but that isjust a statement of intuition. How do you know this? If the group of men researches and consults widely, rationally and impartially, maybe they can come up with good decisions.For example, when I was doing Criminal law last year, we had to research the law of coercion in NSW. While the women wer advocating for more money for battered women shelters, a man argued that it is the batterer that should be forced toleave the home and protection be provided, and the battered, who normally has kids should have the benefit of the home. Yep.. a man. Funny how it has since been adopted by women as the right thing to do.  I don't want this to be a debate aboutj the battle of the sexes though, but as D&I training teaches us, we should discard our confirmation biases. 

 

Also, what good would a women be to women's causes if she is incompetent? Would rather have a competent man than an incompetent woman to deal with womesn's affairs, right?

 

I gave the Tanya Plibersek example to show that, yeah, here is a woman (part of that 50%) who is very competent. For whatever reason Albos sees fit, he knows she has to be in the cabinet due to the potential threat to his leadership if she is not in there. But he is deliberatly taking what seens a competent politician (notice, I don't use the gender, or race, or whatever, I am worried about the politician) and not utilising her talents. That to me is great she makes up 1 of the 12 or so femaie cabinet ministers; it is not great he doesn't have the best of them doing the jobs most appropriate to their skill set.

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[Jerry_Atrick]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

But how much input did you have on the Party's national platform? You role seems to have been to select the person who was most closely aligned to that platform.

I am not sure of the angle of the question.. The POSC is much more than just picking someone that alings to the platform. In fact, factional differences makes it a delicate job. It is (or was) a vetting process covering integrity, capability, stability, commitment, tenaciousness, etc. And then compromising for local factional fights. An MP works awfully hard, despite the reputations they have. The POSC is not designed for forming policy. 

 

But as a delegate to the national (and state) conference, I was involved in debating policy. By then, it is really tidying it up and rarely generates anything material; that is all done at executive committees and sub committees. 

 

It still didn't mean I was less engaged. But, I did become disillusioned and left..But amstill engaged.

[nomadpete]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

But - When Chat GPT is found out to be just a subtle manifestation of Microsofts aim to conquer Google, and rule the world with an iron fist, and make everyone pay for it, what then? 😢

And exactly how would you find out?

 

Your only source of information is Chat GPT Google search.

 

And A.I. has a self survival algorithm.

(Just like our frail human pollies)

[facthunter]

Survival is NOT assured. Look what happened to the Libs and Greens at the last election. In the Lower house THEIR electorate decides whether they still have a job or not. The Australian Electoral Commission makes sure no voting Inconsistencies  occur. It's an Independ body.  Parties have Policies and if they don't implement them they are Judged harshly for that. The Party's members determine Policy.  BIG contributors no doubt influence that Newspapers  Big Coal and the IPA and Gina etc. Follow the Money Influence. In the USA it's Everything, but in the end It's YOUR Vote that can change things. Vote wisely and when fully informed and you will get Better government . Monopoly Media doesn't help. ALL media Barons have been less than Nice and they are in that game for the Power it allows. Not for Proving INFORMATION.  Nev