People's Choice Party - Feedback

This page contains feedback that people have provided via e-mail in response to the People's Choice Party. They have been modified so that they are more structured.

People have said that the policy is good because:

• The randomness avoids potential political influence creeping in.

People have said that the policy is bad because:

• The budgeted amount (9 million dollars per year) won't be enough to fund the project.
• Three, 90-second speeches does not represent enough time for people to express their views.
• Three weeks is not long enough for jury members to understand all the issues.
• The salary offered won't be enough to compensate people for the disruption to their lives.
• All political parties are bad.
• It's better to improve the current system than build another one.

People have said that the idea is not necessary because:

• People can already send letters to members of parliament or to newspaper editors.
• People already feel like they're part of the political system.
• The media perform adequately as the people's representatives.

Our responses to positive comments

The randomness avoids potential political influence creeping in.

One of our main aims was to ensure that the jury's opinions were not influence by unseen loyalties.

Our responses to negative comments

The budgeted amount (9 million dollars per year) won't be enough to fund the project.

9 million dollars divided by 6 jury positions is 1.5 million for each position per year.

1.5 million divided by 50 weeks is $30,000.

So for each person, here is a sample weekly budget:

Salary:	$2,000
Accommodation:	$1,000
Meals:	$500
Travel expenses:	$1,500
Insurance:	$100
Misc expenses:	$400
90 seconds of TV air-time:	$10,000 ??? (Perhaps the ABC would host it and this would cost nothing.)

That leaves between $15,000 and $25,000 dollars to coordinate and facilitate the activities of each person.

Three, 90-second speeches does not represent enough time for people to express their views.

We need to make a trade-off. If the speeches are allowed to go on for too long, viewers will get bored and change channels. The short time allows people to focus on the question: What is the single most important idea that they can contribute?

Three weeks is not long enough for jury members to understand all the issues.

If they had their whole lives, they would not have enough time. Jury members should focus on what they think is most important.

The salary offered won't be enough to compensate people for the disruption to their lives.

Most people would regard $2,000 + free meals & board to be adequate compensation for a job that has no performance criteria. It is three times the national average weekly wage.

All political parties are bad.

So why not reduce their influence?

It's better to improve the current system than build another one.

In our experience it is extremely difficult to change a system from within. Institutions seem to change according to internal and external pressures. When these pressures balance themselves out, the institutions stop changing. To start the process moving again, it is necessary to create some more pressures. One of the most effective pressures is a by-pass mechanism. We certainly do not want to wreck the existing system of government. But at the same time any review of government operations would be pointless unless:

• The people conducting the review are independent of the government.
• These people are seen to be independent of the government.

"This new party is a waste of time!"

People can already send letters to members of parliament or to newspaper editors.

But they can't be sure that they'll be printed or read. Most people do not read all the letters to the editor. If you got one letter printed you would be lucky if 2% of the population actually read it.

People already feel like they're part of the political system.

Our experience is that people do not feel that way.

The media perform adequately as the people's representatives (they are people too).

The media spend a lot of time hanging around politicians and the remoteness that comes with that. Some of them are clever but they do not seem to be representative of the community at large.

A journalist wants to write something that people will find interesting. A jury member will talk about what is important to them.