The following is a personal opinion piece from Michael Reid, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of ClubMaster.

Our modern democratic political systems have been structured based on almost ancient principles and assumptions.

The representation system has been essential in previous centuries, caused by limitations primarily in education and communication.

By their nature, or more accurately by human nature, the representation system has become bloated, inefficient, and non-representative of the communities they claim to represent.

I have argued for decades that the Australian political structure is more bloated than most, given these three fat and expensive tiers of government are representing less than 28 million people. 

As someone with a habit of bloating my own corporate structures in establishing and developing business ventures, it pains me to acknowledge that our current political structure is clearly a nonsense.

Fast forward to 2022, and we now enjoy, in almost every democratic society of the World, extremely high levels of education, and almost unlimited access to communication. To my great dismay, I have witnessed in recent decades the deliberate deterioration of education, invariably for political gain.

Now is the time to cease shuffling the deck chairs, and to embrace a fundamental change in the way decisions are made by and on behalf of the citizens.

Setting aside the risks posed by influence with ignorance, and the dangers posed by knee-jerk responses to social and other media bias, most citizens are genuinely community-minded.

The majority of the population are across many of the issues, and more than ever before are educated and intelligent.

Had political representatives remained truly representative of their community, and not been so prone to influence, corruption, and power-focus, the status quo may have been retained.

Instead, many now acknowledge that it’s time for truly structural reform, for a redefinition of community decision-making. Technology is the vehicle which enables this reform, alongside education and communication.

Whilst we’re at it, massive political structural reform needs to be accompanied by fundamental reforms of financial, taxation, and expenditure application.

My fervent wish for the future for Australia includes the following:

1. The reduction to two tiers of government, with expanded super-councils providing state representation, and with one mayor appointed by all mayors as Premier or Chief Minister in each respective State and Territory;
2. An increase in the term of governments to fixed four year terms;
3. The clear delineation between the roles of national and local government;
4. The establishment of national policies in areas of health, education, domestic security, licensing, national-state laws, defence, infrastructure, natural resource management, and international relations;
5. A significantly improved national identity, national culture, and definition of the Australian Citizen;
6. A world-leading Citizen identification and communication system;
7. The expansion of community decision-making across all aspects from portfolio policy to the priorities of public financial management;
8. The elimination of taxation returns, income tax, GST and BAS, and FBT, in return for an automatic debits tax (ADT);
9. The elimination of cash in order to facilitate the above new taxation regime;
10. The development of a Sovereign Wealth Fund with a view to ultimately eliminating the ADT within this century.

Democracies need to return to a focus on community, and to the value-add proposition. Non-democracies need to focus on becoming democracies.

Technology enables efficiency; efficiency eliminates waste of financial and other resources; reduced waste results in the redirection of resources, including human resources, into value adding; a direct debits tax and the redirection into adding value will help to eliminate parasite activities at all levels, being individual, commercial, and bureaucratic. A social order will ensure those who deserve protection are afforded protection with dignity.

At a personal level, I want to become more proud of my country. I want to feel safe, not just from “threats foreign and domestic” (to borrow from others), but also from undue interference foreign and domestic; I want my country to know every person who occupies the country; I want the country’s key assets to be owned by the Citizens of the Country; I want every Good Citizen to be protected and valued, and to be committed to their local, regional and National communities; and I want Australia to encourage and support all other nations to adopt and embrace similar strategies and philosophies.