A fairly decent assessment. There are areas that we have covered...

A fairly decent assessment. There are areas that we have covered quite well on this HC forum.

Politics is failing us, but we can fix it

Australia, we need to talk about politics.

More to the point, we need to talk about the way we talk about politics.

We need to talk about some big things and then we need to do them.

We need to use large words, exercise our brains, talk about what is best for ourselves as individuals, couples, families, employees, employers, retirees, welfare recipients and for the future of the country.

Money is going out faster than it's coming in, more people are getting older and leaving the workforce, there are greater demands on our health and education systems and climate change looms over us all.

But we seem unable to talk about these things and how we should best deal with them in an effective way.

We have a government that announces big reforms but is unable to explain why they are needed and then stumbles to reach consensus with the groups and people necessary to make changes.

Reforms are ditched and other parties blamed, leaving us wondering whether the changes were necessary in the first place.

We have an opposition coasting along offering little in the way of alternatives other than a blunt "No".

We have minor parties and independents trying to judge each and every piece of legislation as well as raise new ideas and issues but getting blamed when they do not support either of the major parties.

We have a media that operates so rapaciously and quickly that a story can be covered, reported and archived within hours. We blame them for giving us too many sugar hits and not enough fibre but we take the treats every time.

We have a community worried about the future but cynical about the political process. It is easier to cast a protest vote in the Senate or sign an online petition and then blame the politicians for not listening.

It has become fashionable to say that politics is broken, that "the system" is letting us down.

But I'm not sure this is the case.

Representative democracy is working just fine. We have regular, peaceful elections where the will of the people is expressed without bloodshed.

Have we gotten to the point where we, all of us, take it for granted?

We do not need to fight for our right to vote or to have our say.

But the problems we face are big and they are going to require compromise, that each of us give up something in order to get something back or just to get something done.

Revenue shortfalls, the taxation system, the cost of a universal health and education system, welfare, climate change – no one, no one interest, no one party is going to get exactly what it wants.

Instead of walking away could we not look for a better way to talk about, debate and solve these problems?

At the very least could we make a genuine attempt to reach solutions rather than one side of politics asserting its views, the other side saying no and everything grinding to a halt.

I'm a policy wonk, I like data and there's not enough of it about at the moment.

If we are to have conversations about whether to raise or widen the GST then let's first see the data to show how that would affect people, how much revenue it could raise and then decide whether changing it would be a good idea.

What about Medicare and the higher education system? There's a lot of talk of both being unsustainable.

But are they? And what does unsustainable mean? Just too expensive or worth having but with the understanding the money must come from somewhere?

Maybe allowing universities to set their own fees would be a good idea but it's hard to say when very few of them will say what fees under a deregulated system would look like.

It's difficult to expect people to consider an idea if you can't or won't tell them what it will cost them.

It's difficult to expect people to find politics interesting when it feels like much of the time it is an argument about tactics or one side simply saying no to an idea.

Just the other day President Barack Obama was talking about the same thing.

"Imagine if we broke out of these tired old patterns," President Obama said in his State of the Union address.

"Imagine if we did something different. Understand – a better politics isn't one where Democrats abandon their agenda or Republicans simply embrace mine."

"A better politics is one where we appeal to each other's basic decency instead of our basest fears. A better politics is one where we debate without demonising each other; where we talk issues and values and principles and facts rather than 'gotcha' moments or trivial gaffes or fake controversies that have nothing to do with people's daily lives."   

Is it too much to ask that we all do a little bit better this year?

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...re-all-nnn-nnn-vars-o&sa=D&usg=ALhdy28zsr6qiq