Citizen politicians, drawn from all walks of life, are what students still read about when they dip into textbooks on the virtues of democracy. In reality, our system has squeezed citizen politicians out of the process and left us with the hacks and time-servers.
Replacing salaries for politicians with a living allowance which recognises the role as being one of temporary “service to community”, not a career, is the quickest and most direct route towards getting the cleanout in parliamentary ranks that we desperately need.
A living allowance of say $50,000 per annum would sort the sheep from the goats. It would create a culture of voluntary service among MPs; anyone interested in a move to parliament for career reasons would immediately be deterred.
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It is less restrictive than term limits, and more effective in signaling a major change in political culture away from decision-making by party machine-generated clones towards one which places a higher value on individual conscience and service to others.
Its enemies will be many, but it comes with an assurance of overwhelming popular support. It will have to be forced from without by a new breed of citizen politicians.
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About the Author
Vern Hughes is Secretary of the National Federation of Parents Families and Carers and Director of the Centre for Civil Society and has been Australia's leading advocate for civil society over a 20-year period. He has been a writer, practitioner and networker in social enterprise, church, community, disability and co-operative movements. He is a former Executive Officer of South Kingsville Health Services Co-operative (Australia's only community-owned primary health care centre), a former Director of Hotham Mission in the Uniting Church, the founder of the Social Entrepreneurs Network, and a former Director of the Co-operative Federation of Victoria. He is also a writer and columnist on civil society, social policy and political reform issues.
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