Europe's current debt crisis has been blatantly caused by well known financially reckless governments. But the problem of the reckless is being allowed to drag down sound responsible economic states into bailing out the financially reckless ones. Why?
Why dig a bigger hole? The only benefit offered is to maintain unity for unity sake. But the 'rescue package' repeatedly talked about does not address the underlying causes of the financial problem, nor entail removing the culpable captains of the reckless spending and borrowing. It is past time to cut the tether to prevent the ship sinking.

To vote on this campaign go to http://tinyurl.com/3nmwwjq . Yesterday, I made a proposal on GetUp that GetUp launch a campaign to have the Australian constitution changed to include provisions for Direct Democracy similar to what is practised in Switzerland. Whilst the response has not yet been overwhelming, I see no reason why a campaign for Direct Democracy now in Australia should not be able to gain sufficient support to force the Government make it law. But to succeed the campaign needs your support. To find out what you can do, please read this article and the previous article, particularly, that article's What You Can Do Section.

You can help bring Direct Democracy to Australia. To vote on this campaign go to http://tinyurl.com/3nmwwjq

John Marlowe first wrote an article about Direct Democracy late last year on 17 November 2010, the same day as an excellent episode of Rear Vision about Direct Democracy was first broadcast. Today, I made a suggestion to GetUp that they conduct a campaign for the Australian constitution to be changed to include Direct Democracy as it is currently practised in Switzerland. It is easy for anyone who agrees with the aims of GetUp to join in order to vote for my proposal. What you can do.

We supposedly have representative democracy in Australia, in which Members of Parliament are supposed to represent their electorate in the three levels of government. But the form of democracy we really have in Australia is a 'vested interest democracy', where members typically are patsies of political parties, which are beholden to vested interest groups. This has unsavoury similarities to the overtly corrupt political culture of many Asian countries to Australia's north.

What Australians deserve, have fought in wars for and rightly expect is true democracy, not the vested interest democracy that we put up with today.

See also: Direct Democracy on ABC Radio National's Rear Vision program of 17 Nov 2010.

As Australians we pride ourselves with the presumption that we live in a democracy benefiting from the universally accepted principles of 'equality and freedom'.

We are supposed to have a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" [Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865]. But in reality we are denied full or 'direct democracy' and are expected to tolerate the more compromised version of 'representative democracy'.

But those so-called 'representatives' repeatedly let us down. They are instead controlled by their own political party agendas. Legislative voting is along party lines, not according to the say of local electoral seats that our 'representatives' are supposed to represent.

In fact we have what's branded an 'illiberal democracy' - a narrower definition of full democracy and one in which, although elections take place, voters are excluded from government agendas, denied any say into party policies, denied any say in drafting legislation, denied any say in constructing government budget priorities. Party politics is where the real political power lies in Australian politics, not with the people.

The advantages of preferential voting and direct elections and why proportional representation is not a solution.