Hold on, what?

In your example do you mean,

• select 15 randomised people to run against each other to win 5 seats.

Or,

• Elect 15 people from a randomised larger pool of people. And those 15 people are then lotteried for each decision/period into the council of five position.

If its the second one, thats interesting as fuck. I think I'd still hold my reservations about ongoing groups leading to factional groupings(essentially a shit form of a Party), but its really a rethink of the system elevating the utility of randomness.

Can't even use the premium parking anymore!

after

during?

Is it just, me or does this sound like someone who wants to commit a crime just big enough to be sent to jail?

Almost the entirety of the second floor is vacant as tenants await a $240 million renovation.

Ah, i didn't realise this was why. It looks freakin dilapidated and sad in that place last time i went in.

I don't think it's necessarily so pointless.

I do agree that it's ethically dubious and in a perfect world you'd have enough police to monitor areas where this is likely to happen, but that's not really the reality.

I don't really agree that no crime would've been committed if the police hadn't left a scooter there. Perhaps that's true, but it's more likely to me that delinquents are looking for opportunities all day.

I also don't agree that we should avoid charging kids with this type of crime. If the court is producing bad outcomes then that is what should be addressed.

On balance, I think it's the last, worst option. However, if police don't have the resources to manage this problem then it would allow you to grab a few kids who are hanging out at the same shop every day stealing everyone's stuff.

More likely the other way a round, elect 15 members for 5 positions for example, every candidate has been endorsed in an election but no amount of party influence, marketing, or corruption can ever guarantee a result.

Oh, thats interesting, so the normal electoral process, but a randomised but then self selecting group of candidates.

I guess the independence of each new member coming in is the perceived strength here.

But i'm not sure 'independence of each member' would be a strength in this format. Because the erstwhile independent members, since they're, at first, randomly chosen community members, would likely begin forming impromptu and easily led blocks/factions within the parliament once there.

Essentially ending up with a weak Party system that is as easily corruptible as the current situation, but less effective as a voting and policy force as the current situation.

Or have you got a different strength/benefit to this system in mind?

I 100% agree. If I were all powerful god emperor I would have local councils selected by a combination of sortition and election checked by regular public meetings. But within the limited Overton window of liberal democracy I'd settle for compulsory voting as a baby step in the right direction.

Interesting to see ABC seem to be prompting the questions around more democratic changes as a solution to the LGA issues.

I don't hate the idea, compulsory voting seems to be a key difference in our health as a democracy in the world. But I tend to agree with Tony Simpson's comment on it,

Former local government minister and current Karratha councillor, Tony Simpson, said compulsory voting was an interesting proposition.

"The only problem is that compulsory voting brings in party politics," he said.

I think the reliance on one system of democratic governance, ie party adversarial politics, is likely to lead to under-serving of easily under-attended sections of the community or debate areas, say, for instance housing policy.

^Btw, I say that in full knowledge that LGA councillors often already have strong party links.^

I think we should be looking at different ways of democratic delivery. I think Citizens Assemblies are an interesting option. Randomly selected groups of community members in controlled information supported environments.

Doing this at the local level, because all politics are in the end local. They avoid the Party system, while not removing it; would hopefully drive higher community engagement and connections; peer groups, such as juries, have historically made better and fairer decisions than single specialists sitting in judgement. (I mean, this last point is the whole point of why countries like Australia think democracy is the way to go, so it seems fairly aligned).; theres evidence from Europe coming in where these have been employed to great success in certain circunstances; also demotes regulatory and political capture by vested interests as as big a threat.

As a result it could break through the othering and politicisation of seemingly intransigent issues that are endlessly debated with little to no progress made in one direction or the other.

Oh wow yeah! I hadn't read about the backstory for Coolgardie.

Theres definitely cross-over between our predispositions. Mine is to always increase democratic representation where able, and never decrease. My problem with the Barnett government's plan was there was a clear decrease in democratic representation proposed, for vague promuses of efficiencies. If its more efficient to have less councils, then ipso-facto its even more efficient to have one council. By this argument the most efficient forms of governance is surely oligarchy/dictatorship.

Except this isn't whats borne out with those systems, and theres plenty of evidence of those systems around the world.

Those forms of government are only, arguably, efficient for delivering on the needs of an inner-circle/primary population. So the whole efficiency argument rests on a premise that goes against the fundamental theoretical structures (Liberal Democracy) that Australia is built on.

So without a requisite increase in democratoc representation in some other effective way, the case for council mergers is highly problematic for me.

I'm ideologically predisposed to favour local government over state government so I'm immediately suspicious with any attempt to overrule a local council.

I really need to sit down and go through this Coolgardie situation. My understanding of the bare bones is that the mining industry was screaming out for for more accommodation for miners. Coolgardie council responded by releasing some land for mining companies to build on and built their own "village". The building project was mismanaged and over budget and hasn't returned the revenue expected. Council tried to cover the shortfall by heavily increasing rates on miners which was overruled by the state govt. They have now been accused of doing nothing to get themselves out of this mess.

At a glance it looks to me like an underresourced council doing its best and overeaching and when it fell apart made a hard decision to tax higher to regain financial stability. It looks a lot like Perth wants to amalgamate Coolgardie into Kalgoorlie-Boulder and this is pretext.

But as I say, I need to be guarded with my judgement because of my ideological predisposition.

My co-worker was unhappy i whacked on the air-con on Monday, he was saying it was too warm! He must've been born in a fridge!

I get the feeling they're trying to coordinate and clear off ongoing troublesome council issues in the lead up for a fresh start. Hannah Beazley just got some new powers for use with LGA's a month or so ago, so thats probably made it easier to take action. I haven't had time to go through a summary of those new laws yet.

The more cynical view i have is they're beginning a very cautious campaign for council mergers. No one from the government has said that though. In fact i think it was Beazley who specifically denied this. But the Mayor of Bunbury had let it be known its on his mind with his surrounding councils, and these ongoing problems aren't a good look, so maybe theres a cautious feeling of pikitical sands shifting. I'd be mighty surprised if thats the community sentiment though.

I've actually been trying to find online the rational the Barnett Government put to WA for the council mergers, but all i've been able to find are some vague statements about operational and cost efficiencies. The only real analysis i can find is from Greenleft, they did a pretty good article, but i know people would perceive them of having a bias, so i've been looking for other sources to bolster what they say. Government News has been another interesting source, but haven't found anything more specific than the vague statements of benefits, but surely the Barnett Government must have put out a more detailed policy

3 weeks to respond then its only a few weeks to the election. What is the point of this?

It's been a pretty bitter winter on the south coast.

I'm sick of feeling cold.

Max of 48°f = 8.9°c

After Monday being the "coldest day in 50 years" I got curious what the coldest on record was. Actually a fair bit colder than 12°.

Its the quiet people going ahead and doing things like this that are tue heroes.

I know our mental health system is a shambles but hat off to the private person who funded this service for so long.

Yeah, i didn't really see a strong case for mismanagement of funds in the report, maybe theres more to the story unable to be reported yet.

I found it a good, and realistic update of the project though. I don't really hear much about it throughout the year. Sometimes i'll catch their talks at Astrofest, but haven't been able to this last couple years.

It's not like that thing has an ROI, financially speaking. Turn it off, save the gas money and finish the project. While it could miss some events in the near term, the universe isn't going anywhere anytime soon as far as I am aware.

Unfortunately, usually when it's government budgets, money needs to be burned to justify further budget allocation in the future. From that perspective, it makes perfect sense to keep using diesel to power the place while the project gets delayed while also extending salaries for as long as possible. Funds probably aren't getting mismanaged though. If this project involves multiple nations, I don't even want to know what an approval process even looks like or how long a project change approval would take.

https://slrpnk.net/comment/17534231

had they not created that situation the crime would not have been committed

Or maybe the thief would go steal a scooter elsewhere? Police don't go after bike/scooter thieves that aren't caught in the act. This is one of the only ways to catch them in the act. 0 sympathy from me

Especially something the rich would rarely use. Steal helicopters and fancy cars, that's what real g's would steal

The old trick or reducing crime by increasing it.