I have been thinking about what would have to change to make Australia a more democratic place.

I have come up with three ideas, which I think we should all urge as many pollies as possible to adopt, with the goal of embarassing the Libs and ALP into adopting them as election issues.

They are ...1) Citizen initiated referenda...2) A bill of rights...and since JH seems to like the idea of weakening the senate, let's propose an alternative 3) Replace double-dissolution elections with a plebiscite on the issue acting as a double-dissolution trigger. Give direct control of contentious legislation to the people, instead of the pollies.

Hopefully if we can get these ideas into the mouths of people like Bob Brown, Andrew Bartlett and the like, JH and ML will be unable to ignore them and democracy, rather than just interest rates, will become an election issue. So start writing letters, everyone!