vHouse Chamber- Virtually connected to chambers around the country as well as the world wide web.
Space for public debate and voting (ideas, policies, etc).
Citizens can hold parliamentary style debates in which everyone can vote on the outcome, including other chambers. People connecting from outside the chambers can also vote and post comments that contribute to the debate using their computers or mobile devices.
Space for virtual "town hall" style meetings/public questions.
Politicians/public representatives can address the chambers/world wide web simultaneously and answer the most popular questions from vHouse.
Chamber Offices - For centre management/security and chamber speaker.
Chamber speaker.
Maintains a constructive atmosphere during debates/meetings and has the power to evict disruptive personnel from the chamber.
Local Rep Office/s - Members of Parliament have offices at their local divisions vHouse Access Centre, allowing them to play a key roles in the public political participation process.
IT Core - For IT management/maintainance and servers.
Space B
Gallery - Virtually connected to chambers around the country as well as the world wide web.
A multimedia space where citizens can access recent records of both vHouse and parliamentary proceedings.
Internet voting system that is cryptographically secure, supports vote delegation, and scales well to massive elections.
PDI (policy-agnostic political party that does not have a political ideology) elected representatives will vote in congress according to what the people have previously voted through the internet using Agora.
Anyone can mathematically verify that the election result is correct (known as Universal Verifiability).
DNIe based voter authentication, A digital signature that allows voter authentication that both ensures that voters are eligible as well as avoids the possibility of duplicate votes.
Australia at the dawn of the 21st Century is facing the following severe issues:
Unacceptably high levels of poverty for an OECD country
Over 2 million people living below the poverty line (12% of the total population);
70% poverty risk to sole parents;
50% poverty rate for single pensioners over the age of 65 (NHRAP, 2011)
Poor environmental management
Water;
ageing infrastructure,
over extraction and irrigation of major river systems,
drought.
Climate Change;
over 250,000 homes at risk from rising sea levels,
lack of security and economic adaptability.
Energy;
high reliance on fossil fuels,
unutilised high capacity in solar, wind, marine, and geothermal energies,
need for long term thinking in government
20 conventional coal fired power plants,
worlds largest coal exporter,
no development of renewable energy solutions on a large scale.
Biodiversity;
1500 land based species threatened,
highly urbanised society,
no economic value placed on services (with the exception of food and timber) provided by the ecosystem.
Oceans;
Great Barrier Reef under threat,
lack of regulation in the harvesting and production of seafood.
Population;
35 million people by 2049,
lack of studies/knowledge on the nations carrying capacity.
Cities and Development;
greater water and energy usage per person than almost every other country,
need for more sustainable infrastructure,
Transport;
lack of investment in public transport,
heavy reliance on car and road transportation (Environment, 2009).
From the above figures, it is quite apparent that there is a great room for improvement in the field of resource management and social inclusion. Clearly there has been an unacceptable level of failure at a government level to address these issues.
Risks of Greater Public Political Participation
I have thought it necessary to come up with a strategy designed to guide public participation in the political decision making process. The question is how do we include greater public participation without running the risk of extremely vocal interest groups potentially hijacking the political system? It is reasonable to assume that such groups would seek to achieve self-serving goals that could possibly alienate other members of the community. Furthermore, how would the system be protected from being led astray by large numbers of people who lack an adequate understanding of the issues involved? A system that simply disregards the opinions of some while accepting those of others would run the risk of becoming elitist.
The best answer would be to guide the participation process in a way that strives to tackle the nations most serious issues. The purpose of introducing a more direct democracy should be to assist in building an ideal Australia that is both prosperous while simultaneously being free from corruption and interference by powerful self-serving interests.
Basic Principles of Guidance
Using the outlined issues listed above, I have begun to think about some basic principles that could serve in the development of an ideal Australia. These principles are based on subjects which have all too often been ignored or ineffectively addressed by politicians in the past. If backed by a mandate as powerful as one caused by the direct contribution and collaboration of the voting public, politicians would find these principles very hard to ignore.
All members of the population should have access to;
the basic necessities of life (i.e. food and shelter),
a high quality education, and
an efficient and reliable health system.
Government decisions and actions should be transparent and reflective of the needs of the general public, with members held accountable for their actions.
There should be no political, cultural, or religious bias involved with any decisions made in government with regard to the future direction of the nation.
Knowledge, understanding, and respect for the Australian environment and its natural processes should be of the highest level possible, leading to;
the maintenance of the natural equilibrium,
the protection of biodiversity,
the safety of human and environmental health, and
prevention of exhaustive use of resources.
There should be a strong drive in technological development, pushing for the best possible solutions in supporting the population through the best known methods, including;
renewable energy sources,
high efficiency and longevity of goods and services,
efficient and reliable public transport, and
the reduction of wastage through the recycling of materials and efficiency in production and construction practices.
I am considering the proposition of a virtual political sphere, which would become a new focus of Australian politics that would;
provide the general public with a greater influence on decisions made in parliament;
reduce the influence of powerful corporate and vocal self-serving interest groups;
provide an easy-access source of information that is not dictated by levels of 'newsworthiness' or ratings and is free of political/cultural/religious bias; and
encourages individual choice that is free of any form of misleading or manipulation by external interests.
As technology progresses, a virtual inter-connection is growing more prominent in society. For this reason, Australians should no longer be forced to rely on a select few individuals running the nation in a central location that is geographically separated from most of the country. Likewise, independent profit-based media corporations and bias groups/individuals/sources should not be the general publics only source of political information.
A Step Towards Direct Democracy
A virtual political sphere will enable greater participation in politics by the public, through the implementation of virtual strategies similar to those developed in the first project. This is to help ensure a safeguarding of the political process from any form of corruption, and help to increase accountability on elected representatives.
Other Possibilities of a more Distributed Political System
State and Territory governments and councils abolished, saving the nation up to $50 billion a year (Abolish State Government, 2011);
States and councils replaced by "closer to the people" regional governments, offering a better representation of local issues unique to certain areas;
Virtual political sphere access centres strategically placed around the country, based on the regional government areas, with the function of expanding the political process over a wider area;
Parliament House building in Canberra still the heart and soul of legislative power, however far more open to the public without the need of commercial media.
An interesting concept which could revolutionise how products and necessary household goods are distributed to the population. Everyone could simply 3D print what they need out of plastic in their own homes. All that is needed is a computer running free software, and the printer itself, which can be built cheaply or replicated by a friends Reprap for free.
In this documentary shortcomings of today's political systems are highlighted. It also suggests the inherent flaws of the existing monetary/market economic model, such as its reliance of created artificial debt and a presumption of infinite growth, have led to social decay, false materialism, crime, poverty, environmental destruction, and inequality. In effect there are literally billions of people around the world who are unable to meet the basic necessities of life.
The movie highlights that human beings are Bio-Psycho Social Organisms that are affected by the surrounding environment symbiotically. This is also known as "social conditioning", and means that if an infant or young child is exposed to negative conditions such as stress, abuse, or suffering, it will likely lead to addictions or violence later in life. For this reason, people being able to meet the necessities of life in all forms should not just be considered a luxury as it is in today's economic system, but be made a social imperative.
A "Resource Based Economy" is an entirely new economic model not based on monetary exchange but on the efficient management of the Earth's environment and its finite resources. The main objective of a RBE is complex management and innovation that would minimise waste, technological obsolescence, environmental depletion, and inefficiency, all factors which plague the modern monetary/market system. If all these factors were made primary considerations, there would be more than enough resources on Earth to provide the entire population with the basic necessities of life.
In a RBE the society would need to;
Find out what resources are needed;
Gather knowledge and conduct surveys of what resources exist, and where they are found;
Verify how they will be used/what they will be used for;
Monitor and track the usage and natural replenishment of these resources in order to maintain a "dynamic equilibrium";
From this data a RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM would be established, involving the following strategies;
Strategic preservation;
Strategic safety - avoidance of negative retro actions such as production or use that damages human and environmental health;
Strategic efficiency
goods designed to last
goods designed for recycling
goods designed to update
goods designed for standardisation and universal inter-changeability;
As these strategies are of a purely of a technical nature, they can be programmed into a computer system which can weigh and calculate all the variables. This would in turn establish a PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.
A "proximity strategy" would also need to be developed, where there would be increased local production, requiring less energy in the transportation of goods. Demand would also need to be assessed;
Monitoring of what goods need to be manufactured and why;
Demand of what people need to be healthy and have a high quality of life;
Core Life Supporting Necessities
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HUMAN AND SOCIAL HEALTH
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Social and Recreational Needs
From this a DEMAND AND DISTRIBUTION TRACKING SYSTEM would be established.
"It is the scientific method applied to social concern"
Free of political bias
Free of subjective opinions of what's needed and what's not, what's true or false.
Possible Idea for Architectural Proposal
One of the ideas from the film I found interesting was one concerning "strategic access". This is concerned with the possibility of goods being made available to people when they need it, taking away the need for ownership in some cases (reducing consumerist wastage), and therefore eliminating the need to replicate a good for every single person (i.e. cars). "Centralised and regional access centres" was one of the proposals. This could be applied to the Australian government context, and could be a model for the efficient managing of the nations resource and services distribution.
"Embassy architecture serves as a powerful symbol that provides an instantaneous and indelible impression of a country. Public buildings project the identity of a country’s peoples, culture and aspirations. American public buildings convey the collective identity of our rich, culturally diverse, and increasingly complex society. An American embassy’s design expresses to the world the ideals of American democracy—the optimism, hope and promise of our time. By communicating the transcendent values that define the United States as a nation, the new Embassy of the United States of America in London has the potential to embody a new age of American openness, transparency, and renewed commitment to international collaboration. A U.S. Embassy also acts as a symbolic gateway between two countries." - Morphopedia
