Squeezing in a quick political post before work for a party whose distinguishing feature – and selling point – is that it has no policies! The ideological, next-generation offspring of Senator Online, VoteFlux tells us that
Flux is an exciting and new political system for the information age. Vote for policies, not false promises, and make your voice heard.
Ah, but what policies? Well, that’s really up to you.
Flux is here to redistribute political power, empower the Australian people through real political participation, and enable specialists to help repair bad policy. Flux will give Australia the framework it needs to meet the challenges of the 21st century head on.
Essentially, Flux wants to put policy back in the hands of the people – creating direct democracy via a smartphone app.
Their plan is to create an app you can access from your phone and computer, and contact you every time a bill is put before the Parliament. You get one vote per bill, and, can use the vote immediately, give it to someone else to cast on your behalf, or save it for another issue. So if you don’t have many opinions about the environment, but care passionately about funding to public schools, you can hoard all your votes from environmental legislation to use on education legislation, effectively making your voice in that area louder.
Flux is very clear that they do not have policies. They are about increasing political engagement:
Flux as a party is a vehicle for driving this systemic political change, with no policy platform beyond parliamentary reform. Flux as a system, is a tool for changing how policy is shaped. It will allow more voices to join the conversation, empower specialists to become politically involved in their fields, and grant Australians direct access to producing better policy for a better Australia.
While they do not have policies, Flux does have values:
We value people, not some people, but all people, and recognise our differences as strengths, not weaknesses.
We believe in a free and open society, characterised by freedom of speech, freedom of association, and the free flow of political ideas.
I’m trying to unpack this in a way that does not come across as patronising, because I think the two founders of Flux are intelligent, idealistic people, and these are great qualities in politicians. But they also come across as being a little unaware of how people work outside their bubble (which, I suspect, is populated with bright, idealistic people like themselves). The emphasis on freedom of speech and the free flow of political ideas are both lovely, but also a little disquieting to anyone who has spent time being female and political on the internet – or, I suspect, aboriginal anywhere, to pick just two examples. Freedom of speech and free flow of political ideas can be about giving everyone a chance to speak – but it also can make it harder to fight against people who want to use that platform for abuse, and it’s easy to underestimate the effect of some ‘free speech’ on the people it is directed at. I do think the intent here is absolutely benign, and in keeping with VoteFlux’s philosophy of increasing engagement in the political process, but I’m not sure about the outcomes. Maybe I’m just too old and cynical…
Oh god, these people have never heard of game theory or tactical voting.
Even the most uncontroversial legislation would become an exercise in brinkmanship. Do I really need to vote yes to Obviously Necessary And Hugely Popular Proposal, or should I save my vote for something more controversial? And millions of others will be making the same calculation.
You can also effectively gerrymander the system by splitting measures into many different bills, or lumping them together.
I hadn’t considered that aspect. Now I sort of want them to get up so that someone can do a study of the anthropology…
Oh. My. Lord. Have these people never read the comments? On pretty much any news site? Let alone a political blog? I.. well I can see how this would be likely to go on many levels.
My sentiments exactly! I think they are a little oblivious.
“…you can hoard all your votes from environmental legislation to use on education legislation, effectively making your voice in that area louder.” No, just no. The whole point of having a direct democracy is that it should more accurately reflect the views of ALL voters, not just those with a particular axe to grind. Especially not those with a particular axe to grind. Direct Democracy yes, given a secure enough platform on which to do it. Saving up votes for a pet issue? No. 🙁
There are so many issues with this model that it’s really hard to know where to start… It would seem to invite extremists, however.
Every system stands or falls in its implementation. I think some form of direct voting is inevitable, but I don’t think this one is it. Quite a part from anything else, we still haven’t had the ‘big app security scare’ yet, but I’m sure that will come eventually so I’d like a wee bit more security on issues of state!