The reduction in the number of elected reps for what was Douglas Shire, Palm Cove and Clifton, does not sit well with everyone, so I propose some changes to mitigate the bad aspects on representational loss. I propose set up methods by which the community itself, can get more say. We have a democracy based on devolving your say to an elected representative. There are other systems of democracy. There are systems where governments using polling, surveys, e-referendums and stakeholder meetings to direct decisions. My efforts and inputs to the Icon legislation were all about promoting this power to the people idea. Some call it participatory democracy, others call it direct democracy. It’s basically about substituting politicians for polls.
Governments do as a matter of course, undertake community consultation on a range of issues, including changes to local laws and town planning. I feel much of this community consultation is just paying lip service to community views, particularly when notification is given buried deep in government ads, or buried in notices, requiring me the punter, to have my ‘submission’ in, on time, in some regulated form. Then, when a pile of submissions arrives on some bureaucrat’s desk, it rarely influences partisan political views and elected types just look to the pile of submissions to extract a few samples in support of their own partisan view. Basically, most community consultation is a farce.
This is why I made strong representation to the Senate Enquiry and the co-authors of the so called, “iconic legislation” to push for what I called, ‘compulsory, calibrated community consultation’. It was interesting that The Senate has agreed to form a committee to further investigate the ideas I and others were promoting. Its not rocket science here.

What we need is more sampling of community views, calling on, in my opinion, polling or surveys or simple referenda to sample of between 3-7% of the community. Assuming the results are not on a 50/50 hairline, I advocate that the community polling results be given the senate style power to overrule the elected reps view. I would hope that I would be aligned with majority views and I am reassured that this will happen having watched a very thorough community consultation process in Douglas reassuringly supported many views I had been trying to lure my co-councillors towards. One such view held by both myself and my community was the dissatisfaction with local public transport, which was great, insofar as I had tried to tell my colleagues time and again that the public transport issue was important, but my colleagues did not see it my way until the community consultation proved my point.
Because there are many community groups in Division 10, I would like to see some operational income support be given to these sector groups and in exchange, I would ask these groups to continually flow their views to the sole local elected rep, in effect replacing the former 7 elected reps with one, supported by a range of ‘portfolio’ feedback groups. One could argue that the community itself could maybe do a lot better job of its governance than the traditional ‘gang of four’.
So in short, as we have had division 10’s representation diluted, let’s replace this dilution with a direct form of people driven democracy.

CONTACT ROD DAVIS: vote@roddavis.org

MOBILE: 0418 235561 or HOME: 0740 994434

MAIL: PO BOX 714, Port Douglas, 4877.