Refreshing to see the bipartisan commitment to a revised protocol for referendums. This includes producing and distributing an explanatory pamphlet.   Our democracy would be even better if it were compulsory for all political parties and independent candidates to issue an evidence-based policy document ahead of each election.   For the Lower House, this could cover the fundamental principles by which the parties and independents will address policy issues and the specifics for the term following the election. Senate candidates could say how they will seek to influence key policy issues and how they will work to uphold the integrity of government.

After more than a decade of negotiations, the countries of the United Nations have agreed the first ever treaty to protect the wor

Jim Chalmers has suggested businesses should justify price increases.   The government should justify why they take our money from us and spend it on what they call “essential services” – including a large and expensive bureaucracy.   The government should have an open zero-based budget approach in annual expenditure planning, justifying every dollar spent. Explaining their revenue-raising plan to fund the expenditure – including revenue raised from bracket creep.   It is the “peoples” money the government takes and spends or re-distributes. We are owed a clear and transparent rationale for all taxes and spending – not obfuscation and political doublespeak.