Making politics work- Real representation and accountability
Rand Strauss thoughts on real representation:
I know little about Australian politics. But I think it's similar to politics elsewhere- it was never designed.
In general, representative democracies are dependent on representatives (people who know what constituents want) being accountable (serving constituents, reporting to them and being judged by them.)
The main component here is "accountability" which is a relationship. Actually, there are two important relationships, the one between the politician and the voters, and the one(s) between each voter and all voters together.
Relationships require communication. We don't have a communication system that supports either of these, and we've never designed one (until now- see below).