Government, Policy & the Voters

[Thomas P. Koltai]

We all see a lot of angst in these mailing lists, the topics
vary but generally concur that Internet Government control is
at best a questionable result.

Several organisations have been set-up to lobby Government
with very slow results emanating from all. This confounds me as
we have demonstrated the power of the Internet as a concerted effort 
lobbying device.
That demonstration of Internet voting power ran earlier this year as
a petition @ http://www.ozlink.net/ and @ 
http://www.ozlink.net/count.html we can see that over 35,000
australians made comment about timed local calls.
(My thanks to Daniel Clarke, Morris Jones and Kevin Dinn for their 
invaluable assistance on publicity for that particular campaign.)

It strikes me that with all our good intentions, we are attempting too 
little, too late and too dispersed.

A gentleman of distinguished journalistic repute recently pointed out to 
me a "new option". Namely, we all look at the USA as being a commercial 
utopia; and economists have argued that this is due mainly to that 
countries constitution.

In http://ftp.fcc.gov/Speeches/Hundt/spreh645.txt CHAIRMAN REED HUNDT
of the US FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION (FCC) claimed that :

For many years, we rejected competition policy in industries where the 
"natural monopoly" theory took hold -- the railroads, airlines, power, 
and telecommunications.  Those industries are the historical exceptions 
to the century-old rule of competition.  But now in all these industries
we have at last repudiated the natural monopoly theory as overbroad and 
unwise.

He was referring to the Sherman Act:
http://www.brownraysman.com/doclib/sherman1.html

Which says: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or 
otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce
among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to 
be illegal. Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any 
combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed
guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine 
not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, 
$350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said
punishments, in the discretion of the court."

Would it not be nice to be able to quote "Anti-Trust" to Telstra ?

@ http://www.republic.org.au/conv/conv04.html is the PM's announcement of
the Australian Constitution Convention.

There are 76 delegates to be voted onto the Convention list by commoners 
(errr, that's us, the voting public).

The March demonstration of over 30,000 votes in four weeks on the issue 
of untimed local calls has me thinking that we CAN make a difference.
It just needs to be co-ordinated, shared and unanimous.

Bill Gates appears to have motivated the Prime Minister into "IT Think" 
mode.
Imagine what 76 delegates could do to the "Constitution of the country".

Imagine what we could do as a co-ordinated interest group.
Imagine the voters that we can influence.
Imagine the changes that we can effect.

Background
==========
A history of Australias' Constitutional efforts can be found at :
http://www.centenary.org.au/info/intro/making.html

The actual constitution can be found at : 
http://senate.aph.gov.au/blackrod/Aust_Const/const.html

The interesting bits that we can change to make our future better can be 
found at: http://senate.aph.gov.au/blackrod/Aust_Const/chapter4.html



Tom
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Thomas P. Koltai
Phone: +61-2-9261-4884 Mobile: +61-419-333331
Facimile: +61-2-9267-0230 Email: tomk@koltai.com
187 Liverpool Street, Sydney NSW Australia 2000
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