Australia should use myGov-based national advisory ballots to give citizens a direct say on major national policy questions and reduce the influence of wealthy interests and lobby groups, writes Rob Powell.
AUSTRALIANS ARE NOT turning their backs on democracy. They are asking for more of it.
New research reported by ABC business reporter Gareth Hutchens shows that 65% of Australians believe ordinary citizens should have a greater say in setting government policy priorities, while 58% believe their elected representatives do not serve their interests.
The ABC's report, based on the Centre for Policy Development (CPD)'s latest 2026 Purpose of Government Pulse, also found that 68% believe politics is too focused on short-term gains, while only 37% think elected parliaments are effective at tackling the country's major challenges.
If Australians are consistently saying they want a greater role in the decisions made on their behalf, perhaps governments should do more than assure us they are listening. They could actually ask us.
Australia should establish secure, non-binding national policy ballots, accessible through myGov, allowing adult citizens to vote directly on some of the major policy questions confronting the country.
Such a system would not replace Parliament or remove its authority to legislate. It would instead supplement representative democracy by giving citizens a direct mechanism through which to express a view on particular issues between elections.
For most Australians, democratic participation currently consists largely of choosing between political parties once every three years, yet an election is a very crude instrument for determining what people actually want on individual questions.
Representative democracy tells us who Australians want to govern, but it does not necessarily tell us how Australians want to be governed.
Someone might vote Labor because they support Medicare and industrial relations policy while opposing AUKUS.
A Coalition voter might support its economic policies while wanting stronger climate action, while a Greens voter does not necessarily endorse every Greens policy.
Those distinctions disappear when the ballot is counted. A vote for a political party cannot reasonably be interpreted as approval of every policy that party implements over the following three years.
Representative democracy tells us who Australians want to govern, but it does not necessarily tell us how Australians want to be governed.
Australia has already demonstrated that citizens can be directly consulted without surrendering parliamentary government.
In 2017, the Turnbull Government conducted the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. It was not technically a plebiscite and its result was not legally binding. Parliament retained the power to decide whether the Marriage Act would change.
Australians were nevertheless asked a straightforward question about whether the law should be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 12.7 million Australians participated, representing 79.5% of those eligible, and 61.6% voted Yes. Parliament subsequently legislated for marriage equality.
That exercise demonstrated an important principle. A government can ask Australians a direct policy question, receive a clear democratic answer and use that result to inform legislation without transforming Australia into government by referendum.
The weakness of the 2017 process was largely practical. It relied on millions of paper survey forms and a lengthy campaign period. Australia now possesses national digital infrastructure that could make direct consultation much simpler.
A national policy ballot could operate through myGov, with eligible citizens receiving notification that a vote had opened on a significant policy question.
Voters could authenticate themselves securely, read a short independently prepared explanation of the proposal together with arguments for and against it, and then cast their vote.
The ballot could remain open for seven days, with the result made public but remaining advisory. Parliament would retain ultimate responsibility for legislating.
People unable or unwilling to use myGov would need postal, telephone or in-person alternatives, and the electoral component should be independently administered with rigorous security and auditing rather than simply handed to Services Australia.
There should also be clear rules governing when such a national ballot could be triggered.
It might be initiated by Parliament, by a bipartisan parliamentary committee, by a sufficiently large citizen petition, or when significant legislation is blocked in the Senate.
That final mechanism makes particular sense because the Australian Constitution already recognises that disagreement between the House of Representatives and Senate can become serious enough that voters ultimately need to resolve it.
Under section 57 of the Constitution, repeated rejection of legislation by the Senate can create the conditions for a double dissolution election.
That can mean dissolving both houses of Parliament and sending the entire country back to the polls. There ought to be room for something between parliamentary stalemate and another federal election.
If significant legislation has passed the House but remains blocked in the Senate, an advisory national ballot could ask Australians directly what they think.
The Senate would retain its constitutional powers and the ballot would not override it, but senators, the government and the public would at least know whether the disputed legislation had broader popular support.
The objective is not to stop people persuading voters, but to prevent the capacity to persuade from being determined primarily by the capacity to pay.
Direct participation could also help address another problem in modern democracy: the unequal distribution of political influence.
A billionaire, major corporation or industry association possesses resources that an ordinary citizen simply does not. They can employ lobbyists, purchase advertising, commission research and spend months attempting to influence a relatively small number of political decision-makers.
A cleaner cannot compete with that, and neither can a pensioner, teacher or mechanic.
Within a national ballot, however, those inequalities are dramatically reduced. A billionaire receives one vote, a chief executive receives one vote, a pensioner receives one vote and a cleaner receives one vote.
Economic inequality remains, but on that particular question political equality is restored.
This is also why national ballots should be deliberately short. Australia should not reproduce the long campaign environment surrounding elections and referendums, where organisations with millions of dollars can saturate television, social media and advertising for months.
A short information period followed by a seven-day voting window, combined with strict campaign spending limits and immediate disclosure of campaign funding, would reduce the capacity of wealthy interests to overwhelm the debate.
It would not eliminate influence, nor should it. Democracy requires argument and persuasion. The objective is not to stop people persuading voters, but to prevent the capacity to persuade from being determined primarily by the capacity to pay.
Ironically, such a system could strengthen governments as much as constrain them. Imagine a government attempting to introduce stronger taxes on multinational corporations, gambling advertising restrictions, mining royalties, political donation reform or tougher environmental laws.
The affected industry can spend enormous resources warning that the policy will destroy jobs, damage investment or hurt ordinary Australians.
A government backed by a clear advisory vote could instead point to direct evidence of public support. If 68% of participating Australians supported the measure, that would provide a powerful democratic mandate against concentrated private interests.
These votes should remain non-binding because governments may possess information the public does not, circumstances can change, and proposals may produce constitutional or unintended consequences. Parliament should retain the power to say no.
However, if Parliament chooses to legislate contrary to the clearly expressed view of Australians, it should have to explain why.
A government acting against the result of a national advisory ballot could be required to table a public statement outlining its reasons. That would preserve representative government while strengthening democratic accountability.
Nor should Australians be asked to vote on every regulation, appropriation or amendment passing through Parliament. We elect representatives because governing a modern nation is complicated.
National ballots should be reserved for genuinely significant questions and occur only a handful of times each year. The purpose is not to turn every voter into a part-time parliamentarian, but to create meaningful opportunities for participation on issues substantial enough to warrant direct public input.
Australians have been telling governments for years that they want a greater say. Technology cannot repair every weakness in Australian democracy, but it removes one excuse inherited from another century: that asking millions of Australians what they think is simply too difficult.
We already use myGov to tell government what we earn, what tax we owe and which public services we need. It is hardly radical to suggest that government might occasionally use the same infrastructure to ask us something in return.
Representative democracy should remain. Parliament should deliberate, compromise, legislate and ultimately take responsibility for governing.
But democracy should mean more than choosing who speaks for us once every three years. Sometimes, Australians should be allowed to speak for themselves.
Rob Powell is a retired mature-aged student currently studying politics and philosophy, focusing on how ethical frameworks shape public policy and political behaviour.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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