[Advisors] FW: [ciresearchers] The emergence of local crowdsourced politicians in Australia

[michael gurstein]

I’d love to see something like this tried in Canada where we have an increasingly out of touch political class… An increasing majority of the population wants the current Harper government sent packing but the opposition parties can’t agree to collaborate to elect the appropriate number of Members of Parliament who could form a government. This leaves Harper and his colleagues with the possibility of a further term in office with even less of the popular vote than they got last time (39.8%)!.

 

M

 

From: ciresearchers-owner at vancouvercommunity.net [mailto:ciresearchers-owner at vancouvercommunity.net] On Behalf Of Paul Budde
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2014 8:44 AM
To: ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net; Andrew Clark
Subject: Re: [ciresearchers] The emergence of local crowdsourced politicians in Australia

 

The fact that it did get the attention indicates it is still something special. Australia has a very active community based social media service called Get Up. This attracts regularly 100, 000+ responses. They just stopped the deportation of a gay man to Pakistan. So people here are very aware of the power of social media and that of course triggers a wider use of it throughout the society here.

 

 

Sent from Samsung Mobile

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Andrew Clark 

Date:10/01/2014 12:26 (GMT+10:00) 

To: ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net,michael gurstein 

Subject: Re: [ciresearchers] The emergence of local crowdsourced politicians in Australia 

 

The circumstance of Cath McGowan win are actually quite complicated. 

While social media certainly played a part, it certainly was not the only one. The  sitting member Sophie Mirrabella  was not widely liked even within her own party. (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2013/09/13/when-you-hate-on-mirabella-you%E2%80%99re-one-step-from-the-fruit-bowl/)

I think a more nuanced reflection of social media and crowd sourcing is required in this circumstance.

Andrew Clark
andrewrclark at mac.com



On 10 Jan 2014, at 11:50 am, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> Comments?
> 
> M
> 
> The emergence of local crowd-sourced politicians in Australia
> 
> Excerpted from Brenton Caffin:
> 
> “A glimpse of an alternative approach may have arrived courtesy of the 2013
> Australian Federal Election.
> 
> Tired of being taken for granted by the local MP, locals in the
> traditionally safe conservative seat of Indi embarked on a structured
> process of community ‘kitchen table’ conversations to articulate an
> independent account of the region’s needs. The community group, Voice for
> Indi, later nominated its chair, Cath McGowan, as an independent candidate.
> It crowdfunded their campaign finances and built a formidable army of
> volunteers through a sophisticated social media operation.
> 
> As Campbell Klose and Nick Haines write here: “Indi has never seen anything
> like this before. For the first time in living memory thousands of people
> from all walks of life were engaging in politics and having a say in how
> they would like to see their electorate represented. For too long they had
> been taken for granted. Labor knew it couldn’t win it, so it hadn’t ever
> bothered trying; the Liberals knew they were going to win, so they didn’t
> bother either.”
> 
> Cath McGowan won the seat by 400 votes.
> 
> While this is admittedly an isolated example, the implications of their
> success are potentially profound. Communities need not settle for the
> limited range of platforms on offer by major political parties, but can
> create their own and then find the best candidate to prosecute their case.”
> 
> The post The emergence of local crowd-sourced politicians in
> Australia appeared first on P2P Foundation's blog.  
> 
> =============================================================
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