These two potential candidates want to try become the first job-sharing parliamentarians. I can see the benefits of opening up possibilities for people with kids/dependents. I think a broader range of perspectives in parliament would be great. And these people would be there to do the job, rather than career politic-ing. The linked article mentions how they’d both have to be sworn in as MP’s, essentially giving their electorate 2 votes, but I don’t think that’d necessarily be the case. However, you would have the power of two people’s voices when lobbying.
But I’m also wary of how much easier it would be shirk responsibility to “the other person”. Assuming it would work as a shared office rather than a representative person, would a line be drawn between 2 people and a group of people?
Delving into the speculative fantasy, suddenly the 2 mums with kids at home who couldn’t commit to full-time parliamenting were pioneers for rotational council representatives, getting rid of politicians altogether.
Agree with all the positives. I think disagreements could be solved the same way any group solves disagreements (i.e. not always very well) - so yep the framework would have to very well defined. And yeah fairly sure a constitutional change would be needed, but that’s semantics as are the rest of those issues. I think the real crux of the issue is the change from elected person to elected group.
I don’t think there’s much of a difference between multi-electorate seats and what we have now, surely thats just a case of bigger electorates? Multi-representative seats are not a foreign concept either, i believe that’s how it works down in Tassie with their hare-clarke system.