Citizen Shadow Parliaments - an alternative planning approach?
Do you ever wonder what our society would look like if everyday people were calling the shots? If everyday people had more influence rather than a few privileged rich and large corporations? Would we have sold our public utilities? Would the centre of Melbourne look less like Manhattan; have less poorly constructed and dangerous residential towers? Would citizens be forced into selling off the backyards of family homes to pay their outrageous mortgages? Would we ever have allowed negative gearing and its looming financial tsunami?
Well we might not be able to go back in time, but citizens may have good ideas of how to fix this mess and minimise the damage of past decisions. What planning decisions should be made now? What planning proposals should be stopped or allowed now? This article presents an idea for citizens to form their own representative decision making bodies, and if we wish we can see how real democratic decision making compares with our current donation driven party based system.
All you need to start a democratic process in your own area is just 5 people. From this it can grow to include up to 2 million people. The system proposed below would be extremely difficult to corrupt. It is a system that truly allows 'rule by the people' as it consists of everyday people, not career politicians.
Over recent centuries in the history of the West government has been about people and people’s rights. This led to some progress – at least formally, if not in practice - in relation to the rights of individuals. Such civic protections have been enshrined in systems of law and legislature i.e in formal constitutions which limit the power of leaders/rulers over the people. Formal constitutions often follow a tradition of establishing representative parliaments, an independent judiciary and an executive (in Australia, the Government’s cabinet) or some variation thereof and linked to the Magna Carta. The 
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