Below is another brilliant guest post from MB reader Erin Rolandsen, CEO of Angelassist:
It is rare, as a writer, that I ever venture beyond the comfortable veil of the third person. But the enthusiastic response to my recent article on Performative Democracy has compelled me to set aside convention.
Many readers urged me to publish the article more widely. I confess: I tried, but failed. The gatekeepers of respectable opinion seem to prefer their democracy performed rather than examined.
Some readers went further still. They suggested that I, a mere CEO of an almost invisible, if not perpetually struggling enterprise, should take up the mantle myself: to beat the drum, to attend the $5,000 dinners, to lead the charge.
I know my own insignificance too well to imagine myself a statesman. My business premises consists of a second-hand desk in the corner of my bedroom. My balance sheet trembles at the sight of an ever-increasing power bill.
And yet, in such straitened circumstances, perhaps it is precisely my obscurity that qualifies me to lead the nation’s grand conversation. For what greater qualification could there be, in these times, than to be unsullied by the vast machinery of politics, business councils, and lobbyists? Who better to speak to the public interest than one who has so little private interest of their own to defend?
It is in that spirit—humble yet emboldened by your encouragement—that I accept my readers’ charge. Not at $5,000-a-head fundraisers, not with armies of lobbyists, not by marching a million Australians in the streets.
Instead, I will do what my feeble circumstances allow: coax a few more learned souls into the comment threads of MacroBusiness—where, I daresay, the quality of debate already surpasses that in most parliamentary chambers.
I present, therefore, after much reflection, a modest proposal for ending the charade of performative democracy once and for all.
I have given this matter the most sober and thorough consideration. While the agenda set by the Productivity Summit may have been disheartening, it did let us peek beneath the veil of democracy to reveal the brains behind our political brawn.
The truth is undeniable: our parliamentary departments have been hollowed out by decades of outsourcing. Whereas they once held expertise, they are now mere husks whose only remaining function is to hire external consultants.
Their staff shuffle papers and process invoices, while the true policy work is authored in corporate towers and private sector boardrooms.
The Department of Health, once the proud custodian of national expertise, now functions primarily as a project manager for the likes of KPMG, Ernst and Young, Accenture and Boston Consulting.
The Treasury, long respected for its policy analysis, increasingly operates as a clearing house for Big Four slide decks.
Across Canberra, officials are trained not to design policy but to manage contracts with firms that design it for them. This, we are told, is efficiency.
It is not that our politicians lack energy; indeed, they expend prodigious quantities of it in the production of slogans, photo opportunities, and expensive dinner invitations. But their energy is of minimal practical use to the nation.
The true labour of government—policy design, drafting, and analysis—has already been delegated to the consultancies. What remains in Parliament is mere theatre, a troupe of actors mouthing lines they scarcely understand from scripts written elsewhere.
So why, I suggest, should we maintain this expensive middle layer? The husks of our hollowed-out departments cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, yet they no longer produce knowledge. Their sole purpose is to outsource.
If capacity has already been eroded, let us finish the job: dissolve the husk and elect the true policymakers directly. For if these organisations already design the policies we live under, would it not be more honest—more efficient, even—to allow Australians to vote for these organisations directly at the ballot box?
This leads me to my modest but eminently sensible proposal: let us retire the farce of our two-party system and vote directly for the scriptwriters rather than the actors.
By electing them openly, we shall cut out the middleman, reduce expenditure, and ensure the nation’s affairs are conducted by those already conducting them.
The advantages of this arrangement are manifold:
- It would save hundreds of millions presently wasted on parliamentary departments that have no function but to outsource.
- It would free up much-needed human capital from BS jobs that could be upskilled and redirected into productive roles that truly address the nation’s shortages: teaching, caring, and the trades.
- It would finally remove the veil from Australian politics, admitting what everyone already knows: policy is not written in Canberra, but in Sydney boardrooms.
Replacing Performative Democracy with Consultant Democracy not only promises efficiency in governance, but also a bold solution to our many crises.
No more Question Time theatre. No more staged productivity summits. No more dinners at The Lodge, where the real guests of honour are those pulling the strings. And the consultants—who already govern—will at last do so openly. Rarely has a reform offered so many wins at once.
And what of the grand offices of the departments themselves? Their towers in Canberra and satellite offices across the states could be retrofitted as social housing.
Imagine the Department of Housing’s former headquarters reborn as The Residence, housing hundreds who would otherwise be on the streets.
If nothing else, the symbolism would be refreshing: buildings that once churned out policy papers about homelessness could finally do something practical about it.
Now, I do not expect that Deloitte, PwC, or their brethren will readily embrace such public responsibility. These organisations, accustomed as they are to exercising power from the shadows, may blush at the thought of governing in their own name. They are used to whispering their policies into ministerial ears, not proclaiming them from the rooftops.
So here is Part Two of what I humbly propose. Let each of us, as citizens weary of charades, nominate one consultancy apiece and go forth to register it as a political party under its true and proper name.
Let there be a Deloitte Party, a PwC Party, a KPMG Party, and for those who prefer think tanks to auditors, even a Grattan Party.
Heck, there may be some amongst us who may welcome the recently proposed spare bedroom tax. Nominate the United Workers Union too!
Once these august organisations see their names upon the ballot paper—not as the ghostwriters of policy, but as the candidates of the people’s will—it will be impossible for them to resist. They will be compelled by honour, if not by vanity, to accept the mantle placed upon their shoulders.
The next election will merely ratify what is already reality: that Australia is governed not by its elected representatives, but by the firms that already write their speeches, draft their reports, and calculate their spreadsheets.
Having now articulated my ideas, who could doubt the benefits of such an arrangement? No more pretence, no more empty slogans.
At last, the Australian people will know who rules them—and those rulers will be accountable directly at the ballot box, not merely by invoice.
So let us instead embrace Consultant Democracy. Deloitte versus PwC. McKinsey versus Grattan. The competition will be real, the KPIs measurable, and the billable hours transparent. I, for one, welcome our new corporate overlords.
I declare this proposal only after long and earnest deliberation. I make it with the utmost modesty and with no thought for my own gain, save only the satisfaction of seeing my country freed from the charade of governance and restored to a system of honest, if corporate, rule.
For myself, I stand to gain nothing. I have no retainers with any of the Big Four. I simply desire efficiency, clarity, and the honest government of PowerPoint.
