If we are going to have a bicameral parliament, I think there should always be a reserved place for people whose background and experience are critical to the welfare of the nation.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My view is the questions in Parliament should be the questions that people out there want asked.
Defenders of the status quo will argue that this system has served us well over the centuries, that our parliamentary traditions have combined stability and flexibility and that we should not cast away in a minute what has taken generations to build.
Today, parliaments are more important because of the need of legitimacy, of the popular legitimacy, of public opinion legitimacy of politics. Parliaments are, at the end of the day, the only true legitimacy.
It's not just parliament that requires radical modernisation. It's our democratic processes.
Individuals have little opportunity to get elected to Parliament under the label of the government party... unless they are in good standing with the Prime Minister and pledged to be cooperative.
There's much more we can be doing in Parliament, we could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local referendums.
Diversity is not a politically correct idea. Diversity in a boardroom or in a Parliament means that you just have different minds, different life experience, different ways of thinking about patients or customers or voters so that when you bring that intellect, you look at opportunity and risk, and then you have it in much better balance.
Parliament is supposed to be serious. It's not a place for jingoistic cheering.
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
The absence of political personalities in the government will help rather than hinder a solid base of support for the government in parliament and in the political parties because it will remove one ground for disagreement.