Here’s an idea. How about citizens can have multiple votes, the number determined by their wealth? Billionaire mining magnates like Palmer and Rinehart get the minimum one vote each, “ordinary working families” get, say, 100 for each family member; single mothers in housing estates get 1000; refugees get 2,000, and everybody else is somewhere in between. There, that should concentrate the minds of politicians wonderfully eh?

Oh, and poor old Clive and Gina? Well, they would still have the option of buying television networks or full page ads in newspapers. If they could see a message that would get across.

Might need a bit of tinkering and fine tuning, a bit of adjustment of precise numbers of votes per individual, but generally speaking I think it would have to be a considerable improvement on the present arrangement which is effectively the reverse.

Oh and a gentle reminder:
If you would like to see your favourite blog recognised in the big wide world of the Best Blogs 2012, voting for the People’s Choice Award is still open (just)!
You can vote here. Just click on the button on the right (then go alphabetically to find THE Watermelon Blog, ie under T not W). Voting will close Wednesday 9 May at 5.00 pm. All winners will be announced on Thursday 10 May at 10.00 am by the Sydney Writers Centre. Come on now, pretty please?

PS The title, rather cheekily comes from a somewhat different, and reverse, context- Paul Samuelson 1970:

The consumer, so it is said, is the king … each is a voter who uses his money as votes to get the things done that he wants done.