[pomatic]

The biggest issue is that legislation seems to be drafted by people who have little or no expertise in their area. We've seen other examples of poorly drafted legislation in the UK - eg Computer Misuse Act 1990, which is intended to address hacking but can be read in such a way as to outlaw firewalls, and so on. Parliament as a whole is in desperate need of reform, it's based on archaic principles that just don't work anymore, but those in a position to enact reform seem to prefer the status quo.

[stephen_g]

I’m not sure if it’s similar in the UK, but here they don’t even seem to care. We have public consultation periods for most bills here in Australia, and it’s basically only ever a box-ticking exercise. You can have literally hundreds of experts carefully articulate all the obvious problems with a bill in a detailed submission, then some will be invited to give testimony and answer questions of Senators with concerned looks on their faces, and then those senators (of both parties) will happily vote the flawed legislation through with no amendments. The only changes that do happen are arrived at through secretly negotiated political horse-trading between the parties, with literally none of the expert, industry and public consultation taken into account.

The only way to win is to lobby hard (with a lot of political donations) so your views get put forward in the secret negotiations. Literally none of the feedback from experts or voters matters. Because it’s always going to be one or the other major party (although there is some encouraging movement towards possible minority government, which in our current political landscape is the only way I can see any positive change possibly happening - but it depends massively on the quality of those who end up with the balance of power).

[mhh__]

Parliament is fine. Or at least the reforms people have in mind are usually insane slop that would only mean ramming more, worse, shit through the pipe.