Illustration by Zeg | click to enlarge
Imagine a Parliament where there is no more adolescent behaviour.
Imagine a Parliament where all have real life experience.
Imagine a Parliament where all have worked real jobs.
Imagine a Parliament where most have children … and grandchildren.
Imagine a Parliament where they really do care more about the children’s future, because they have little future left for themselves.
Imagine a Parliament where noone gets more than two terms in office.
Imagine a Parliament where noone has a motive to put off important decisions to mañana.
Imagine a Parliament where noone has an incentive to game the system in preparation for life after Parliament.
Imagine a Parliament where all have a motive to build a positive legacy for the history books … because they will soon be in them.
Imagine a Parliament where there is little incentive to use the “banana alibi“.
Imagine a Parliament where all have extra incentive to improve the national average wage … because that is the maximum they can earn.
Imagine a Parliament where noone gets to live high on the public teet.
Imagine a Parliament where most will likely be dead within a decade of service … so we won’t have to listen to attention-seeking long after they are irrelevant.
Imagine a Parliament where they have all seen and heard it all before.
Imagine a Parliament where the nation receives the benefit of life experience.
Imagine a Parliament where the nation receives the benefit of matured patience.
Imagine a Parliament where the nation receives the benefit of accrued wisdom.
Imagine a Parliament where the nation receives the benefit of long memories.
Imagine a Parliament where the condition of entry is a senior citizen’s card.
Imagine a Parliament where the House wears a halo of white.
Imagine a Parliament of our Nannas and Pops.
* A hearty “Thank You” to the inimitable Zeg for his brilliant cartoon.
Please follow him on Twitter – @Zegcartoonist and subscribe to his blog – http://zegsyd.blogspot.com/
Better still … hire him!
Barnaby Is Right 
Yes. “If men (and women) were angels, no government would be necessary.” (James Madison) So let’s elect our most angelic.
Simple to achieve, stop MP salaries. Think about the benefits not and be blinded by the stupid argument pay peanuts you get monkeys.
Personally, Job I like to eat, so no salary would exclude me. Not an attractive option. The problem, in my view, is we pay too little and therefore get people who do not have the ability to earn a decent salary in the “real” world, hence they end up in politics!
We need a balance of experience and fresh ideas – too much of one thing is not a good idea either.
What we need to kill is stupid “benefits” like the life long free air travel!
Actually TO, you may note that my suggestion is for MP’s to be paid (only) the equivalent of the national average wage. So they would still receive an income. If, after a working lifetime prior to first standing for Parliament, a prospective MP felt themselves unable to survive for two terms (maximum) on the national average wage (plus whatever they may have accrued over their working lifetime), then I for one am not convinced that they would have demonstrated enough of the kind of qualities that I would want to see in a senior citizen Parliamentarian. Just something to consider 🙂
Exactly, so you would be excluded, you could not go for the job until you have the means to support yourself. You can not go and become an MP until you have proven yourself in a capitalist society. We have so many self funded retirees who I would prefer to see as an MP and I am sure they would bring a lot more wisdom than the current lot. By the way I am not a self funded retiree.
Look what we did to John Hewson. 😦
I do not favour too narrow a spectrum of candidates, for a variety of reasons. As you have used me as an example, let me continue on that path. You are saying that if a person can’t support themselves because their finances have been gutted by the government, they are then not able to stand for election, even though they have the very experience of what a government should not do to a citizen? Yet you are happy to put people in power who have no experience of life other than having had a dream run? What empathy will they have for the population, I wonder?
I do not support the concept of only senior citizens running the country. To much of the one flavour, any flavour, is not a good thing. Balance is lost.
I’m not as young as I look, by the way.