4 responses to “Dutch TV Online”

1. 

   Dutch TV Season 9 – Dutch Australian

   March 26, 2016 at 7:56 am

   […] Dutch TV Online […]

   Reply
2. 

   Klaas Woldring, secretary Dutch Australian Cultural Centre Ltd, Sydney (ret. A/Prof. Government and Management SCU)

   September 2, 2017 at 2:49 am

   Hi there,

   I had a few interviews with Anneke Mackay-Smith (Boudewijn) on SBS which may be of interest to you and your viewers (in English). There was an earlier interview, in Dutch, see below. I am a Dutch immigrant, arrived here in mid-1964 with family. Was naturalised in 1969. There serious problems here with the political and constitutional systems and I am making proposals for improvement. Very few seem to to be generated by the universities or critics – of which there are plenty. The Dutch may make a serious contribution here. KW.

   1. The Republic, in response to recent statements by Bill Shorten, a very minimalist proposition. In contrast, I ask the question What kind of Republic do Australians really want? The next podcasts raise issues related to that.
   2. The archaic Australian Constitution that can hardly be amended and is now in the news again on account of Section 44. I suggest that rather than trying to continue with more ineffectual piecemeal tinkering let’s rewrite the entire Constitution so that we end up with a document that is owned by the Australian people, is clear, readily understood and flexible.
   3. The dysfunctional federation, also subject of several unsuccessful inquiries and reform attempts. We need a form of state which effectively decentralises Australia and is based on national and strengthened local and city government. If we want regions, by all means, but let them be functional and decided by clusters of local governments in need of joint functional cooperation instead of regional governments, parliaments and civil services. A mezzanine regional concept is suggested.
   4. The Australian electoral system for most lower house legislatures is based on the single-member-electoral-districts, a variant of the British heritage. It has resulted in a very adversarial parliamentary system in which much time and energy is spent on blaming the other party. It often means that in reality the country is governed by the major faction of one of the two major parties representing perhaps 30% of the electorate. We can do much better than that and adopt Proportional Representation – Party List system as used in no less than 86 countries in the world including New Zealand since 1996. This results in coalitions representing majorities of the middle ground.

   If you like what you hear in these podcasts, please spread the word. Australia needs to start debating alternative systems. We are not talking about ideologies or personalities here. That requires an open mind approach that differs from the usual current affairs discourse within the existing systems.

   Klaas Woldring, Ph. D.

   http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/dutch/en/content/australian-democracy-part-1-republic-yes-or-no?language=en
   http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/dutch/en/content/australian-democracy-part-2-new-constitution?language=en
   http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/dutch/en/content/australian-democracy-part-3-federation
   http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/dutch/en/content/australian-democracy-part-4-adversarial-voting-system

   In Dutch:

   http://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/dutch/en/content/republic-if-so-what-type

   Reply
   1. 

      Renee Veldman-Tentori

      September 16, 2017 at 10:13 am

      Thanks for sharing Klaas. Renee

      Reply
3. 

   Ron Ruys

   February 18, 2018 at 8:52 am

   Nice to see Dutch TV I have been here since 1953 arrived with family aged almost three been back only twice 1973 to take my mom to see family and 2009 to show my wife And still speak fluent Dutch despite learning it here You never lose your heritage

   Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.