Tula Tzoras, Sydney candidate for Online Direct Democracy is a BA Graduate of Monash University, with a double major in English Literature and Politics and a minor in Economic History. She has spent her adult life gaining a multi dimensional experience as an Actor, filmmaker, a Senior HR Consultant in various Government Agencies and an avid mindset student.
Overcoming major obstacles and going from rags to riches and back again, Tula has the ability to connect with people from all walks of life and sees everyone as being equal. Tula has become a candidate for the Federal Election on the basis that Online Direct Democracy aligns with her values to Empower People.
She is the Author of Books and Published Articles as well as a Speaker, with her signature speech being “Obstacles to Inspiration”.
Tula has been working on empowering people for over a decade, beginning with a global project dedicated to the UNMP and reincarnating to The Crazy Crusaders on Facebook, sharing sustainable, community driven, solutions for our future.
Tula is very community focused, volunteering at The John Nortchcott Community Centre, donating her poetry and spoken word to Village Voices, a city of Sydney initiative to bring life to Surry Hills by creating a permanent artwork, submitting a pitch to TedX Sydney on raising Heroes not Vitctims etc.
Online she aslo runs a Facebook Group called “How Can I help”.
One of Tula’s most rewarding memories is travelling to Bathurst with the iModel Program and facilitating a two-day workshop to improve self-esteem for indigenous teenagers.
Tula would love nothing more than to help people gain the power we deserve.
Her motto is “Unleash Your Full Expression”.
In this 2016 Federal Election Candidate Forum 7 minute speech, watch as Tula ‘blows’ the public away and why she says you should vote ‘1’ for Online Direct Democracy.
All very good. Where does educating the public fit in? Or debating the issues? Does online democracy blindly do what people want, without being informed about issues? As anyone can tell you, information is the crucial element in a democracy. How will information be provided and analysed? How do we get a view on macro -economics and “balanced budgets” and “bringing the budget back to surplus” in a country that issues its own free-floating sovereign fiat currency? People who have been brainwashed by the “free” press (owned by the rich) will behave like turkeys voting for christmas. So Tulla will simply carry out the vote! Not very useful.
It’s a good idea but there are lots of issues needing to be sorted out.
How clued up is ODD on Modern Monetary Theory? According to its proponents, most of the talk about deficits is misplaced, for example, watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnyDRwSqp2E The reason Australia survived the GFC so well is because the policy followed was essentially that endorsed by Bill Mitchell – and scoffed at by the Coalition!
A lunatic’s suggestion. The people have a life to live. Out of the 100000 voters you would expect somewhat less than 0.01% to give more than a rat’s arse by monday morning.
Ok so the reality is this:
Normally senate gets a hand full of right wingers that pontificate their extremist views making Australians ashamed then just go vote with the liberals after 1 or 2 stupid concessions.
Aside from the bio above sounding nice enough. I would want someone like this in upper house.
What about how will she vote when liberals rattle off their latest IPA research ideological attack on medicare, pensioners, youth, unemployed, homeless, fracking everything and to hell with science? (no compromises like Meg Lee’s did years ago)
Yes its all very pretty and i WANT arts on the agenda (arts should have massive increase in funding and a job guarantee where people can be professional artists as an option).
This will be critical election and if we’re going to a first second or third on someone with our ‘below the line’ vote in NSW they are going to have to really put the banana in the tail pipe of the neoliberal garbage truck when push comes to shove!
Reframe the debate create pressure on stuff that is killing Australia.
Do you one day expect to get a real job? We are top heavy with academics in parliament now, what we need are a few bright working people of which there are millions to chose from. The politicians don’t understand how tough survival is on say a pension for example.
I am a bit disappointed with AIM seemingly pushing a specific candidate with very singular experience. This vote dilution does not help the public. I acknowledge that Labor does not have all the answers but we should focus on getting the LNP out of business. Tula is not helping here.
I think her energies should be directed at “educating” young, or new/about-to-vote voters.
Klaus, a number of our readers belong to the ODD party. When Tula submitted her article we were more than happy to publish it for her.
As for focusing on getting rid of the Coalition government, no one could argue that that’s not what we’re doing. A good 95% of our articles maintain that focus. Tula is not a Liberal or Nationals candidate, so I cannot see that by publishing her article we are losing site of that.
OK Michael, I accept your answer. If AIM and all you guys didn’t have that focus, I wouldn’t be here 🙂
So do I understand correctly that the ODD doesn’t stand for anything and an elected member of parliament won’t be introducing any bills? All party members will vote on a bill, basically as if they were a member of parliament, and the elected ODD member will vote in the parliament based on the majority of the party members’ wishes?
If so, that is open to abuse. What is to stop me from joining up several of my family members as members of the party without their knowledge and then voting on their behalf to skew the outcome?
ODD got my vote. Let’s cut out the middle man.
for some reason it played the wrong bloody video for me yesterday.
As soon as “where do you propose to find the money” came up now i know this is anti-progressive.
Find as much ‘money’ as you like from the fiscal branch of government. It spends by keystrokes.
Politics is information hiding. Hyper-democracy/real time democracy wont work because anyone can read whatever they like in the media get some half-baked idea (be completely removed from the reality) and then this party will just vote it through quickly without any ideology buffer.
Dangerous.
Sam, it was very strange, that. Three times we copied the link to Tula’s speech on YouTube and three times it payed the wrong video. Hence we’ve replaced the clip with a link only.
“Politics is information hiding. Hyper-democracy/real time democracy wont work because anyone can read whatever they like in the media get some half-baked idea (be completely removed from the reality) and then this party will just vote it through quickly without any ideology buffer.
Dangerous.”
That is an excellent point, Sam. Thank you.
Are we afraid there might be an outcome we don’t like? No faith in our fellow citizens? ….”half baked idea (be completely removed from the reality)” sounds little better than we have now.
Plato vs Aristotle smackdown happened yonks ago.
Cam, are you insisting that all of our fellow citizens are honest people who behave honorably? How can you not see that it is so easy to set up heaps of fake members and have one person voting for all of them?
The important thing is the majority of us are. You also currently can’t set up heaps of fake voter registrations and vote multiple times for the representative of your choice, they’re pretty strict on that and it works well.
I’m not talking about fake voter registrations. I said fake members within the ODD party. Anyone who has access to full names and dates of birth can cross check addresses on the electoral roll and enrol fake members that, when checked against the electoral roll appear to be real people.
Easy to come up with a system with appropriate checks and balances built in. Laws and sanctions for fraud already exist and would be used to full extent because people would be really p’d off if the system was being diddled. It would be harder to hide this crime because everyone would have the incentive to watch really closely.
My question still hasn’t been answered. I asked how the ODD is preventing their system from being abused. Presumably you are part of the “everyone” who is watching really closely. So when I complete a form and send it back, and the personal details on the form match what is on the electoral roll, how do you personally know whether or not I am who I say I am? How do you personally know how many memberships I’ve created?
You are not likely to be a member of the party, you are a citizen in the electorate represented by the ODD who just tallys the beans and goes to our Westminster based Parliament and votes as any member would, but only based on how many beans.
To answer the question, if I went to vote and was told that I already had when I knew I hadn’t, I would raise the alarm and it would be investigated as any crime would.
Social Security, Tax, births and deaths etc. all function pretty well now and deal with the issue you raise.
Cam, you’re not answering my question. I have access to full names, dates and birth and addresses of hundreds of thousands of people. I can check them against the electoral roll. I can create many memberships of the ODD using the names of those people and supplying email addresses that all lead back to me. Those people need not even know they are members of the ODD. So they aren’t going to be attempting to vote on a bill when they have already voted.
And when the people see a bill that they want to vote on, log on, try to vote and find out identity theft has occured they can report it to the police, the AEC, their local member, gosh darn even post it on social media and have a well deserved grumble. Stealing another persons vote would not be a sustainable act and a crime.
Assuming that the “they” in the last sentence is the voter, you are correct. Once they have voted they have…
.indeed voted.
You don’t have to be ODD to vote on the bill.
“And when the people see a bill that they want to vote on, log on, try to vote and find out identity theft has occured they can report it to the police, the AEC, their local member, gosh darn even post it on social media and have a well deserved grumble. Stealing another persons vote would not be a sustainable act and a crime.”
When I use the personal details of the inpatients at a retirement home to vote on that bill, how many of them are going to log in via their non-existent computers, find that they have already voted and report a crime?
On Wednesday afternoons, after bridge but before piano singalong, teams of carefully screened volunteers shall take them through “wisdom of the elders-tell us what you want” sessions and help their shakey hands to press the buttons they want on the tablet.
94 yo Beryl might abstain quoting “I’m too old for this gumption” but 87 yo Ted has strong opinions about foreign policy and is glad he is consulted and doing his bit.
The data sets from the homes are statistically monitored for shenanigans and Ted can ask to view his voting history at any time.
Thanks for confirming that the system is fraught with problems and open to abuse, Cam. I’ll steer clear of ODD and will be suggesting that others do the same.
I gave you solutions, you saw problems. Be aware that people might not vote how you like. Respect and peace out.