There comes a moment in every generation when the governed must remind the governors of a simple fact: authority is borrowed, not owned. The state exists only because people, in their collective exhaustion from chaos, once agreed to lend it their power for the sake of order. But the loan was never meant to be permanent, nor unconditional. When governments begin to mistake the people’s tolerance for submission, the debt comes due. That time, it seems, has arrived again.
Across the world — and certainly in Australia — citizens are waking to a grim realisation: the democratic machinery that once promised voice and accountability now feels more like a bureaucracy designed to absorb dissent rather than respond to it. The ballot box, long seen as sacred, has become a ritual of managed consent. Parties trade slogans and scandals, the media amplifies noise, and the citizen, once the employer of government, is treated as a passive client. Democracy, once a verb, has become a subscription — automatically renewed, rarely questioned.
I. The Silent Transfer of Power
Democracy was built on a bargain. Citizens would obey laws, pay taxes, and participate in civic life. In return, the state would protect their rights and serve the public interest. Somewhere in the late twentieth century, that bargain began to decay. What emerged in its place was something quieter but more sinister — a managerial form of politics that operates as if the nation were a corporation, its citizens mere customers, and its leaders the self-appointed board.
Under this model, public trust is no longer earned through moral conduct but managed through public relations. Press conferences replace transparency; consultations replace participation. The average person is told that politics is too complex for them — that experts will handle it. And so the people, weary and overworked, retreat into private life, leaving the machinery of governance to those who least deserve it.
In this vacuum, power concentrates. Bureaucracies grow thick with self-protection, while corporate lobbies learn to write the very rules meant to restrain them. Elections still occur, of course — but their outcomes change less than the advertising around them. It’s not tyranny in the old sense. It’s something softer, subtler: the slow administrative colonisation of the democratic spirit.
II. The Myth of Consent
We are constantly told that our governments rule with the “consent of the governed.” But what kind of consent is it when the people are offered only versions of the same policy, wrapped in different colours? What kind of consent is it when crucial decisions — wars, trade deals, surveillance laws — are made behind closed doors, then presented as fait accompli?
In contract law, consent obtained under misrepresentation or coercion is null. Why should civic consent be any different? If citizens are manipulated by fear campaigns, kept uninformed by media monopolies, or pressured by systems designed to alienate them, then what remains of that sacred democratic consent? Perhaps what we now have is not government by consent, but governance by exhaustion — a citizenry too tired to object, and too distracted to resist.
The people are told they have a choice every few years. But when both choices serve the same set of economic interests, the ritual becomes hollow. It is not a vote — it is a performance of consent. And like any good performance, its success depends on the audience forgetting it’s just theatre.
III. The Psychology of Disempowerment
A system like this thrives not because people are evil or stupid, but because the architecture of modern life is designed to make resistance feel impossible. The average citizen has bills, debts, children, and the constant noise of a digital world. Their daily lives leave little space for political thought, let alone collective action. Meanwhile, the very institutions that claim to represent them are saturated with jargon and ritual — legalism as a shield against scrutiny.
This is the true genius of modern governance: it has replaced oppression with management. Instead of police batons, there are compliance forms. Instead of censorship, there are algorithms. Instead of public debate, there are PR briefings. The people are told to “engage constructively,” but only within the parameters the system defines.
The result is psychic disempowerment — the belief that nothing one does matters. And yet, beneath this resignation lies a latent truth: every system of authority ultimately depends on the obedience of those it governs. When obedience dissolves, the illusion of control vanishes.
IV. The Corporate State and the Citizen-Employee
Modern governments increasingly behave like corporations. They speak of “stakeholders” instead of citizens, “efficiency” instead of justice, “markets” instead of morality. Their true loyalty lies not with the public, but with the economic interests that fund their campaigns and shape their policies.
In this corporate model, the citizen becomes an employee — useful only insofar as they contribute productivity or tax revenue. Questioning authority becomes “disruptive behaviour.” Dissent becomes a “threat to stability.” The relationship between ruler and ruled is no longer one of service, but of branding. The leader becomes a CEO in a suit, not a servant of the people. And like any CEO, their first instinct is to protect the company, not the public.
What makes this arrangement dangerous is not simply corruption, but the invisibility of it. Corruption used to mean bribes in envelopes. Today it means revolving doors between parliament and private boards, contracts awarded to donors, regulatory agencies run by those they’re meant to regulate. It’s the corruption of categories — the blurring of lines between public duty and private interest until there’s no line left to cross.
V. The Illusion of Accountability
Democracy once promised a simple thing: accountability. Yet every scandal seems to fade within weeks. Public outrage burns bright but brief, absorbed into the news cycle like oxygen into flame. The system doesn’t reform itself; it merely adjusts its language. “Mistakes were made.” “We take responsibility.” “We’re moving forward.” And then — silence.
The tragedy is not just political; it’s emotional. Each unpunished abuse teaches the public that accountability is performative, not real. Each empty apology widens the gulf between citizen and state. The end result is apathy, and apathy is the death of democracy.
To take back power, then, is not merely to protest. It is to rebuild belief — belief that politics can be reclaimed, that participation can matter, that civic voice can pierce institutional deafness. Without that belief, democracy becomes nothing more than an empty brand.
VI. The Power of Refusal
Every empire, every ruling class, every authority depends on a single fragile thread: the willingness of people to comply. When that willingness is withdrawn, the edifice cracks. The greatest revolutions have rarely begun with violence — they began with refusal. Refusal to pay unjust taxes. Refusal to obey unjust laws. Refusal to recognise illegitimate power.
That is the power of symbolic acts — not because they topple governments overnight, but because they erode the illusion that governments are invincible. A single letter of refusal may seem trivial, but thousands of them form a moral storm. The sight of ordinary citizens saying “no” — loudly, publicly, fearlessly — reminds rulers that they are servants, not sovereigns.
This is not anarchy. It is civic renewal. It is the reclaiming of the democratic imagination, the rediscovery of the people’s collective agency. It is the simple but radical act of saying: You are fired.
VII. Taking Back the Commons
Power does not vanish when withdrawn from government; it returns to the commons — the shared space of civic life where people organise, debate, and decide. The internet has given this commons new form, but also new vulnerabilities. While online activism can amplify voices, it also risks being captured by algorithms that monetise anger. True civic power still requires material presence — letters, petitions, assemblies, physical visibility. The act of gathering, even symbolically, reawakens political consciousness.
To take back power is therefore not to destroy government, but to remind it of its boundaries. Governments should fear public withdrawal of consent more than they fear opposition parties. The moment people stop believing in the legitimacy of rulers, no army, court, or media outlet can restore it.
VIII. The Return of Responsibility
But reclaiming power is not just about confrontation — it is also about responsibility. If citizens want self-governance, they must accept the work that comes with it: civic literacy, solidarity, and constant vigilance. A free people must think like owners of their democracy, not tenants waiting for the landlord to fix the plumbing.
The state may be the structure, but the people are the foundation. Foundations must be maintained. That means challenging apathy, refusing to outsource morality to political parties, and holding even our allies to account. The measure of citizenship is not loyalty to government, but loyalty to truth.
IX. A New Social Imagination
What’s needed now is not another election cycle, but a reawakening of civic imagination. We must remember that democracy was never designed to be tidy. It was meant to be noisy, argumentative, and alive. The people are not clients. They are co-authors of the state.
Perhaps the most radical act in this age of managed consent is to reclaim the language of power itself — to call things by their real names. A government that lies is not “misinformed.” A system that excludes is not “complex.” A democracy that no longer listens is not “maturing.” These are euphemisms of decline. The first step to taking back power is to refuse them.
X. The Quiet Revolution
Revolutions need not come with fire and blood. Sometimes they come in envelopes — thousands of them, signed by hands that have had enough. Sometimes they come in conversations between neighbours. Sometimes they come in the simple act of saying: “We do not consent.”
To take back the people’s power is to restore balance to a broken contract. It is to remind those in office that they are temporary caretakers, not masters. It is to reclaim the democratic birthright that has been quietly pawned off to technocrats and bankers. It is to breathe moral oxygen back into public life.
The real revolution is not in the street, but in the mind — the rediscovery that the people were never powerless, only persuaded to believe they were.
In the end, power belongs to whoever believes they have it.
The state has no power of its own; it borrows it from the governed.
And when the governed finally remember that truth, no government on earth can withstand it.
You’re Fired: Why the People Must Take Back Their Power
There’s a point in every democracy when the governed have to remind the governors who actually holds the power. That point, for many Australians, has quietly arrived.
Democracy was meant to be a simple bargain: the people lend power to representatives, and those representatives serve the public interest. But today, that bargain feels broken. Governments speak of “managing the economy,” not serving the people. Politicians talk like executives, not public servants. And citizens — the real employers in this relationship — are treated like employees who should be grateful just to have a job.
The truth is, power has been drifting upward for decades. Between bureaucratic management, corporate lobbying, and media choreography, the public’s consent has been replaced by a kind of political theatre. Elections still happen, but they change less and less. What we have now is not governance by consent — it’s governance by exhaustion. People are too tired, too distracted, or too disillusioned to keep fighting systems that no longer listen.
The irony is that this drift didn’t happen because people stopped caring. It happened because they cared — but were taught that caring doesn’t matter. Bureaucracy has a thousand ways of killing initiative: forms, consultations, inquiries, and “ongoing reviews.” It’s not oppression in the old sense; it’s managerial suffocation. The citizen is drowned in the process until they give up.
Meanwhile, the state behaves more and more like a corporation. It outsources essential services, prioritises cost over care, and measures success in quarterly data points. Accountability has been replaced with messaging. When scandals break, leaders don’t resign; they rebrand. The result is a government that resembles a marketing agency, not a moral institution.
The Corporate State
The most dangerous form of corruption isn’t bribery — it’s capture. When those meant to regulate the powerful start working for them, democracy becomes a façade. The revolving door between parliament, lobbyists, and boardrooms is no longer even hidden. The old language of “public good” has been replaced by “efficiency,” “stakeholders,” and “market confidence.” It’s the colonisation of moral vocabulary by economic logic.
What happens when you run a country like a company? The people become expendable. Policies that don’t serve profit are dismissed as “unrealistic.” Dissenters are branded as “disruptive.” And government becomes a kind of permanent caretaker administration — keeping the lights on while avoiding any real redistribution of power.
But this arrangement depends on one thing: the illusion that the people consent. And that illusion is fragile.
The Withdrawal of Consent
Imagine if thousands of citizens began sending signed letters to Parliament declaring, “You’re fired.” Not as a legal act, but as a symbolic one — a mass withdrawal of moral legitimacy. The image would be unforgettable: piles of envelopes, each one saying what every voter has felt but rarely said. It wouldn’t overthrow a government, but it would shatter the myth that they govern with full public confidence.
Because consent isn’t just a line on a ballot. It’s a living relationship. And when one side breaks faith, the other has every right to withdraw it. Democracy isn’t obedience. It’s a contract — and contracts can be terminated.
Symbolic acts matter. They remind the powerful that their authority is conditional. History shows that regimes fall not when people pick up arms, but when they put down their compliance. Every empire, every autocracy, every corrupt administration survives only as long as the public believes resistance is futile. The moment people stop believing that, the system begins to crack.
A New Civic Imagination
Reclaiming power isn’t just about protest; it’s about imagination. Citizens have to see themselves not as spectators but as co-authors of the political world. Real democracy was never meant to be tidy. It’s supposed to be noisy, argumentative, and alive.
Taking back power means returning to first principles: governments are caretakers, not masters. They hold authority on loan, and when they abuse that loan, the people have both the right and the duty to recall it. Whether that happens through votes, petitions, or public declarations, the message must be clear — the people have woken up.
Of course, no letter, no slogan, no single act can rebuild democracy on its own. But they can ignite something far more important: belief. Belief that ordinary people still matter. Belief that the political class can’t indefinitely escape accountability. Belief that moral authority flows from below, not above.
The Quiet Revolution
Revolutions in the twenty-first century may not look like barricades and banners. They may look like mailbags. They may begin with thousands of envelopes landing on the desks of those who forgot who they work for. They may sound like a single sentence repeated millions of times: You are fired.
That’s not rage. That’s renewal. It’s the rediscovery that power does not belong to governments — it belongs to people who choose to lend it, and who can choose to take it back.
The government may control the laws, the institutions, even the airwaves. But it cannot control the simple human refusal to comply with lies, to tolerate corruption, or to believe in fictions of legitimacy. That’s the ultimate democratic power — not violence, but withdrawal.
So perhaps the next era of reform won’t begin in Parliament. It will begin in the post office, in the quiet sound of paper sliding into an envelope. Each one is a reminder that democracy, like any employment, comes with performance reviews.
And when the people finally say, “you’re fired,” it won’t be anger speaking. It will be history correcting itself.
*****
1 — No-nonsense Termination Notice (Victoria)
[Your Full Name]
[Your Address]
[Suburb], VIC [Postcode]
[Date]
To:
The Premier of Victoria
Parliament House
Spring Street
Melbourne, VIC 3002
Subject: TERMINATION — You Are Fired
Premier [Surname],
This is a formal, citizen-issued termination notice.
You have lost all moral authority to govern. Through repeated failures, corruption, secrecy, and contempt for ordinary people, your administration has forfeited any claim to legitimacy. We do not recognise your mandate.
Effective immediately: you are fired. Resign. Call new elections. If you refuse, know that millions now see you as a caretaker without consent — and we will continue to press that fact until accountability is restored.
Signed,
[Signature]
[Full name printed]
[I confirm I am a registered elector in Victoria]
2 — No-nonsense Termination Notice (Federal)
[Your Full Name]
[Your Address]
[Suburb], [State] [Postcode]
[Date]
To:
The Prime Minister of Australia
Parliament House
Canberra, ACT 2600
Subject: TERMINATION — You Are Fired
Prime Minister [Surname],
This is a formal, citizen-issued termination notice.
You no longer hold our consent. Your government has repeatedly acted against the public interest, choosing power and protection over transparency and accountability. Your mandate is void in the eyes of those you govern.
Effective immediately: you are fired. Resign. Call federal elections. If you will not, the people will continue to show — in every electorate, in every mailbox — that you govern without consent.
Signed,
[Signature]
[Full name printed]
[I confirm I am a registered elector in Australia]
*****
A — Termination Notice — Government of Victoria
[Your Full Name]
[Your Address]
[Your Suburb], VIC [Postcode]
[Date]
To:
The Premier of Victoria
Parliament House
Spring Street
Melbourne, VIC 3002
Subject: Notice of Termination of Mandate — Government of Victoria
Dear Premier,
I write as a registered elector and resident of the State of Victoria. By this instrument, I give formal notice of termination of the public mandate currently held by the Government of Victoria.
This termination is tendered in response to sustained failures in transparency, integrity, and stewardship of public welfare, which I believe constitute a breach of the social contract between the government and the governed.
Effective immediately, I withdraw my consent to be governed by the present administration and demand that it resign or call new elections to restore legitimate democratic representation.
Respectfully,
[Signature]
[Full Name — printed]
[Electoral Enrolment Number (optional) — or "I confirm I am a registered elector in Victoria"]
B — Termination Notice — Commonwealth Government of Australia
[Your Full Name]
[Your Address]
[Your Suburb], [State] [Postcode]
[Date]
To:
The Prime Minister of Australia
Parliament House
Canberra, ACT 2600
Subject: Notice of Termination of Mandate — Commonwealth Government of Australia
Dear Prime Minister,
I write as a registered elector and citizen of the Commonwealth of Australia. By this instrument, I give formal notice of termination of the public mandate presently held by the Commonwealth Government.
This termination is tendered due to ongoing and systemic failures in governance, accountability, and public-interest stewardship, which, in my judgment, nullify the moral legitimacy of the current administration.
Effective immediately, I withdraw my consent to be governed by the present administration and demand that it resign or that new federal elections be called to restore democratic legitimacy.
Respectfully,
[Signature]
[Full Name — printed]
[Electoral Enrolment Number (optional) — or "I confirm I am a registered elector in Australia"]
PS: These templates can be used to mail to your representative in whatever tier of Government has lost your favour.
PS: think of it as a Wonka ticket for bad Politicians, Leaders, and Political parties in leadership positions.
I don't think petitions work, because you're asking for permission, as opposed to: No, NO, Get Out!
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