Political Problem Solving

Many of the problems that Australia faces today are complex and multifaceted. They may have technological and engineering aspects to their solutions, but in almost all cases these solutions require political will and the intervention of government in some form or other (eg: through legislation, through public funding, through coordination of government agencies, etc).

Your task is to identify a problem (or multiple connected problems) and devise a political solution to this problem. You need to establish a political party and outline it's policy measures that will tackle the problem you identify.

The process of dealing with this political issue has six steps:

1. Identify problems faced by Australian society and become familiar with an outline (general characteristics) of these problems. From these identify between 1 and 3 problems that you believe to be the most serious threat to Australian society in the coming decades.
2. Identify the underlying problem. Here you are identifying the causes of the problem in section 1. You should also explain what you want to do and why you want it to be done.
3. Brainstorm alternative solutions. This will require further investigation into the problem. In step 2 you offered a solution based on very little research and understanding. Now you need to look into the problem more deeply and identify a wide variety of solutions. Remember, your problem is complex and may require several steps and/or several components working in concert to solve. You will need 16 alternative solutions.
   
4. Now that you have investigated a range of solutions, you must determine which are the most effective. But first, determine the criteria for evaluating alternative solutions.
5. From your list of solutions, select 8 solutions that you think have the most potential. Scale these solutions on a scale from 1 (poorest) to 8 (best).
6. Start a political party and develop a policy response to the problem(s) you identified in steps 1 & 2. Your political party must have a name, a demographic of voters that it is seeking to appeal to (primarily), and a set of policies aimed at solving these political problems. Some consideration must also be given to marketing these policies to the electorate in order to persuade them to vote for your party.

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