True democracy is missing in our system, we have a two-party preferred system that prevents anything other than the two (i.e.Labor and Liberal) from getting into power, and they put their own interests ahead of everything else—you can't get your local member to vote against their party, they're not allowed to do it even if they want to. If you want to change what your government is doing, you either have to provoke the opposition into action, or have an independent who's there to represent your views.
Government is supposed to “govern” the country according to the people, they're not supposed to rule it, but that's how they behave. The Howard government barely got elected (they got in with just 46% of the vote (that means that a majority of 64% voted against them), yet they claimed to have a mandate to do everything that they wanted to. And what did they do? Inflicted the GST upon us against the majority's wishes (also against their own statements about “there will be no GST” in previous years). Privitising of public utilities to our detriment (e.g. spiralling charges from profit obsessed telephone and power companies). The list goes on…
A committee of people involved with their MP would be part of the democratic process that our government so sorely needs. It allows the MP to find out more of the electorates wishes by increasing the number of people in contact with the local electorate, and it puts more of the electorate in a position to make sure that their MP carries out their wishes.
Sub-committees could be formed for issues like education, migration, health, etc. Many committees I have been involved with in the past have proven to be valuable sources of information, and people have become very active being part of something they know is important.