Chris Berg has a paper out on the growth of the regulatory state in Australia and the different forms and arms it takes as legislation as well as delegatory bodies. A common aspect of modern government is the increasing growth of legislation and complexity, even from what the older nanny-state and social-states comprised.

Even within the political philosophies of the free market and limited government the state has found ever increasing ways to increase its complexity, and ultimately, its burden on the population. This has ramifications on the ease and liberty of self-organisation, whether economic, cultural, social; or political. (reply)
New Zealand is doing something very interesting. They have a Police Act Review Wiki where you can contribute to the Police Act. It will be interesting to see just how specialist a legislator has to be; if citizens are educated enough and capable of making legal documents that can survive constitutional scrutiny what need is there for specialist legislators in parliament? They pretty much become electoral specialists then. Which is a totally different and more cynical animal. (more)

Technical forms of production are very dependent on quality control to minimise the variation in their product from the requirements. This means the customer gets a consistent product or service every time. Consequently in industrial parlance quality means minimum of variation from the requirements or specifications. We can probably start looking at Parliament as having inbuilt quality mechanisms to produce quality legislation where policy substitutes in the role of requirements. (more)
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.