Within a modern democracy, when does the weight of voices become an unsavoury burden?

The moment may have arrived for the NSW Parliament, which will consider for the first time whether to accept electronic petitions instead of printed pages of signatures.

Petitions must be written on paper and signed in ink to be presented to the NSW Parliament. Credit:Tamara Voninski

The inquiry was triggered by a petition of more than 107,073 people who were calling for a ban on plastic bags, but could not table the document in parliament without creating still more waste.

Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi had attempted to table a USB stick, which is accepted in Federal Parliament and Queensland, but was told the petition was out of order as the legislative council required a hard copy.