Editorial: how to clean up Canberra

Phew. This year's seemingly endless campaign makes you understand the argument for fixed four-year terms - if only so that the politics junkies among us can get some sleep!

Now that the election is finally over, we thought we'd take a little time out to look at what happens to democracy when the corflutes fade and the campaign stickers start peeling off car windscreens.

In his 1996 election pitch, John Howard condemned the Keating government's "shameful and disgraceful" use of taxpayers' money to promote itself. He pledged to ask the auditor-general to draw up new guidelines for the appropriate use of government advertising. It didn't happen. The Coalition government went on to spend $2 billion on advertising, most of it in the run-up to elections.

Shortly after being elected the Coalition released a Ministerial Code of Conduct. It was watered down twice, breached many times and finally abandoned. Mr Howard also promised to reform Freedom of Information laws. Nada.

Australia was once regarded as a world leader in democratic innovation, the ‘social laboratory' of the world. We led the march for women's suffrage in the late 19th century, developed new forms of public institutions at arm's length from Executive Government, and gave the world the "Australian ballot".

We now need to strengthen and evolve democracy so that it can fulfill its original purpose: giving us the power to shape the decisions that affect our lives. Unfortunately, with a few honourable exceptions, successive state and federal governments have allowed a series of self-serving decisions to fundamentally erode their relationship with the people who elect them. Some of the articles in this edition of InSight describe the symptoms: misuse of government advertising budgets, resistance to Freedom of Information requests, sources of political donations hidden, and government funding used to silence NGOs.

Marcus Westbury, writing of the recent election, argues that the most important issues were not about ideology but accountability:

Phrases like "arrogant", "hubris" and "out of touch" are symptomatic not merely of a government that has been around too long but of one that has isolated itself from internal critics and external scrutiny.

In the lead-up to the election, the then Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd spoke of the lack of transparency in government as a cancer "eating away at democracy". But what do we have to do to make this cancer go into remission? And how can we ensure that it doesn't return?

Despite promising ‘open government', there is still a risk that a Labor government will end up slipping into the comfortable shoes that Mr Howard and his predecessors have left behind.

This would be a mistake. After the experience of the last eleven years - and particularly the most recent term when the Coalition had control of the Senate, Australian citizens are fearful and suspicious of concentrated political power.

For those interested in Labor's plans in this area, we've prepared a handy guide listing the main problems and Labor's current position here.

Democracy is not a partisan issue. There is now an opportunity for people across the political spectrum to unite to make our political system worthy of our trust and confidence.

This edition of InSight is packed with ideas on how to do just that: Lee Rhiannon and Norman Thompson on campaign finance reform, Janette Hartz-Karp on new models of deliberative democracy, Bob Burton on the role of citizen journalists, and Brett Solomon on the power of online campaigning.

‘Reclaiming Democracy' has come about thanks to InSight editor Kate Mason, a talented new CPD intern. Thanks also to cartoonist Fiona Katauskas and to the authors who generously donate their work to the CPD - we couldn't do this without you.

Last week marked the Centre for Policy Development's 6-month birthday. Please support us as we gear up for another exciting year of research, events, and forceful participation in public debate by donating online here.

You'll hear from us again soon!

Thank you,

Miriam Lyons

Director, Centre for Policy Development

Australian democracy - a user's guide

In the lead-up to the election, the then Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd spoke of the lack of transparency in government as a cancer "eating away at democracy". But what do we have to do to make this cancer go into remission? And how do we ensure that it doesn't return?

In the table below the CPD lists the key problems facing our democracy - and outlines the current position of the incoming federal Labor government.

Problem	Labor response
Power concentrated in the executive, role of Parliament diminished	Acknowledges problem, but no specific policies.
Terrorism laws breach human rights unnecessarily	Supportive of status quo.
Government advertising budgets used for political advantage	Has promised to adopt the guidelines proposed by the Auditor-General in 1998 for campaigns over $250,000.
Power increasingly redistributed from the states and territories to the Commonwealth	Has pledged 'cooperative federalism' - still unclear what priciples will guide decision making should cooperation fail.
Those who speak out in the public interest against wrongdoing in their workplace (particularly public servants) are punished	Has promised whistleblower protection legislation.
ABC board stacked with Government-friendly appointees	New process for board appointment (Nolan rules), but could go further and allow election of community, staff, or consumer representatives.
Ambiguous sedition laws potentially criminalise legitimate speech	ALRC proposals to be implemented.
Public service politicised	Problem noted. Has promised to make ministerial staff accountable to parliamentary committees if they have exercised executive power. Have refrained from sacking departmental heads associated with the previous government.
Concentration of media ownership reduces diversity of voices and puts too much political power in the hands of a few proprietors	No specific response.
Party discipline over-emphasised, hampering representative’s power to put national interest or their electorate’s interest above party loyalty.	If anything Labor is less flexible than the Coalition on this point.
Government funding and restrictions on charitable status used to silence critics in civil society	Any formal requirement for recipients of government funding not to criticise the government will be removed.
Lack of ministerial accountability	Ministerial Code of Conduct released in December 2007 reaffirmed commitment to the principle of Ministerial Responsibility. However, made an election commitment that staffers would be accountable before parliamentary inquiries, which reduces the potential for Ministers to claim ignorance as a defence in cases like the AWB and 'children overboard' affairs.
Freedom of Information Act and processes expensive and obstructive	Has promised to implement the Recommendations of the 1996 ALRC Open Government Report
Lack of legislated protection for basic human rights	Has pledged to ‘consult’ on the possibility of a Human Rights Act.
Lack of disclosure of and limits to political donations	Pledged to bring the disclosure threshold back down to $1500, and ban foreign donations, but has not discussed limits. The proposal to only provide public funding for election expenses against verified receipts makes sense on the surface, but may have unintended consequences.
Electoral laws changed to make it harder to enroll	Has pledged to reverse the changes.
Common practice of retired politicians taking up lucrative consultancies and positions in their previous jurisdictions.	Has said that former ministers will be required to adhere to a twelve-month waiting period before they can take up employment in their most recent area of responsibility.
Government spending skewed to favour marginal seats	No response. In the lead up to the election, the Coalition outspent Labor in NSW and QLD, while Labor outspent the Coalition in WA. Many of Labor's new GP Super Clinics were announced in marginal seats.
Democracy reduced to voting once every three years – other avenues for participation in public decision making are superficial and favour vested interests, squeaky wheels, and the status quo	Has promised to ‘pursue new and innovative measures designed to foster greater participation’. Has announced a 'petitions committee' to receive and report on petitions - sponsorship by a member of parliament will no longer be required. Electronic petitions similar to those adopted by the UK government are being considered.
Abolition of ATSIC and replacement with a hand-picked advisory group	NIC has been abolished and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has pledged to consult on the structure of its replacement.

Resources:

Democratic Audit of Australia
Democracy Watch, Australian Collaboration

If you have any suggestions for additions to this list, please post them in the comments below and we will try to keep the table updated over time.

Accountability, authoritarianism and a new separation of powers?

Ideology is over. We are all economic conservatives now.

I haven't entirely conceded it but I will freely admit that no government will be elected at any point soon by promising to scare the economic horses. While I personally err towards greater public investment in our economic, social, cultural, environmental and community infrastructure than has been the norm, I am willing to accept that no country is an island economically.

However, it does raise a fairly obvious question: if we aren't arguing about economics what exactly do we have to argue about? I have thought long and hard about this and no - outside a small and largely self referential circle - the answer is not the so-called "culture wars."

What we did learn last weekend was that governments can be turfed out in good economic circumstances after all. Was it all just about unpopular WorkChoices versus an "education revolution", broadband and new leadership after all?

This election was at least in part about an underlying debate about accountability versus authoritarianism.

Photograph courtesy of John Perivolaris, 2007.

You can take almost any issue that was at the forefront of community discontent with the Howard Government and see it through this framework. Mohamed Haneef, David Hicks, Iraq, children overboard, the Northern Territory intervention, the nation's abysmal treatment of asylum seekers and refugees are all examples of where the authoritarian instincts of unaccountable government overrode due process and good policy.

For many the election was about WorkChoices, but "Howard's battlers" revolted against not just the policy but the fact they had never given their consent for it in the first place. Phrases like "arrogant", "hubris" and "out of touch" are symptomatic not merely of a government that has been around too long but of one that has isolated itself from internal critics and external scrutiny.

In some cases this proved to be good short term politics and damage was avoided, but tellingly where any of these policies went wrong, no one from the government ever put their hand up to take responsibility.

For those of us that welcome the change of government, it is easy to take it as a sign that our ideals are triumphant or that a uniquely evil government has been dispensed with. Perhaps it has, but given the track record of Labor state governments, I have no great reason to believe that a Labor Federal government will be peculiarly virtuous without external vigilance. Perhaps Prime Minister Rudd, as a Queenslander, will at least have learnt the Beattie technique of airing your government's failings to your own political advantage.

A new government will force many of us to take a real stand in the growing battle of authoritarianism and accountability. It will probably recast some alliances. Lax standards can not merely be excused because they are now used to further the causes we support or because "at least they're not as bad as the last lot."

But what standards should we expect? On the most basic level, the promises to ensure the impartiality of the ABC board, to depoliticise government advertising and to improve accountability must be fulfilled. Such promises are regularly made in opposition.

We must revisit the evolution of executive government in a parliamentary system and ask why certain responsibilities are exercised by ministers at all? From selecting academic research, to the right to revoke visas, to regional grants that become marginal seat rorts, the power of an individual politician to make such decisions will inevitably be abused for political purposes. Such powers should not be seen as the spoils of office.

The lesson to learn from cases where these powers are abused is not that the wrong people were wielding them but that such powers should be removed from expedient political agendas entirely. Wherever government power is exercised it must be accountable - to parliament, to the media through real FOI provisions, to judicial oversight and to standing corruption commissions. Government accountability cannot be allowed to hide behind a fuzzy chain of responsibility, or through the cloak of "commercial in confidence" or behind the absence of any mechanism to bring it to light.

The inevitable result of embedding accountability is better government - regardless of who is in power.

The larger project, I believe, is to revisit the ideals and structures that underlie the Separation of Powers doctrine itself in the context of contemporary power. The relationships between the media and the government, between the role of regulator and recipient of corporate donations, between the authority of governments and their accountability to the people and the society at large is something seriously worth arguing about.

There is nothing like a change of government to bring that into focus.

 

 

Democracy 101: the right to know

As the new Parliament opens for 2008, all politicians must remember this: the people who have just voted for you are entitled to know what you're doing.

Because lately, you haven't been too good at telling them.

It's Democracy 101, as Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser knew when he said that if Australians were to make valid judgements on government policy, they need the greatest possible access to information.

"How can any community progress without continuing and informed and intelligent debate?" he said. "How can there be debate without information?''

More than thirty years on, when I talk to non-journalists, most are genuinely shocked to hear how poorly Australia now ranks in terms of free speech.

Independent reports place us far behind the democracies we should match: New Zealand, the UK and Canada. Instead we rank closer to, but still behind, countries like Costa Rica and Taiwan.

Seeking robust freedom of speech is not a self indulgent game played by the media. Freedom of the press, exercised responsibly, is the base line for freedom of speech generally in the community.

Over time we've seen a slide into secrecy and a growing lack of transparency which is severely reducing what we can know about how we are governed and how justice is dispensed.

It's absurd to suggest that the latest restrictions on our freedom of speech are necessary to protect the innocent from invasion of privacy, or the threat of terrorism.

The media should not have open slather. No one wants to jeopardise national security, or a fair trial. It serves no one to identify a rape victim, or an undercover police officer giving evidence in court.

These are not the issues. At issue is the vast amount of information that rightly belongs to the Australian public, but which is simply not available to them.

Secrecy, when it is necessary, should be in the best interests of the people, not in the interests of a government seeking to avoid pesky scrutiny or embarrassment.

The limits on our right to know should be clearly defined and understood. They should be debated, not just imposed without question.

Without these parameters, we create a fertile environment for, at best, lack of accountability; at worst, downright corruption.

In May, News Limited and eleven other media organisations formed an unprecedented coalition called Australia's Right to Know, to fight for reform as a united front.

We commissioned former ICAC Commissioner Irene Moss to conduct an independent audit of free speech. We needed credible evidence, not anecdote.

Our suspicions were confirmed. The Moss Report was handed down in October revealing a litany of deeply troubling problems.

It identified more than 500 legal prohibitions on journalists, including 335 Acts with specific secrecy provisions.

I have to wonder, what is it about information under the Food Act, the Renewable Energy Act or the Rice Marketing Act that must be kept secret?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If journalists want to know, and we do, we've got an oxymoron called the Freedom of Information Act to help us. It's not free, and often not very informative.

Too many sensible and valid FOI requests are rejected, delayed, unhelpful or simply too expensive. In one case, we were quoted $1.25m in "fees" to get an auditor's report into MPs travel expenses.

Then we have the over-zealous use of court suppression orders. Too much is censored, too often. Is justice really served when the name of a public figure is suppressed to save them from embarrassment in a criminal case?

The Moss Report pointed to "a set of official and unofficial practices which together are whittling away the notion of free and easy access [to information]"

Now the question is: how to reverse the slide?

Governments of all stripes and levels must accept responsibility to their citizens to govern openly; and must recognize that current levels of transparency are inadequate.

They need a two-pronged approach. First, instil a cultural shift towards openness.

The presumption must be that government information is available unless there is an overwhelming reason why it should not be.

It will take leadership and courage to unravel the entrenched culture of resistance by politicians and bureaucrats to any disclosure, even of the most benign information.

Second, we need radical legislative reform. In particular, a wholesale overhaul of FOI regimes across Australia.

Whistleblowers who disclose information in the public interest need laws to protect them, as do the journalists who they choose to trust.

Judges need gentle re-education so that their suppression orders, when imposed, do not lose sight of the bedrock of our court system: that justice is not just done, but also seen to be done. Open justice is good justice.

The same is true of our government: to be governed fairly, we must see how we are governed.

Those who represent our interests should heed the wise words of Sir Anthony Mason of the High Court, in Commonwealth v. John Fairfax & Sons, in 1980.

"It is unacceptable in our democratic society that there should be a restraint on the publication of information relating to government when the only vice of that information is that it enables the public to discuss, review and criticise government action."

In my view, this is the true challenge to our new Parliament.

The case for deliberative democracy

Having endured an election of hyperbole, vacuous staged debates and pompous expert opinions, most pundits must be left feeling disengaged and somewhat concerned about the state of our democracy. The disparaging responses to Rudd's proposed inquiries (eg. on climate change, pricing and federal-state relations) claiming that if those in power don't have all the answers, then they don't deserve to govern, reflect the anachronisms of our current democratic system. How extraordinary to presume that having been elected, our representatives should magically know the answers to all the contentious, complex problems that are facing us today. The time has come to re-think what sort of democracy we want.

Throughout the western world, politicians are trying to find ways to re-engage citizens in democracy. In one of his earliest speeches as UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown announced plans for citizen's juries, consisting of randomly selected citizens, tasked with deliberating and advising the government on a broad range of issues of importance to the community. Similarly, Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards called for the creation of "Citizen Congresses" that would regularly convene one million Americans in national deliberations on critical policy issues.

Historically, Australia has been a leader in democratic reform, being one of the first nations to introduce the women's vote and a democratically elected upper house.

However, our current adversarial democratic systems are dysfunctional, as they polarise issues and alienate citizens, rendering us incapable of addressing the critical issues of our time. It is time Australia led the way again in democratic reform - this time by institutionalising deliberative democracy.

What we need is not a political revolution but rather a radical improvement to our current system of representative democracy; the election of the few to represent our interests. This system of government could be significantly more relevant and effective if it was augmented by deliberative democracy - the empowered voice of the people through deliberative dialogue that leads to shared decision-making.

Governments could incorporate deliberative democracy initiatives into their current frameworks, in place of, or in addition to, hearings and other traditional consultation methods. In such a scenario, citizens could directly participate in governance through open, equal and inclusive dialogue and deliberation. The collective decisions that resulted would influence and be seen to influence decision-making processes.

Examples of such deliberative democracy initiatives can already be seen here in Australia and internationally: with participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre Brazil using a city-wide organisation of residents; Citizens' Assemblies in Canada to develop an alternative electoral system; Citizens' Summits in Washington DC, USA using 21st century town meetings to determine budget priorities; participatory processing of legislation in Denmark using random sample consensus conferences to advise on particularly contentious legislation; and planning decisions in Western Australia using new methods of community engagement including citizen juries, 21^st century dialogues, deliberative surveys, multi criteria analysis conferences, and consensus forums.

For such initiatives to take root and become accepted practice, the relationship between government and society would need to be fundamentally reconfigured. Not only would government involve those likely to be immediately impacted by an issue, but it would engage a truly representative, random sample of the population, tasked with understanding the full context of the issue and its wider repercussions, deliberating judiciously, and selecting the best option(s) to advise government. These processes would be transparent from inception through to the implementation of outcomes.

Achieving ‘institutionalised' deliberative democracy would require such initiatives to be built into our society so that almost no one could imagine them not being there.

Here is one scenario for our democratic future.

• Political parties will come to elections clearly stating those critical problems and opportunities facing the nation, which they believe will require the co-intelligence of dialogue and deliberation to resolve. People will be called up for citizenship duties, just like they are currently called up for jury duty. Using life-long learning principles, citizens' capacity building in dialogue and deliberation will be funded and implemented. At least in the short term, those jurors currently not required for jury duty can be used to deliberate important civic issues.

• A national, possibly international group of practitioner/researchers will provide advice to governments on the processes and techniques best suited to the problem/opportunity and situation. They will oversee independent research and evaluation of the processes, and the results will be widely disseminated to ensure continuous improvement -at a national and international level.

• Complex ideas will be made accessible to lay people with the government acting as brokers - the nexus between citizens and scientists/academics - and government will subsidise these efforts.

• When significant legislative change is recommended by deliberative democracy processes, governments will put the recommendations to referenda. Any such referendum will preceded by funded public education, aimed at comprehensively and effectively explaining the issues. For other recommendations, governments will commit to informing constituents what will and will not be implemented, and if not, why not. Lay deliberative democracy processes will be on par with Royal Commissions.

• Governments will commit to funding and agency support for approved recommendations to ensure their implementation, and will widely disseminate feedback on progress made.

• Political parties will be judged at the election boxes on how well they listened to and enacted the co-intelligent will of the people.

All we need is one Premier or Prime Minister willing to trial this system. When governments realise the benefits of wiser, inclusive decisions, we can turn around the dysfunction of our current political processes, and co-create participative, inclusive democracies with better decision-making.

 

 

Unchain my heart: regulating government advertising

There is a legitimate role for government advertising, but we have failed to establish its legitimate scope and tenor.

Debate on the issue is nothing new. Government advertising has been controversial since at least 1995, when the Keating government spent $12 million promoting its Working Nation package.

Two major campaigns from the past decade, however, have put the issue centre stage.

The Howard Government allocated $420 million to explain the new tax system in the lead up to the introduction of the GST in 2000.

Some $36 million was spent on the "Unchain My Heart" advertisements. Television spots began with a male voiceover, "Australia is currently being held back. We are tied to a tax system that has been patched up over and over again since the 1930s.

"Over the years, it's just got more complicated, more old fashioned and less fair.

"At the same time, income taxes have just kept going up giving workers less and less incentive to earn more.

"Average workers now pay a top rate of 43 per cent.

"Our current system has heaps of unfair, illogical, hidden sales taxes.

"Expensive restaurant meals are tax free.

"Cleaning products are taxed at 22 per cent.

"Toothpaste is taxed." An ironic chuckle went in here. "Toothbrushes aren't..."

Then the music came in that gave the ads their name - aging blues rocker Joe Cocker singing, "Unchain my heart. Set me free..."

The then opposition leader, Kim Beazley, called the campaign "blatant political propaganda". His shadow Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, claimed "The whole message of the GST ‘In Chains' commercial is that if you disagree with the Government's GST campaign, then you're holding back the country in chains."

Photograph courtesy of © Adam Dimech

Despite the controversy, it was arguable that the Coalition was simply following a trend that had begun in the eighties with the Grim Reaper campaign.

The Grim Reaper spots galvanised community awareness of the dangers of HIV and AIDS.

They did so by departing completely from the dry style of official announcement that had previously characterised government advertising.

They represented a new, creative direction for public information campaigns.

Their brilliant success legitimised the move.

Despite the stylistic departures from the past, however, the Grim Reaper campaign dealt with a very traditional topic for government advertising: public health.

The "Unchain My Heart" advertisements promoted changes to taxation that had been passed by the parliament. It was the feelgood tone and the cost of the campaign that caused the stir.

The Howard Government's workplace relations campaign in 2005 represented something very different. The government started an extensive advertising campaign promoting changes to the industrial relations system before the legislation had been released, let alone passed into law.

The cost, the tenor and the timing of campaigns are all now causing concern.

"There is a widespread perception that government advertising campaigns are employed for party-political and electoral advantage," Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans has said. "The perception is that the party in government uses taxpayer-funded government advertising campaigns as a supplement to party political advertising to achieve favourable perception of the party in the electorate, and favourable election results."

Commonwealth campaigns are at the centre of the debate, but the state governments are just as enthusiastic in their use of taxpayer funded advertising to promote their policies.

"No one's hands are clean," Sally Young from Melbourne University has said.

Labor governments in NSW and Victoria have run extensive advertising campaigns in the lead up to elections.

Graeme Orr from Griffith University has talked about "desperate" attempts by the Beattie Labor government to use advertising "to buy itself out of political holes created by chronic problems in the public health system". He described "advertisements, under the premier's signature, blaming the federal government for a doctor shortage" as "particularly egregious".

"No one could object to ministers bolstering their political position by disseminating such figures and accusations," Orr says. "The question is why traditional methods such as parliamentary statements and press releases and conferences - which involve debating in domains that are equally accessible to all sides of politics - no longer suffice."

This may be the most worrying aspect of government advertising campaigns.

As Young says: "While communication between citizens and their government is a crucial part of democratic discourse, unlike other traditional methods such as oratory and debate, advertising is an expensive method of communication... it only works one way - from government to citizens - without any opportunity for citizens to respond."

Young claims that Australia's government advertising regulatory system is "almost non-existent".

"We have the weakest rules of any comparable country in the world," she says. "Unlike Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, we have no guidelines or legislation prohibiting the misuse of government advertising for partisan purposes."

In 2004, Evans made a submission to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee Inquiry into Government Advertising and Accountability setting out a six point test for government advertisements.

"It should be possible for governments to lay down a transparent and regular process for formulating government advertising projects," he said. "Government could simply agree to regulate itself."

It could, but it appears unwilling.

Australia - is our democracy for sale?

Australians are becoming more aware of the dangers of political parties chasing more frequent contributions from donors and of uncontrolled spending in election campaigns. The media regularly reports on government decisions that favour the interests of companies that fill the coffers both of the parties in power and the often-compliant opposition parties.

Electoral funding is crucial to our democratic processes. The Greens' research on political donations during the past six years and our participation in various forums on donations and electoral funding has led us to the conclusion that radical reform is needed.

Image courtesy of Michael Orange.

Further, a number of leading members of both major parties have spoken of the need for changes to political party funding: Paul Keating, Carmen Lawrence, Eric Roozendaal (NSW government minister) and Don Harwin (NSW Upper House Liberal Whip) have all voiced their concerns.

So it was disappointing that in the recent federal election campaign the issue of political donations was ignored by the major parties. These parties were busy handing out our money in the hope of winning more votes. The Greens raised concerns about rampant fund raising by the major parties for their expensive campaigns and lack of transparency in that process. But unfortunately the issue was lost in the vote buying ritual of our elections.

During the federal election the Greens called for a national summit on political donations to explore all options for reforming electoral funding. Unlike the Coalition parties, Labor has a history of supporting reform in this area. With Labor in power, a Rudd government would be wise to call such a summit.

The key issues that such a summit would cover include transparency of donations to political parties, capping of donations and electoral expenditure, and the role for private donations to political parties.

Transparency of donations is a hot topic as the Howard government's change to the disclosure threshold of donations effective 8 December 2005 has been disastrous.

Prior to that date, all donations of $1,500 and above to registered parties had to be reported to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) every financial year. After that date the disclosure threshold rose to over $10,000 adjusted each year to the CPI. The current disclosure threshold is $10,500.

This means that thousands of donations accounting for millions of dollars are now never disclosed to the public. This secrecy is dangerous in any democracy since the public must be aware of who is paying to potentially influence governmental policies.

It is true that there have been major problems with transparency due to loop holes in the federal disclosure laws for years, but what the Howard government did in December 2005 was about securing more funding by allowing their backers to give large donations secretly.

Capping of donations and expenditure is important since currently we are on our way to an American system of big money politics where the only way to be elected is to buy your way into office. Other countries have capped the amount of money that can be given to political parties, as well as the amount spent on election campaigns, such as Canada.

The following are the three main issues that need to be considered at a national summit. Under each of these issues we have given recommendations we believe would lead to a more transparent electoral system that will not be dominated by a quest for larger and larger donations from groups that stand to benefit from access to our political leaders:

Transparency

• Restore the donations disclosure threshold to the main offices of the political parties to $1,500.
• Require all donations reported by the political parties to the AEC to include information so donors can be adequately identified.
• Ensure the purpose of all money received by political parties is clearly stated on their returns.
• Provide the AEC with adequate powers and resources to enforce full disclosure by parties and donors.
• Set up a continually updated website disclosing all money received by political parties to the AEC.
• Ban all donations from individuals who are not either Australian citizens or permanent residents.

Capping of Donations and Election Expenditure

• Cap the amount spent in all electorates in each election and also cap the money spent by head offices of the parties.
• Cap third party expenditures during an election.
• Limit the amount a candidate can use of his/her own money in their campaigns.

Role of Private Donations to Political Parties

Canada has banned all donations to parties from corporations, unions and other organisations. Canadian law only allows capped donations from individuals. We must consider such a step in Australia since it removes the possibility of buying influence by large companies, unions and organisations such as lobby groups.

A national debate on this critical issue is now needed.

 

 

The Californication of Australian politics

While another election campaign has ended, the Californication of Australian politics continue unhindered. Essentially, Californian politics is played out through bought media: advertisements. The media itself generally gives politics and politicians little attention. This is best summed up by the Californian observation, generated no doubt by the movie industry also located there, that politics is acting for ugly people.

In California, politicians raise substantial amounts of money to buy these ads; in Australia, taxpayers do. Many political observers believe that a potential answer to removing this perversion of public funds is stricter rules. However, if history has taught us anything, it is that the tougher the rules are, the sooner they are bent until broken outright.

The answer may lie in encouraging a more active involvement in politics, especially by those charged with scrutinizing it.

Since the dawn of democratic time, incumbent governments have had the cards stacked in their favour. Governments had the ability to set the agenda by which the electorate would judge alternatives. Since the time of Roman Emperors, all governments have spent actual money on a grateful populace even if just in the form of bread and circuses.

Government comes with the benefit of departmental resources, which amounts to thousands of people who are charged with the responsibility of developing and researching innovative policy solutions. Further to this, a sitting member has at their disposal substantial funds for postage and printing, a staff of four and tax payer funded phones and faxes. Political parties estimate that for a challenger to be just on equal terms with an incumbent requires at least $300,000.

Age old political advantages have been augmented with modern tax payer funding. Still, such additions only go some way towards explaining how dislodging governments became such a Herculean task.

There are a number of potential reasons for this. First, the cost of modern campaigning has left the majority of parties at the mercy of unions, corporate donors, or the public purse. Second, the decline of public involvement in institutional party structures has left most political parties at the mercy of branch stackers which in turn means they need to pay for activities previously carried out by volunteers. Finally, the media is both reflecting and leading public disinterest and cynicism in politics, while simultaneously cutting resources dedicated to in-depth analysis.

In my opinion, it is the last of these factors that is the greatest advantage to sitting governments.

In the past, the advantages enjoyed by governments were counter balanced by the general interest of the media through which space and emphasis were given to alternative points of view. This constrained the government's ability to set the agenda above all others. Arguably, these factors no longer exist in Australian political discourse.

Politically, Australia has become the California of the South Pacific.

The media spends more time commenting on politics than analysing it, and has not bothered to report on it since Don's Party premiered. More importantly, when was the last time you noticed someone from a media outlet demanding a political leader justify their claims, instead of egging them to sensationalise it even more?

My personal favourite technique of the contemporary political journalist is when they interview each other. Jon Stewart, an American comedian (though not Californian), mercilessly pokes fun at US commentators who do this, thus far no Australian comedian has felt it worthy of comment.

Of course in the absence of a personal agenda, or corporate resources, the contemporary political journalist relies on the government to provide them with ideas for their stories. This process of story generation further cements the advantage that a government has. After all, what critical analysis can one expect from the animal that is being fed by the very hand that they are meant to be questioning?

In Australia today, we have political journalists who want to be the story. This has meant more time is spent reporting on tactics than policy outcomes; who is up and who is down; what the polls say; and who the next proverbial pop star is. There is not much room for discussion of what the impact of policy is going to be, or for serious questions of opposition responses or government policy frameworks. In other words: the government can get away with virtually anything.

Writing in the New York Times, David Brooks remarked that John McCain is the only person of character in the US presidential race. He spent an entire column reviewing the character and history of McCain, not his tactics or his poll ratings. He remarked positively on the unpopular stands and policy stances that McCain has taken, which with the benefit of hindsight have been more often right than wrong. It is inconceivable that you would ever see such a well researched, competently argued column in Australia. Not unless a government media adviser suggested, researched and presented it to one of our political commentators.

Until a political journalist can come up with such an article without relying on the government of the day, it is fair to say that the electorate will remain switched off, the government will continue to set the agenda, oppositions will be irrelevant, and democracy will be badly handicapped in a land that prizes its freedom of choice and individuality.

For all these reasons, if you want to look at the future of politics in Australia, look not to London or Washington, but to California.

Unsilencing civil society

One of the most fundamental public policy initiatives required from the new Rudd Labor Government has not even rated a mention during the campaign. I refer to a reversal of the systematic suppression under the Howard Government of the ability of Australian civil society to advocate publicly.

Almost every year of the Howard period saw the introduction of a new measure aimed at silencing NGOs and removing them from the public debate. The cumulative effect of these measures has weakened our democracy.

 

Elsewhere, I have documented the mechanisms employed by the former government and shown that they are consistent with an economic theory masquerading as a theory of democracy - namely public choice theory. This is a neo-liberal theory which applauds good works - planting trees and supporting the homeless - but sees attempts to influence public policy as ‘interfering with the market'. It is a very narrow view of democracy.

In a healthy democracy, the non-government sector reflects the aspirations of our society back to us. I refer, for example, to social service, environment, international development, consumer rights, ethnic affairs, the social justice arms of churches and women's groups. NGOs are engines of ideas which can provide alternative visions for us to contest, refine, accept or reject. Their contributions ensure that the development of public policy receives comment and the input of legitimate expertise from as many sources as possible.

The use of government funding as a silencing mechanism has included explicit funding cuts for groups critical of the government, purchaser-provider contracts in which recipients deliver the Government's agenda rather than serving their members' interests, and, importantly, so called ‘confidentiality clauses' which forbid organisations from speaking to the media.

However, silencing mechanisms involving direct funding have been only one tool in the Howard kitbag. Organisations which rely on donations and eschew government money have also been under siege. The last five years has seen a running battle between NGOs and the Howard Government with various moves to abolish tax deductibility for organisations speaking on government policy.

The main mechanism has been the use of restrictive Tax Office rulings. That battle has seen some success for the Government, and was still continuing as the election was called, with a key case yet to appear before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. There has also been new legislation to get NGOs to report to government on aspects of their activities, and legislation which targets freedom of speech especially of animal welfare groups, but which also has wider implications for the sector.

Why have NGOs let this happen without more public outcry? While the sector knew it was under siege, until recently its diffuse nature has hindered it from understanding the full implications of what has been happening. Turnover of personnel, lack of resources and fear of retribution may have contributed to the slow response. It would seem to be only in the past twelve months with the calling of a National Civil Society Dialogue in October last year by the Australian Conservation Foundation, Australian Council of Social Services, Australian Council of Trade Union and the National Council of Churches, that information has permeated down from the leadership to the wider sector about the seriousness of the situation. It has been the cumulative effect of one mechanism after another, all intended to restrict public debate, that has finally begun to be understood as a diminution of our public sphere and a serious threat to Australia's democracy.

Will the new Rudd Labor Government roll back the many mechanisms that have slowly been smothering NGO voices? Although Kim Beazley gave one speech recognising ‘the important advocacy role played by the community sector', the Rudd-Gillard team has been silent on the issue.

On two occasions as Shadow Minister for Social Inclusion, Julia Gillard, directed her attention primarily to the social services area with a couple of new initiatives, such as appointment of a Social Inclusion Board and a social inclusion co-ordinating office in the Prime Minister's Department. Some elements of the speeches appeared to be directed towards the constituency of 'Howard's battlers'. However, it is their language that is their most notable feature. They appear to justify the worth of the sector wholly in terms of its economic-productivity value, rather than its social-democratic value. Their language is dominated by phrases such as ‘investment' in ‘human capital', on ‘building social inclusion through hard economics', on ‘raising national prosperity', and on ‘investment' from which a return will be expected.

Non-government organisations are described as the 'social economy' - a term foreign to Australia - which refers to the European Union name for the sector, l'economie sociale. The Productivity Commission will also be asked to develop a new tool to measure NGO contribution to the economy.

Unfortunately, the silencing mechanisms are embedded as policy in a multiplicity of Federal Government Departments. The sector is going to have its work cut out, firstly to have the new Government acknowledge this issue and secondly to have the practices removed.

Human rights and democracy

The election of a government promising fairness and dignity for all provides the best opportunity in a long time for the reinvigoration of our democracy. At the heart of this endeavour is the recognition, codification and protection of human rights.

Over the last period of conservative government, Australia's democracy has drifted off course, partly due to our failure to make the transition from the traditional but no longer adequate common law approach to rights, to a new model better suited to the times. In a world where waves of refugees and asylum seekers continue to flee wars and devastation, and where the weak, the indigenous, the mentally ill, and Islamic and other ethnic minorities are subjected to harsh and inhumane laws and policies, we need effective statutory protections.

Australia has not yet followed the example of the rest of the democratic world; it has not carefully reviewed how human rights fare in contemporary Australian society, and has not as yet used the legislative power of parliament to enact the modern human rights protections that should form part of a fair and egalitarian democracy.

The ACT and Victorian governments have accepted this responsibility, with other states set to follow, but at national level, we have a vacuum.

It was in answer to this growing need, and the passivity of political leadership in the face of much human suffering in our country, that a citizens' campaign for a Human Rights Act for Australia, known as the New Matilda campaign, sprang into life.

It started just two years ago. Readers and contributors to New Matilda magazine challenged policies that kept sick children and frightened asylum seekers imprisoned behind barbed wire, and put mentally ill Australians in jail, or illegally deported them. The absence of basic services for our indigenous communities accumulated massive damage.

Anti-terror measures undermined traditional rights but were legislated without the checks and balances required by democracy.

How could a government pursue these destructive policies in the face of Australia's long standing ratification of international human rights instruments, including the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural rights?

The answer was stark: without a national law embodying these commitments, they had no force here.

A small volunteer committee was formed. We embarked on a citizens' campaign to achieve this national law. Using the best expertise in Australia and internationally, committee member Professor Spencer Zifcak coordinated the drafting of a model Human Rights Bill, which would put into Australia law our major existing international rights obligations.

We carefully drafted the bill to preserve absolutely the power of parliament to make and change all laws, giving the courts an interpretive function.

This draft bill has now been discussed and debated all over Australia. It was "launched" in all capital cities, many regional towns and suburbs. All manner of citizens joined the discussion: high profile former leaders like Malcolm Fraser, and distinguished former judges Sir Anthony Mason, and the President of HREOC, John Von Doussa made the case for legislating to protect rights. We met with dozens of ordinary citizens, with community groups: ethnic, church based civil liberties and union bodies. We found willing partner organisations in each state and territory, and unsolicited by us, both Geoffrey Robertson QC and Judge Michael Kirby have publicly and eloquently argued the case for an Australian human rights law.

Our citizens' campaign has put human rights protection on the national agenda. To that extent we are close to achieving our objective. While we have been encouraged by MP's from all parties, we take heart from our knowledge that in the newly elected Rudd Labor government are many who understand and accept that the time has come for action on human rights protections.

Now that citizens have elected this new government with overwhelming enthusiasm on the promise of a fairer Australia, we will continue and reinforce our campaign.

Labor in opposition promised as a first step a national community consultation on human rights.

As citizens, we cannot make laws. We can however make the new government and indeed the entire parliament understand that Australians want and need a new law. If enough of us get involved we can confidently expect a government committed to fairness to heed the people and to act.

GettingUp and at 'em

The Australian people, now armed with sophisticated means of expressing their dissent and proffering their alternatives, have resoundingly repudiated John Howard's policies and politics. In reality, this was not the ‘Me Too' election - it was decided by the ‘We Too' voters, voting for the bigger picture not the bigger promises.

This election saw the entrance of the online progressive group GetUp, part of a global movement democratising the political process through new technologies. GetUp's campaigns have brought many Australians back into the political fold from which John Howard had largely excluded them. Its exponential growth in members and influence is as indicative of the failure of the party-political system to appeal to those concerned but not active, and also of the success of online communication in engaging those otherwise too busy, intimidated or disillusioned to seek change through conventional channels.

The effect of a rapidly burgeoning civil society in this election, of which GetUp is just one example, was that the debate could move out of the narrow frames of reference laid down by the political parties. Agendas could be pursued in their own right, without having to fit within the simplistic labels that that polarise politics and hinder progress.

In reality, people are complex beings whose beliefs and concerns do not fit neatly within any one pigeonholed ideology. Voters are generally forced to prioritise competing concerns at the ballot box, and therefore a vote for a political party becomes an unwilling embrace of an entire package, including its unpalatable elements.

GetUp offers something else - an ‘opt-in' campaigning vehicle. Because they don't have to sign up to a particular ideology, members are free to select which actions they wish to take on issues of concern to them. GetUp both facilitates those actions and provides the comfort of knowing that one acts in significant company. This is a new phenomenon in Australian politics - a non-partisan, multi-issue member-driven organisation using new technologies to facilitate meaningful and effective political action. This election has demonstrated the effectiveness of such an organisation being a vehicle for change; galvanising community attitudes and translating them into the mobilisation of a financially sustainable grassroots movement.

This election not only showed how massive swathes of the community are embracing new technologies and translating them into effective action, but also that our leaders have been the last group to embrace this sphere appropriately. Anyone who doubts this simply has to look at some recent 'YouTube' pitches to see just how out of their traditional comfort zone our politicians are.

For them, this was not the first e-lection; and once again most simply translated old forms of expression into new media - static TV style announcements and press releases. For many in the community, however, it was the first e-lection. Emboldened by the empowerment of a truly democratic internet, political movements can flourish on their ideas and momentum alone. The internet can also undermine and invert traditional power structures. GetUp's ‘Climate Clever-er' spoof ad demonstrated this awesome potential. Here, individuals with no other agenda than their concern for the issue, all chipped in to create a powerful sum total capable of getting their message to millions of fellow Australians as only the wealthy or well-connected could previously do. It raised over $250,000 online in only 72 hours, in average donations of $50.

While unprecedented numbers of voters were using the internet to engage in politics, not all political parties seemed to be interested in engaging with them. HowShouldIVote.com.au, for example, started by GetUp as a non-partisan tool to help voters match their beliefs with the positions of their local candidates, received only a handful of Coalition candidates' surveys - denying the 150,000 people who used the site (over 1% of the voting population) the possibility of being matched with Liberal candidates.

Despite efforts by the former Government to ensure the opposite, this election also saw young people enrolled and engaged on an unprecedented level. Young people have traditionally been excluded from the national political conversation but have been much quicker to take up the new forms of communication. This new level of political engagement for young people is immediate, creative and transparent, with very low barriers to participation and involvement. The increased profile of the Greens in this election has two causes - the elevation of climate change to a mainstream concern; and the increased political engagement of the 18-30 demographic. Once mistaken for apathy, the disempowerment, frustration and disconnection of youth from the political process is broken down by the accessibility, immediacy and effectiveness of online action, communication and networking. Everyone is equal online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another feature of this election was the end of one-party rule in the Senate. The Howard Government's abuse of their Senate majority eventually came back to bite them in the lower house. In his last term of power, John Howard introduced unpopular legislation that was not subject to the checks and balances, or even the protracted debate, to which Australians were accustomed. It also symbolised the wider disdain for time-honoured democratic processes and practises that characterised Howard's term. A large part of the democratic renewal seen during the election must be viewed as a reaction to direct attacks on elements of democracy itself. Several GetUp innovations, including the unprecedented multi-party political ad, also helped to couch Howard's political excesses in terms of the fight for the Senate. A once-in-a-generation Senate majority spawned an equally rare electoral focus on the normally low-key House, as the effects of ill-conceived and unscrutinised legislation such as WorkChoices were taking actual effect in the electorate.

Over the last two years, polling commissioned by GetUp has consistently shown the gulf between public opinion and official policy on key issues, especially among those identifying as Coalition voters. The people now have the power to take the lead on these critical issues when the politicians fail to do so. The result, and potential, of this was seen on Saturday. For the first time a massive non-partisan electoral movement was mobilised to highlight the issues for voters, when thousands of GetUp volunteers turned out in over 100 electorates to contact over half a million voters on issues of concern to them. Such simultaneous people-driven grassroots action is only capable through the harnessing of new technologies.

This ‘we too' election, then, was not necessarily an endorsement of Kevin Rudd but an invitation for him to act on the issues to which Australians did not see John Howard as the answer. The people want action on climate change, they want Australian soldiers out of Iraq, they want their real work choices intact, and Howard did not offer them that. Empowered, informed and engaged in an unprecedented, sophisticated and effective way, opposition to Howard's vision for Australia was both amplified and unified in a way that saw tangible electoral results.

The new Government should be aware that those in power now act in a crucible of increased transparency and accountability, and without absolute control of the national issues agenda. With new vehicles that allow diverse and pluralist political beings to take action, unbeholden to traditional power or party structures, the citizen's voice in our democracy will undoubtedly be heard and heeded.

 

 

Spinbusters: exposing the dark underbelly of the PR industry

Public scepticism about much of corporate and government PR is well justified. Campaigns designed and implemented by PR professionals have dressed up self-serving commercial marketing as philanthropy, fuelled think tanks to run campaigns their clients aren't prepared to own up to, and created corporate front groups to counter critics or commercial rivals. Others aim to quietly court and co-opt potential critics as a way of starving important public debates of oxygen.

Is there any realistic prospect that the PR industry can reform itself? In a submission to the Australian Broadcasting Authority's inquiry into the ‘cash for comment' affair, the Public Relations Institute of Australia's then national president, Lelde McCoy, explained that the organisation's ‘principal aim is to achieve adherence to the highest standards of ethical practice and professional competence'. The submission went on to state that the code of ethics requires members to ‘deal fairly and honestly with the communication media and with the general public, as well as with clients and other stakeholder groups'. It sounds reassuring, but it begs the question that if the 50-year old PRIA has always placed such great weight on ethical standards, why is the reputation of the industry so low? Is PRIA's code of ethics really as strict as claimed? Or are the PR industry's blues inherent in its secretive self-regulatory system itself?

Former PRIA National President Jim McNamara believes this is the single biggest factor limiting the effective enforcement of the code. An attempt in 2000 by PRIA to have the federal government designate PR as a regulated profession was rebuffed. In the absence of effective sanctions, a member subject to an ethics complaint can simply resign and remove themselves from the jurisdiction of PRIA. Without the legal insulation that goes with being a regulated profession, McNamara describes the code as a 'toothless tiger and it frustrates the hell out of everyone who has been involved in the process'.

A close reading of PRIA's manual for handling ethics complaints, issued in August 2003, reveals PRIA is fearful of possible legal consequences for itself and wants to keep all but the most serious ethics breaches secret. Aside from the prospect that a member could be expelled, the next most serious punishment is a maximum fine of $10 000, which in the world of PR is small potatoes. PRIA have embraced the idea of naming and shaming those fined, but only via a notice in the public notices section of a major newspaper. The more common but less serious reprimands are tucked away in text of PRIA's annual report to members.

In the absence of disclosure, there is limited public pressure for better performance, no deterrent effect and little educational value for PR professionals, especially for the three-quarters of the profession who aren't PRIA members.

If the prospect for better disclosure and standards originating from within the PR and lobbying professions appears forlorn, should we pin our hopes on corporations voluntarily divulging what they are up to? Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports may seem like an appealing vehicle for ensuring greater transparency and accountability, but they are pretty unimpressive. Strip away all the gloss and it is clear that the potential for ‘corporate social responsibility' has been crippled by the combination of voluntary standards and the lack of any sanctions for deceptive reporting.

At best, CSR has become another management tool used by companies to standardise assessment of their business's performance and tweak aspects at a pace that suits them. At worst, CSR has become a vehicle by which companies pretend to be virtuous while secretly stalling the very change their stakeholders demand of them.

Is it conceivable that citizen journalism and non-profit media groups can become powerful spinbusters? The emergence of blogs, text-searchable online databases and wikis have provided new tools that facilitate citizens, especially those with broadband and high-speed cable connections, to research and publish original material on topics of interest to them. Citizen journalism is surging ahead, often in conjunction with the emergence of nonprofit media and other groups. As much more primary source data becomes available online, citizen journalists have a number of advantages over mainstream journalists.

First, they usually aren't working to a pressing deadline, so can spend time to dig out data tucked away in various nooks and crannies. Second, they research a topic because they are interested in it, not because they have been directed by an editor to become an instant expert on a topic they know relatively little about. Third, they don't have to conform to an editorial line or avoid offending the business or political sensibilities of proprietors, advertisers or editors.

It is not that citizen journalism will replace mainstream journalism, but it has the potential to play an important supplementary role. Numerous PR campaigns escape investigation to the detriment of democracy. In part, this is because so many whose roles are to act independently are courted and co-opted. Once co-opted, voices that could otherwise have been independent participants in public debate fall silent or, worse still, become spinboosters. This is why the most effective spinbusters are likely to emerge from the ranks of citizens determined to end the era of invisible spin.

This is an edited extract from Inside Spin: The Dark Underbelly of the PR Industry, by Bob Burton, published by Allen & Unwin, August 2007. RRP $24.95.