Breaking News   

• Freedom of Information Update

  On Tuesday 2 August 2005 a full bench of the Federal Court upheld the government's decision to block two Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the FOI Editor of the Australian. The FOI requests asked for documents concerning the effect of bracket creep on income tax cuts and the use of the first-home buyers' scheme by wealthy individuals.
  
  The Treasurer had issued a 'conclusive certificate' saying disclosure was against the public interest. Two federal court judges agreed that this was enough to block access if a public servant gave evidence (as had happened at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal) that there was a public interest reason why the documents should not be released. The other Federal Court judge dissented, saying the reason not to disclose should have been balanced against competing public interest claims. For commentary see the Canberra Times editorial of 4 August here.  The Australian's 3 August story on the court verdict can be found here.

   

• The Legacy of Political Corruption

  In a recent speech at an ALP regional conference, ALP Member for Canberra, Bob McMullan MP attacked four benefits of incumbency that are threatening the integrity of our democratic system.  The issues addressed were - government advertising campaigns; printing and postage allowances; political donation disclosure and tax deductibility; and proposed changes to electoral enrolment regulations.  Mr McMullan's speech notes - A new challenge for Labor in opposition: To overcome the legacy of political corruption - can be viewed here. 

• Public Forum - A Bill of Rights for Victoria?                                                                             The Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies and the Australian Association of Constitutional Law (Victorian Branch) is holding a public forum on Wednesday 13 July at the Melbourne Law School in Carlton, from 6.00-7.15pm.  Topics covered include - options for protecting human rights; the consultation process; the roles of the courts and parliament; and whether Victoria should 'go it alone'.  The forum is free, but numbers are limited.  For more information, go to http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/cccs/billofrights.doc

• Democracy and ABC Election Coverage

  How should the value of political equality be reflected in election coverage by public broadcasters? Should there be an attempt to ensure coverage is roughly proportionate to support for the parties in the electorate or should news value be the only criterion? Current ABC policy appears to apply different principles to different parties. Election coverage guidelines for editorial staff are that government and opposition should receive equal coverage whereas other parties should be appraised on the basis of news value.

  A letter sent to Senator Bob Brown on 4 February 2005 by Murray Green, the Chair of the ABC's Election Coverage Review Committee, provided the Rehame monitoring of 2004 federal election coverage.* This showed the Greens receiving 5.2 per cent of radio coverage, 4.5 per cent of television coverage and 3.5 per cent of on-line coverage. Coverage of the Greens was particularly low on high-profile programs such as AM (2.1 per cent) and PM (1.8 per cent) or the Insiders television program (0.2 per cent). In other words, the Greens were regarded as having particularly low news value - considerably lower than their electoral support (7.2 per cent). The same judgement was not applied to the major parties.

  * See Ben Oquist, 'ABC Insiders rob the Greens', Green 16, Autumn 2005, p. 6.

  If you wish to comment on media election coverage of political parties, email the Audit at daa@anu.edu.au

   

• Political Donations                                                                                                                NSW Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon has published an article A temptation worth resisting - weakening political donation rules on the Online Opinion web site, discussing the proposed changes to donation disclosure laws.  The Audit has previously published articles on this issue by Joo-Cheong Tham and Peter Andren.  The Greens have also set up a web site on political donations at http://www.democracy4sale.org/ 

• Taxpayers fund more party propaganda                                                                        Peter Andren MP is moving a disallowance motion on the new Communications Allowance regulations introduced by the federal government (http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/). His reasons for doing so have been written up for the Democratic Audit and can be accessed here. In this paper Peter Andren argues that the increase in postal allowances for federal members of parliament is unnecessary. It is most likely to result in the sending of more political propaganda, especially during the final weeks of the election cycle.  June 2005

• Democratic Audit of Canada review                                                                                       Haig Patapan reviews the Citizens volume published by the Canadian Democratic Audit. Not only do Canadians lack information about politics but 'most Canadians incorrectly think crime is on the rise, pollution is increasing, the gap between rich and poor is diminishing and that Aboriginals are better off or the same as other Canadians’. See http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=87291117656734 

• Symposium on whistleblowing                                                                                             A.J. Brown is organising a symposium on 12 July at the Shine Dome, Canberra, on ‘Managing Internal Witnesses in the Australian Public Sector: Meeting the Challenge, Charting the Way Forward’. Speakers include Janet Near and Lynelle Briggs. The flyer and registration details can be found here.

• Campaign to ban tobacco companies from donating to candidates and parties                 Following on from the Howard government's suggested changes to political donation laws (increasing reporting reporting and tax deductibility thresholds), Labor Party backbencher Duncan Kerr has renewed his call for a ban on tobacco companies (and related entities) donating to candidates or political parties. Mr Kerr introduced the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Preventing Smoking Related Deaths) Bill 2005 into Parliament on 30 May. The Bill can be viewed here. 

  In 2004 the ALP announced that it would not accept donations from tobacco companies. The Australian Democrats also do not accept donations from tobacco companies. According to the Australian Electoral Commission web site, in 2003/04 British American Tobacco donated more than $268,000 to the Coalition parties, and over $76,000 to the ALP.

   

• Electoral Reform Comes to Western Australia - But Not One Vote, One Value            The Western Australian Labor government's electoral reform legislation has passed both houses of the WA parliament. Although originally touted as one vote, one value legislation, the reforms retain vote weighting for five geographically large electorates (in a similar model to Queensland), and actually increases the existing malapportionment in the Legislative Council (in the worst-case scenario, malapportionment is increased from 4.1:1 to 4.6:1). 

The size of the Assembly has been increased from 57 to 59 seats, and the Council from 34 to 36 seats (6 regions of six members).  The increase in the Assembly size was Labor's method of meeting an election commitment to retain five Assembly seats in the Mining and Pastoral region.  The increase in Council numbers was to accommodate the Greens' demands.  Labor required the Greens' support to pass the legislation with the required absolute majority in the Legislative Council.

• Political Donations                                                                                                                                                 In an Australian Financial Review story on 20 May, it was suggested that the Howard Government will be making changes to political donation laws when the Coalition gains control of the Senate from July 1.  Suggested changes include an increase in the reportable donation threshold from $1 500 to $5 000, and increasing the tax deductibility of donations from the current $100 maximum to $5 000. The latter proposal would give taxpayers on the highest tax rate a $2 425 tax benefit for a $5 000 donation. Australia's political donation laws are already amongst the most lenient in western democracies.  A discussion paper on these proposals, by Joo-Cheong Tham of Melbourne University, will be published here shortly.  

• A Bill of Rights for Victoria?

The Victorian Attorney-General has appointed a committee headed by Professor George Williams to undertake consultations with the community over whether Victoria should have a Bill of Rights.  The committee is to report by the end of November 2005.  As with the ACT Human Rights Act 2004, the committee has been asked to focus on how best to protect the rights included in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, without compromising parliamentary sovereignty.  This means that, as in the ACT, parliament should have the final say in whether legislation found to be incompatible with rights is amended.  For further information see:

http://www.apo.org.au/webboard/results.chtml?filename_num=01138

• Inquiry into the 2004 Federal election                                                     

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has published further submissions to the 2004 Federal election inquiry, with 130 submissions now on the Committee’s web site.  The Democratic Audit team has made a submission, which can be viewed here.

• Informal Voting – don’t blame the voters!

  In this opinion piece published on the On Line Opinion web site, Antony Green argues that a move to optional preferential voting could result in a reduction in the number of informal votes in Australian Federal elections.  Antony’s article can be found here.  This article is taken from a longer submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM), which is currently conducting an inquiry into the 2004 Federal election.  Submissions to the inquiry can be found here (more submissions due to appear from late April - early May 2005).

  The NSW Parliament is conducting a similar inquiry into its elections.  Submissions to the NSW inquiry can be viewed here.

   

• Women in Australian Parliaments

  Looking across the nine Australian parliaments women now constitute 236 of the total of 824 MPs (28.6%, see table below). This is a significant improvement on the two per cent of forty years ago but a long way behind the Nordic countries.

  The Western Australian (WA) State election on 26 February has not brought an immediate change in the total number of women in Australian parliaments, although a Labor woman, Judy Hughes, was elected in the seat of Kingsley, previously held by Cheryl Edwardes for the Liberal Party. This continues the trend of a widening gap between the number of Labour and Liberal women in Australian parliaments.

  The WA Legislative Council changes are not reflected here, because the new Council members do not take their seats until 22 May (however on that date women will increase their representation from 11 to 14 members of the 34-member House). The following table covers all of Australia's nine parliaments but includes only those parties that have more than one member of parliament.

  With the turnover to newly-elected Senators on 1 July 2005, women will increase their representation in the Senate from 22 to 27 (28.9% to 35.5%).

  Composition of Australian Parliaments by Party and Gender 23 March 2005*

  	Male	Female	% Female
  Labor	276	149	35.1
  Liberal	195	49	20.1
  Nationals	55	9	14.1
  Country Liberal	9	3	25.0
  Democrats	7	4	36.4
  Greens	8	8	50.0
  One Nation	3	1	25.0
  Independent	28	13	31.7
  Other	7	0	0.0
  TOTAL	588	236	28.6

        *Source: Commonwealth Parliamentary Library

A full breakdown (by Parliament) of gender representation can be found at the Parliamentary Library's web site, here

• The Federal Parliamentary Library has recently produced a number of interesting election-related Research Briefs.

  -          No. 5 – Political advertising in Australia, by Dr Sarah Miskin and Dr Richard Grant

  -          No. 11 – Federal election results 1949-2004, by Gerard Newman

  -          No. 13 – A comprehensive account of the Commonwealth Election 2004 by Scott Bennett, Gerard Newman and Andrew Kopras.

   

• Press Council decision - the Australian Press Council has viewed an article published by The Herald Sun in August 2004 as ‘irresponsible journalism’.  The Council’s decision can be viewed here.  The article, ‘Greens back illegal drugs’, was critical of Greens Party policies in the lead-up to last year’s Federal election.  Following publication of the article, Senator Bob Brown lodged a complaint with the Press Council.  The Council’s decision has been appealed by the newspaper.  This incident brings into focus the role of the media, particularly in the critical period in the lead-up to an election.  A Sydney Morning Herald article by Alan Ramsey on this issue can be viewed here.

• FOI in UK at last!

  
  The UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 came into force on 1 January 2005. The UK has been very slow to introduce FOI compared with other Western democracies, but  has included positive steps such as having an independent Information Commissioner's office to hear appeals and deciding that most requests will be free. There will not be an application fee or charges for processing, unless the request takes more than three and a half days.  Our Commonwealth Freedom of Information Act 1982 imposes an application fee, even for personal information and, in addition, high charges are often quoted for processing non-personal requests. It will be interesting to see to what extent FOI will change the secretive traditions of the UK government.

  
   

  In Australia there was another setback to FOI in December 2004 with a decision by the AAT to uphold the 'conclusive certificate' issued by the federal Treasurer blocking FOI access to reports from the Tax Office and Treasury about the effects of bracket creep on taxpayers. This decision is being appealed to the Federal Court by News Ltd.

  
   

  Michael McKinnon of the Australian, who made the FOI request, is the leading journalistic exponent of its use. Most journalists are discouraged by the difficulty of obtaining access to policy relevant documents and the many blanket exemptions. Exorbitant charges (apart from the application fee) are also often quoted, based on inflated estimates of the time it will take to process the request. In an address to the Press Council in 2003 News Ltd CEO John Hartigan cited an example where government quoted fees of $605,284 for a single application, which after negotiation was reduced to $284 (see Jack R Herman, 'The Urgent Need for Reform of Freedom of Information in Australia', 21 August 2004 here

  By the way, Sweden has had FOI legislation since the eighteenth century.  The Freedom of Press and the Right of Access to Public Records Act 1766 gave citizens the right of access to all government-held documents - free of charge.  In the same year another Swedish Act established the world's first parliamentary ombudsman.

  Australian Financial Review, 21 January 2005 - Senator Eric Abetz, Special Minister of State, is announcing at a Young Liberals' conference in Hobart this weekend the government's plans to close the electoral roll on the day that federal elections are called, rather than allowing a week for new enrolments or changes to enrolment. This change to the Electoral Act was rejected by the Senate in 2004, on the grounds that it would disenfranchise many young voters in particular, but the government will have a majority in the Senate from 1 July 2005. In 2004 there were 78,816 new enrolments in the week after the election was called, apart from the many change of enrolments.
   

  Senator Abetz has also announced the government will also amend the Electoral Act to disenfranchise all prisoners, rather than those serving sentences of more than three years, the change that was introduced in 2004. For articles on prisoner disenfranchisement see: http://democratic.audit.anu.edu.au/Elections.htm

   

• Jeremy Bentham on felon disenfranchisement (Election Code, 1830): 'But the most mischievous among criminals, adjudged and denominated such after legal conviction, could not set his foot in either House without finding himself in  company with men in numbers - not to say in a vast majority - more mischievous than himself: men whose principal differences from himself consist in impunity derived from situation and confederacy - in impunity added to greater mischievousness: men whose mischievousness was acting on the largest scale, while his was acting on a petty scale. Exclude criminals? How will you exclude criminals?'

   

   

• Youth Disengagement from the Political Process: Murray Print of the University of Sydney and Larry Saha of the Australian National University have been engaged in a four-year study with the Australian Electoral Commission to determine why youth do not register on the electoral roll, despite compulsory enrolment. The first report from this study is now available on the AEC website. The study is based on a national survey of year 12 students covering about 200 schools, together with focus groups conducted in 16 federal electoral divisions. It has found that while youth were interested in political issues they thought that voting was boring and a hassle and that politicians were not to be trusted. There was a significant gender difference in attitudes, with young women more likely to enrol than young men, more likely to say they will vote and more likely to say they will vote even if it were not compulsory. However only half of all students surveyed said they would vote if it were not compulsory.

            Source: AEC Report

• On Thursday 9 December 2004, Senator Bob Brown gave the second reading speech on his Private Senator’s Bill designed to amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. The Bill addresses some of the democratic issues associated with Senate ticket voting. These issues have been highlighted in previous Democratic Audit discussion papers by Peter Brent (PDF) and Marian Sawer (PDF). The text of Senator Brown’s speech as recorded in Hansard is reproduced here (PDF).

• On Thursday 2 December 2004 Democratic Audit Project Manager, Dr Brett Bowden met with Ms Shazia Rafi, Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA). Founded in 1978-9, PGA is a New York based organisation that works to link individual legislators (over 1350 legislators from 110 parliaments) across borders and party lines, with the goal of strengthening their capacity to pursue global issues such as fostering democracy, conflict prevention and management, international law and human rights, population and sustainable development.

  

  Parliamentarians for Global Action Secretary-General, Ms Shazia Rafi and the Democratic Audit of Australia's Project Manager, Dr Brett Bowden

• The NSW ALP will set up a taskforce on election campaign funding (The Australian 5 November 2004). It will examine the option of a ban on corporate donations, something canvassed by the Democratic Audit and already implemented in Canada and other democracies. Australian political parties are now heavily reliant on large corporate donations, a major issue for Australian democracy.

• Decline in women's representation in the House of Representatives for the first time since 1980. The following graph shows women as a percentage of all MPs, women as a percentage of Labor MPs, and women as a percentage of Liberal MPs.

  Australia has slipped a long way since 1903, when Australian women became the first in the world to stand as candidates for their national parliament. Four did so then, including Vida Goldstein for the Senate and  25 year-old Selina Anderson for the House of Representatives, both of whom attracted considerable support.

  A hundred years later Australia had definitely lost its leading edge. At the end of  2004 Australia was ranked in 23rd place for representation of women in the national parliament (lower house), ranking immediately below Bulgaria, East Timor, Turkmenistan and Namibia. <http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm>