Terrorism and the democratic response: a tribute to the European Court of Human Rights    (published: 11/2004)

posted: 1/11/2004

Author(s): Michael Kirby (High Court of Australia) Category: - Breaking news/external links; Rights download On Thursday 11 November 2004, the Hon Justice Michael Kirby AC CMG, Justice of the High Court of Australia, delivered at the ANU the National Europe Centre’s annual Robert Schuman Lecture for 2004. Titled ‘Terrorism & The Democratic Response: A tribute to the European Court of Human Rights’, Justice Kirby has kindly made the lecture available to the Democratic Audit.

Wasted votes? Informal voting and the 2004 election    (published: 11/2004)

posted: 3/11/2004

Author(s): Sally Young (University of Melbourne) Category: Electoral; - Audit paper download Money has become central to the process of political communication in Australia. Australian politicians believe that TV advertising and direct mail are key means of persuading citizens and winning votes. This paper argues that incumbents are now being given massive advantages in their ability to afford these favoured method of political communication through government advertising and parliamentary entitlements.

Level democratic playing field—You must be joking    (published: 11/2004)

posted: 12/11/2004

Author(s): Peter Andren (Independent Federal Member for Calare) Category: Incumbency benefits; Political Finance/Govt Advertising; - Audit paper download Peter Andren, the Independent Member of Parliament for Calare, offers a critique of the advantages of incumbency at election time, taking particular aim at the use and abuse of parliamentary 'entitlements'. He also puts forward some thought-provoking proposals for reform.

Senate voting - speech to the Senate    (published: 11/2004)

posted: 14/11/2004

Author(s): Bob Brown ((Leader of Australian Greens)) Category: Electoral; - Breaking news/external links      (pages: 3)   download 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 and Marian Sawer. The text of Senator Brown’s speech as recorded in Hansard is reproduced here.

The role of the media in the public disclosure of electoral funding    (published: 12/2004)	posted: 1/12/2004
Author(s): Robin Tennant-Wood (Australian National University) Category: Media; Political Finance/Govt Advertising; - Audit paper      (pages: 11)   download Focusing on the issue of transparency and disclosure in party funding, or the seeming lack thereof, Robin Tennant-Wood of the ANU analyses the 'symbiotic relationship' between Australian political parties and the Australian media (PDF).

Determining parliamentary parties—A real status symbol    (published: 12/2004)

posted: 15/12/2004

Author(s): Norm Kelly (Australian National University) Category: Parliament; Parties/Independents; - Audit paper      (pages: 4)   download Norm Kelly, a former Member of the Legislative Council of Western Australia and a soon to be member of the Political Science Program at the Australian National University, looks at the advantages that follow when minor parties achieve parliamentary party status (PDF).

A SLAPP in the face of democracy    (published: 12/2004)	posted: 20/12/2004
Author(s): Sharon Beder (University of Wollongong) Category: Rights; NGOs/participation; - Audit paper      (pages: 3)   download Sharon Beder from the University of Wollongong takes a look at the increasing use of ‘Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation’, or SLAPPs, by corporations against individual citizens and groups for exercising their democratic rights (PDF).

The independence of statutory bodies

posted: 1/01/2005

Author(s): () Category: Public service/statutory bodies; Accountability; - Breaking news/external links http link Implementation of the recommendations of the Uhrig Report may be proceeding slowly but it threatens to damage the autonomy of the statutory bodies from Government and so effectively undermine their purpose. Whilst the stated aims of the Report are to improve the accountability of these bodies, this is to be achieved by strengthening the control of the Government over their operations, with little attention paid to the role of Parliamentary oversight. The Uhrig Report is discussed in more detail in a paper by Roger Wettenhall. The Parliamentary Library has produced a briefing paper on the report: briefing paper on the report

Audit values: Reflecting the complexity of representative democracy    (published: 1/2005)

posted: 1/01/2005

Author(s): Marian Sawer (Australian National University) Category: ; - Audit paper download Marian Sawer considers the two principles inspiring the international democratic audit framework - (1) popular control over decision-making and (2) political equality in the exercise of that control. There are good reasons to add (3) human rights/civil liberties and (4) deliberative democracy, to highlight the tensions experienced in many western democracies with the rise of populism. Majoritarian interpretations of popular control and political equality are competing with other values associated with representative democracies, as seen in the recent Norwegian audit.

Report no. 4: Australian political parties in the spotlight    (published: 1/2005)

posted: 1/01/2005

Author(s): Brett Bowden (Australian National University), Peter Brent (Australian National University), Dean Jaensch (Flinders University) Category: Focussed Audits; Parties/Independents download Among key concerns identified by the authors, the focussed audit of Australia's major political parties draws attention to the lack of transparency in party funding, and the troublesome issue of internal party democracy.

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