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Events in 2007
Strengthening government and parliament in Victoria
The Victorian parliament’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) is conducting an inquiry into strengthening parliamentary accountability. Some interesting submissions to the inquiry have been made, which are now available from the PAEC website.Accountability Round Table, Victorian Parliament, 9 July 2007
Marian Sawer participated in the Round Table on Strengthening Accountability held in the Victorian Parliament on 9 July and organised by the Australasian Study of Parliament Group. The Audit's submission to the Victorian Public Accounts and Estimates Committee inquiry into strengthening accountability is available here.
Sydney Democratic Forum, 29 June 2007
Phil Larkin participated in an event held on the Democratic Deficit in Australia by the Sydney Democratic Forum at the University of Sydney on 29 June 2007. He spoke on ‘Parliament and the Democratic Deficit: Cause and Cure?’
Audit meets with LCARC 29 March 2007 Audit members met with the Legal, Constitutional and Administrative Committee of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland on 29 March. There was wide-ranging discussion of current electoral issues such as early closure of the roll, informal voting and youth disengagement and other matters such as Freedom of Information. Audit team members L to R Norm Abjorensen, Marian Sawer, Norm Kelly, Peter Brent. Click for larger picture. |
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Political Finance Reform Workshop, Parliament House,
NSW, 6 March 2007
A workshop on political finance reform was held at Parliament House,
Sydney, on 6 March 2007. Organised by Dr Joo-Cheong Tham (University of
Melbourne and co-author of the Audit Report Political Finance in Australia)
and Bryan Mercurio (Gilbert & Tobin Centre, UNSW), the session was
attended by academics, politicians and policy-makers. Issues under discussion
included disclosure thresholds and tax deductibility for donations, private
vs public funding of parties, government advertising, timeliness of donation
disclosures, parliamentary entitlements, and the influence of money at
the local government level.
Developments from this workshop will be reported by the Audit, in line
with our aim of promoting debate on democracy issues.
Pamela Denoon Lecture, ANU, Canberra, 7 March 2007 Some 300 people attended this year's Pamela Denoon Lecture given by Sarah Maddison on the topic 'All for nothing? The women's movement and gender equality in Australian democracy'. It was based on the just-released Audit Report by Maddison and Emma Partridge, How well is Australian democracy serving Australian women? |
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| Pictured above right: Emma Partridge and Sarah Maddison; and the audience Click either for larger picture. | ||
IDEA Workshop on State of Democracy Methodology and Handbook Update, Stockholm, 7 - 8 March 2007
Representatives of the Argentine, Australian, Bosnian, British, Dutch, Latvian, Mongolian, New Zealand and South Asian Audits met together with representatives of IDEA, UNDP, AfriMap and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to work through proposed changes to the State of Democracy Assessment Handbook. The Australian input will lead to a stronger section on the democratic roles of parliament but we also learnt a lot from the experience of other audits. The Latvian Audit asked survey respondents whether they had paid bribes to various officials and found over a quarter had paid bribes to police (including over a third of men). Two pictures below; click picture for larger version.
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| L to R, Todd Landman, Stuart Weir and David Beetham leading workshop discussion. larger picture | Paul Guerin (IDEA), Marian Sawer (Democratic Audit of Australia), Jim Bewsher (Westminster Foundation for Democracy) larger picture |
- Go to events in 2006