Ban political advertising

i think all advertising is an issue really. we are bombarded on all sides by messages designed to alter our thinking

Well, that's true but advertising is fundamental to business. In order to regulate advertising effectively, we need a healthy democracy, therefore a democracy dependent on advertising to communicate it's policies is doomed to fail :)

as a proponent of direct democracy as opposed to westminster representative democracy, i dont see a need for politicians or advertising in a new system.

democracy is not really what we have when we trust someone else to make decisions for us.

but thats a bit off track, sorry!

Things are the way they are for a reason. I don't think it's realistic to expect a complete abolition of politicians or a complete restructuring of how we fundamentally govern our country (just the same as I don't think my Libertarian friend has any realistic chance of reducing the government to a skeleton crew while we all fight it out amongst ourselves for available resources).

But having a more engaged populous, a more educated populous, and a government policy communication channel focused less on persuasion and more on education is certainly achievable I think, and my opinion is that it starts with a move away from traditional advertising use by government for policy communication.

What I'm imagining, for example, are policy communication centres, websites, hotlines and email lists, that people can go to (regardless of their level of technology savvy or intelligence) to discuss political issues with non-partisan public servants.

I think people will willingly find out more about government policy if it's not such an alienating and opaque experience.

things are the way they are because those who are in power profit from that.
to make changes but to continue to allow them that profit is madness.

im interested to hear more of your concepts however, even though i disagree with them so far.

how do you stop back room deals? how do you prevent former corporates from controlling the outcomes?

"How do you stop back room deals?"

Reduce corruption. You reduce corruption by reducing the incentive to be corrupt. You reduce the incentive to be corrupt by reducing the need for finances in order to run a campaign.

You also increase transparency, and increase awareness of political decisions amongst the public by educating them about a broader range of policy issues.

We already have a system in place that should punish people for corrupt behaviour, but we have a dysfunctional system of policy communication and a dysfunctional system for the dissemination of information (ie. "the news").

"how do you prevent former corporates from controlling the outcomes?"

The reason former corporates do well in governments is specifically because they are seen as good contacts for lobbying by corporate interests seeking to pervert the democratic process.

Lobbying works because politicians need money from companies in order to fund their campaigns.

If you remove that need, you remove the power that lobbyists have in the first place.

Things are the way they are because of thousands of years of gradual change. You can't change a system violently, and we need to be patient and pragmatic.

Evolution, not revolution.

no one said anything about violent revolution. i completely agree with patience and pragmatism. im also one of those crazy nuts who thinks that even if we developed a whole new system to use, it would still need to start a party and run at elections to gain a mandate for change
just seems crazy to spend 400 years failing at something, and then continuing to try to fix it instead of looking at different ways to do that task.

you raise some good points, but how would you change the current dysfunction. all of these safeguards are supposed to be in place already?

the players already know how this game works? they are bypassing those safeguards right now.
even ICAC isnt stopping them

how do you make that more solid? how can you make things less corruptible, while maintaining the same system?

I was using the term violent to mean sudden, my mistake. I didn't really mean violence as in blood running in the streets.

I think that a really good place to start is holding politicians more to account for what they're already supposed to be doing.

If people understood more about what the government was doing, then they would vote more effectively. They would also take part more in between elections and have a more open dialogue with their local member.

Have you ever written to your local member? It's demoralising. You get back a form letter with the party line in it. A pamphlet. It's bullshit. There is no reward for people getting involved in politics because politicians are horrible communicators, but "calling your local member", reading the paper or watching question time is currently the only way to get involved between elections.

As it is now we have a government that declares we "must get back to surplus because debt is bad", but the reality is that a government being in debt isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's quite a complex issue, but the national budget is not the same as the household budget. That's just one example but it's a pretty big one: if you get into a political discussion with someone about the budget, their opinion largely sounds like a today/tonight headline. "Bloody labor and their debt!! Those bastards".

It's too easy to distract people with simple slogans at the moment, because they're not used to really understanding what's going on.

Increasing understanding and awareness and reducing dependence on simple slogans and traditional "advertising style" policy communication is the key to change I think.

its a good starting place no matter what the end goal is. i look forward to seeing what else comes out of this topic.

Sorry for the late reply. I can see both points of views. One is short term fix about banning advertising, the other a long term aspiration. I think both are valid. I am too realistic to say that we achieve our aspirations in one step. So the short-term fix might just be a step into the right direction.

I think there are several interrelated issues to achieve banning advertising.
1. Parties don't need to disclose their accounts (at least I am only aware that this pertains to donations). If they would have their accounts audited and made publicly available like Corporations that would increase transparency. To avoid falsifications the auditor would have to be an independent person selected possibly by the Governor General and be someone different every year. This audit could include the full list of advertising costs, donations etc. Of course this needs legislating and the only way we could get this to happen is via Get up or Change.org.

1. Parties cost a lot of money to exist themselves e.g. membership recruitment, events etc. With party member numbers declining this poses a challenge for them to operate if they don't get external funding. Just like any other organisation, getting donations or other funding and making deals is what keeps them going in the first place.

2. People apathy is not just due to the political system. Politics simply goes over people's head as most see it as too complex and confusing...people just like their comfort zone. So the bite size slogans suits them fine. People like you and me are in the minority still. This is partially due to personal development, education, life circumstances, experiences and consciousness or a persons level of mindset complexity. The majority of people at any given time have a mindset that needs guidance. We need to lift people into a mindset for problem solving. Education has a big role to play in this. Personally I think education is the number one issue that we must address, both from a funding and a curriculum perspective, if we want to see change in the future. In the present, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, mainly because the dog must be willing.

3. the above is also the reason why the policy development with the general public will only create a certain view. In a sense you get another minority to have a say what policy should be.

I see as a way forward the push for more transparency both in policy development, party funding and advertising campaigns. The only way I can think of it is a start for the Federal Elections with a push through some of the online activist groups. Like minded people are on it and might follow and support such a push. What do you think?