Ban political advertising

education is certainly a number one issue in any of this.

crap, I hit enter too soon.
i do see the need for short term fixes.

in my opinion, any system we develop will ened to be elected into a current Westminster system, to facilitate establishment of whatever has been decided is next.

to do that, we definitely need strategiesto even the playing field, or the weight of the big players in the dualistic system we have now will crush our efforts.

this should be looked at within a raneg of measures we support in current Westminster, like review and abolition of referencing, oversight of the AEC

these objectives should run parallel to the development of "what next"

but we still need to be clear about that portion early on. as just changing what have will not allow us a future when so many players are looking to game the system.

Hey Claudia,

Thanks for commenting. I'll reply to your points in-line:

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.

Yes, also as you go, aspirations will change and new opportunities will present themselves. Trying to plan too far ahead is usually a recipe for disappointment in any endeavour.

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.

My opinion of this is that simply adding more legislation would be too easy to circumvent and wouldn't bring about any real change. We'd see people work around it somehow, because fundamentally they still wouldn't be held to account by the people that actually matter (ie. the voters).

It's like the ACCC and Telstra: they are supposed to watch what Telstra do but they are completely unable to do so. Telstra just does whatever the hell it wants, and since no-one really understands how the internet works, they get away with it.

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.

Yes, well parties already get funded based on memership, and I don't think there's any issue with fundraising and campaigning. What we need to do is level the playing field in terms of what they're allowed to do with that money, by way of persuading voters to choose them on the day.

Incidentally I also think we need to extend the scope of reform to media outlets. At the moment we're seeing a push towards PR driven news with less journalistic freedoms, when that is the opposite of what we need.

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.

It's true that apathy is a problem but I disagree that it is the inevitable result of complexity, and that some people are not capable of understanding or engaging with politics.

Rather, I see that political disengagement is the result of disillusionment with the political process, and alienation from it.

People feel marginalised from the political process, as though their vote doesn't really count, that they have no real impact, that their voice doesn't matter because in the end it's just a dog and pony show.

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?

When I read the above and thinking on it more, it seems that the step we need to take before we think about anything to do with more transparency or funding or advertising, or the press or AYTHING like that, is to solve the problem of engagement, of marginalisation and alienation of the political process from everyday people.

It seems as though large scale change would be impossible without less apathy on behalf of the people, and that with less apathy the processes of government that already exist would be energised sufficient to affect real change.

In this sense I think that getup is good; they have a non-partisan (ostensibly) organisation that aims to "keep the bastards honest" but they're still competing in the same media arena as existing political parties and I think they do little to get people more engaged with the existing political processes.

I wonder how we can do that ... I don't really have any ideas off the top of my head but one thought is that we can start by hosting local political discussion groups with a focus on FACT CHECKING rather than POLITICAL DISCOURSE.

That is, the sole aim of the groups is to discuss policy positions of each party, and not to discuss the relative merits of those positions.

We don't want to be seen as advocating one party/position/end of the political spectrum over another, just looking to cut through the bullshit and talk about what the government is really doing, what facts are available and how it differs from what we're seeing in the news cycle.

Cheers,
Iain