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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Australian Politics
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Please elaborate.
Well, as I said above…
The bill seeks to make it harder for billionaires to buy elections.
It is a fantastic bill that makes it harder for the rich to steal elections. That’s why this literal coal baron (Australia’s Trump) hates the bill:
Yeah, right. Regular Australians harmed by an $800k spending limit. Ridiculous.
You don't see how it's beneficial to the big parties and very harmful to independents to have parties be able to amortise their advertising spend across all the seats they're running in, where an independent candidate is stuck at the limit for a single seat?
But more to the point: you don't think it's problematic to be trying to rush through the legislation without giving it time to undergo proper rigorous scrutiny? Even if its goals are just, if the method by which it's being achieved is not transparent, how can we trust their intentions? Especially if both Labor and the LNP are on board. That is what's ridiculous.
It occurs to me that your response is identical to that of the evil billionaire Clive Palmer.
Hey so there's this idea people sometimes react with that if someone who is stupid or evil or whatever has some idea, then the opposite of that idea must be a good idea.
This is not a good way to think. While if you find yourself on the same side of an issue as your political enemies you should probably reflect over whether you're being manipulated it is not necessarily true that you are.
Clive Palmer opposes this bill sure, he says for various reasons. That doesn't mean those reasons are bad reasons to oppose the bill, or that the bill is good. LibLab are using the threat of billionaires interferring in elections to try push this through, if they are so confident it is a good bill why are they rushing it through and why do they both agree with it?
It is worth examining how this bill will function and whether the good bits are worth the side effects. LibLab are not champions of democracy, they fucking hate it lmao and they have enormous contempt for the public and minor parties so we should not assume they think this bill will lead to a better democracy.
A classic example: Rudd's climate policy. The LNP opposed it because they're climate change deniers. The Greens opposed it because Treasury modelling indicated it wouldn't have any effect for a quarter century, so even now 6 Prime Ministerships later it still would be a decade off having any effect. And the ratchet mechanism would require paying polluters if we upgraded to better climate policy in the future.
Labor wanted (and today still wants) you to think the Greens are to blame for stalling progress and "siding with the LNP". But pushing for good change in the face of bad change is not the same as saying no change at all is the best.
Side note, I applaud your patience and the eloquence of your response here. Frankly I had written off our interlocutor @yeahiknow3@lemmings.world as a Labor/LNP diehard because everything you said in this comment was...so obvious to me I just assumed not thinking that way must be the work of someone discoursing in bad faith. Especially in light of the way the video linked and my own comments discussing it were framed.
Hey that's nice to say. I saw how much they were replying and assumed they cared, there's also a certain amount of theatre in online discourse. While it's nice to imagine that when you write to someone you could change their mind the reality is that is unlikely, however spectators who are less involved might. I care a lot about democracy, I want good discourse on measures I see as antidemocratic. I don't think parliament will ever implement democracy, but it sure as hell could make it a lot harder to at a future date.
Fair enough. Thank you for the explanation! I’m not from Australia and I could only dream to have a bill like this in the US.
I don't want to spruke the australian government (frankly I find it fucking infuriating when people dismiss criticisms of this society by going "Yeah but at least we're not the USA) however our parliaments function quite differently. I would not exactly call them democratic but they are closer to a democracy than the government you are likely familiar with. Unfortunately we don't have multimember seats in the lower house so you have completely disgusting stuff like the greens getting ~18% of the popular vote but only having like 1/151 seats. I'm sure you can relate to that sort of frustration.
Recently, particularly in the senate which does have multimember seats, minor party influence has been growing. LibLab fucking hate this, so goddamned much. They have pushed through a series of electoral reforms (some decent I will give them that) with the goal of restricting the influence of minor parties. A recent one which disgusts me is requiring a degree of membership in order to run on the ballot as a party and not independents which would require something like running in 6 or 7 seats (keep in mind there are 151 seats overall, that's a large number) before the members:seats ratio approached the current members:seats ratio of labor. A party with a like 120 year history that runs everywhere.
That's a completely absurd requirement that absolutely scuttles the ability of an interest group representing say an area of a city from running as a clearly identifiable party.
I am deeply sceptical of their reforms for reasons like this.
At the 2022 election the Greens actually received 12.25% of the popular vote, and won 4 seats. That's 2.6% of seats, so still a pretty awful under-representation. And after the Qld State election last month I'm very worried that they're going to drop back down to 1.
I am exposed as a hack and a fraud.
Did you even read the link they posted? This is pretty bloody convincing evidence, researched by an independent and trustworthy body not influenced by fuckos like Palmer:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/new-polling-reveals-overwhelming-opposition-to-rushing-through-political-donation-laws/
I see, I see. But isn’t everyone in agreement that political campaigns should be publicly funded? What is there to be upset about?
Would it be a good bill if donations were banned but only the two major parties get public funding?
I don’t believe the bill is doing that, but yes. I’d sacrifice my left nut to get money out of politics.
Have you not watched any news on American politics? A two-party system is a cancer to freedom and democracy. All we would be doing is trading one problem, for another much larger problem. The major parties are terrified of the rise of minor parties in the last ~15 years. Neither has held a majority in the Senate since Howard, 2004-2007. That is a good thing.
What you're suggesting is to throw the baby out with the bath water.
You're right the bill does not do that. The point I'm making is that the way in which you remove money from politics is important, not just the removal of it. If the bill essentially removed the ability for any other group to run other than the two major parties then it's not a good bill.
Do you think that donations are the only way of biasing a party or candidate? How many have gone to work for consultants afterwards?
I’m still trying to figure out why people in this thread are defending much, much higher caps on donations.
They're not. We—I—have been very clear.
But that must not come at the expense of transparency and proper procedure, or at the ability for minor parties and independents to be competitive.
There’s no universe in which it makes sense to allow billionaire coal barons to buy elections, for “independent” parties or otherwise. I’m not sure what more there is to discuss.
~~The legislation is being rushed because it’s desperately needed and moneyed interests are already spreading disinformation to infect Australian politics just like they did in the US. For instance, this very video.~~
I was wrong.
There's no universe in which it makes sense to pass a bill in a single sitting week which won't take effect until after the next election regardless without allowing full scrutiny by independent experts. I'm not sure what more there is to discuss.
Seriously, your point of view here is fucking insane. Yes, the stated goals of this bill are laudable. We should be trying to minimise how much influence Palmer can have over politics. But not at the expense of minor parties and independents and in a way which reinforces the power of the major two parties. Any time a bill is rushed through this quickly, you should always be highly suspicious. You should also be highly suspicious of any bill that the ALP and LNP agree with but which smaller parties like the Greens and independents like Pocock disagree with. Doubly so if over 80% of ALP and LNP's own voters don't trust the process.
Have you even watched the video?
This reply doesn't explain how "she's being dishonest". That's a strong claim. In fact, you're repeating some of the points made in the video.
A bill can have benefits but fail to achieve its stated goals. The fact that this bill could frustrate the influence of rich like Palmer is progress, as mentioned in the video, but the video also interprets apparent issues with those annual limits (individual donations to multiple branches of the same party, caps are annual and reset after elections) raise those limits in practice above those stated - an individual can donate $20,000 a year to branches in each state for each year, effectively raising it to $540,000 per typical election cycle to parties with a nation-wide party structure (e.g. Liberal Party, Labor Party). A cap is good in theory, but that cap is excessively high for large parties, does not adequately address the issues of big money in politics, has a clear bias against small parties (both in the aforementioned points and also in other aspects of the bill), and therefore should not be accepted if this interpretation is correct. (As stated in the video, it's hard to be confident in interpretations since the bill is complex and being rushed through after closed-door discussions.)
For what it's worth, I don't think Palmer themself is really a threat in the grand scheme of things. They're a pathetic waste. I'm far more concerned about the owning class propping up the Liberal Party, who will collectively benefit from this legislation, in fact I'm more concerned about the Labor Party than the UAP.
Many of the parties I voted for are harmed by letting that limit be so high. Most parties are harmed by that limit being so high. And Regular Australians are harmed by the two dominant parties sharing power.
Independents are especially harmed, as they are limited to $800k in total while parties can go to 90 million, according to what you wrote.