Power and Democracy in Australia
Everyone should read this article by Tim Dunlop, one of my favourite political bloggers: http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/2006/07/17/power-walking/
It covers a lot of issues, but it sums up brilliantly not just what's wrong with the Howard Government (yes, I go on about that a lot on here, deal with it) but what is wrong with the way in which the Government have begun dismantling the way our democracy is supposed to work. He documents quite succinctly just how the Government have gone about this, by describing how a number of major policies (eg. workchoices; media ownership legislation; changes to electoral law) deliberately transfer power into the hands of a few.
I've cut/pasted a few of my favourite paragraphs below, mostly for my own reference.
All governments want to stay in power and will use the advantages of incumbency to that end. But I think there is an argument that with the current government it goes further than that. What you notice with the Howard Government is not just an attempt to hold onto power in its own right, but to push power in a particular direction, away from the what we might call the democratic base of society - ordinary people - and towards an elite. There is nothing new in this, obviously, but the Howard government are very good at manipulating the media - and are blessed with a media that tends to be compliant and on-side anyway - so it doesn’t hurt to occasionally take stock of what is going on.
Under Mr Howard, power has been assisted upward. Our democracy is being power walked into the hands of the few. This has been apparent on a symbolic level - most obviously with their preference for the Monarchy, where even so-called Liberal Republicans were dead against a popularly elected President - as well on the most basic and practical level of everyday work, where, for example, the new IR laws have, in an unprecedented way, handed nearly all power in the workplace to employers; in fact, where they have criminalised aspects of the relationship between workers and employers, such as collective negotiation, right down to the level of outlawing union involvement in occupational health and safety.
[...]
The other aspect of these electoral changes is, of course, the increase in the amount of money people (corporations) can donate to political parties without having to reveal they are doing it. This is a breathtaking development, and flies in the face of virtually everything we know about how to maintain a transparent political system. That donations of up to $10,000 can be made anonymously is scandalous and an invitation to corruption.
[...]
The Howard Government’s concentration of power has been successful, and largely invisible, in part because it has been done behind a screen of propaganda that has redefined the word “elite” to apply to some ill-defined group of academics and “lefties” or other “cultural dieticians” who apparently rule the nation by the shrewd deployment of “political correctness”.
The ludicrousness of this argument doesn’t limit its effectiveness.
Under such disguise, Kerry Packer is recast as an ordinary Australian who was so down-to-earth he would’ve, we are solemnly told, been embarrassed at the all the fuss people made about him at his State-funded memorial service, while some dude who teaches post-structuralist English literature at an underfunded public high school is revealed as an ongoing threat to “Australian values”. So a man who controlled one of the largest media organisation in the country and who was personally, by an order of magnitude, the richest person in the country, who was known to have a “hotline” through to the PM’s office as well as a weekly(ish) meeting with Mr Howard, is lauded as an “ordinary Australian”, while academics on diminishing salaries, and people who might occasionally watch a movie with subtitles, are mocked as “elites”.
[...]
Let me stress again, I have no problem with governments governing. Sure, I’ll whinge about policies I don’t like and push back against them; we’re allowed to do that in a democracy, after all. But what I’ve briefly outlined here is not just a matter of a difference of opinion over particular policies. It is an attempt to identify a deliberate trend away from dispersed, democratic power and towards the concentration of all the power that matters into the hands of a tiny elite within the political class, the media and business more generally.
On any objective reading of the facts, what emerges is a government that wants to perpetuate its worldview, not by winning the arguments on their merits, but by stifling dissent, rigging institutions, and concentrating power in the hands of a them-friendly elite.
It covers a lot of issues, but it sums up brilliantly not just what's wrong with the Howard Government (yes, I go on about that a lot on here, deal with it) but what is wrong with the way in which the Government have begun dismantling the way our democracy is supposed to work. He documents quite succinctly just how the Government have gone about this, by describing how a number of major policies (eg. workchoices; media ownership legislation; changes to electoral law) deliberately transfer power into the hands of a few.
I've cut/pasted a few of my favourite paragraphs below, mostly for my own reference.
All governments want to stay in power and will use the advantages of incumbency to that end. But I think there is an argument that with the current government it goes further than that. What you notice with the Howard Government is not just an attempt to hold onto power in its own right, but to push power in a particular direction, away from the what we might call the democratic base of society - ordinary people - and towards an elite. There is nothing new in this, obviously, but the Howard government are very good at manipulating the media - and are blessed with a media that tends to be compliant and on-side anyway - so it doesn’t hurt to occasionally take stock of what is going on.
Under Mr Howard, power has been assisted upward. Our democracy is being power walked into the hands of the few. This has been apparent on a symbolic level - most obviously with their preference for the Monarchy, where even so-called Liberal Republicans were dead against a popularly elected President - as well on the most basic and practical level of everyday work, where, for example, the new IR laws have, in an unprecedented way, handed nearly all power in the workplace to employers; in fact, where they have criminalised aspects of the relationship between workers and employers, such as collective negotiation, right down to the level of outlawing union involvement in occupational health and safety.
[...]
The other aspect of these electoral changes is, of course, the increase in the amount of money people (corporations) can donate to political parties without having to reveal they are doing it. This is a breathtaking development, and flies in the face of virtually everything we know about how to maintain a transparent political system. That donations of up to $10,000 can be made anonymously is scandalous and an invitation to corruption.
[...]
The Howard Government’s concentration of power has been successful, and largely invisible, in part because it has been done behind a screen of propaganda that has redefined the word “elite” to apply to some ill-defined group of academics and “lefties” or other “cultural dieticians” who apparently rule the nation by the shrewd deployment of “political correctness”.
The ludicrousness of this argument doesn’t limit its effectiveness.
Under such disguise, Kerry Packer is recast as an ordinary Australian who was so down-to-earth he would’ve, we are solemnly told, been embarrassed at the all the fuss people made about him at his State-funded memorial service, while some dude who teaches post-structuralist English literature at an underfunded public high school is revealed as an ongoing threat to “Australian values”. So a man who controlled one of the largest media organisation in the country and who was personally, by an order of magnitude, the richest person in the country, who was known to have a “hotline” through to the PM’s office as well as a weekly(ish) meeting with Mr Howard, is lauded as an “ordinary Australian”, while academics on diminishing salaries, and people who might occasionally watch a movie with subtitles, are mocked as “elites”.
[...]
Let me stress again, I have no problem with governments governing. Sure, I’ll whinge about policies I don’t like and push back against them; we’re allowed to do that in a democracy, after all. But what I’ve briefly outlined here is not just a matter of a difference of opinion over particular policies. It is an attempt to identify a deliberate trend away from dispersed, democratic power and towards the concentration of all the power that matters into the hands of a tiny elite within the political class, the media and business more generally.
On any objective reading of the facts, what emerges is a government that wants to perpetuate its worldview, not by winning the arguments on their merits, but by stifling dissent, rigging institutions, and concentrating power in the hands of a them-friendly elite.