SLAPP: a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence until they abandon their criticism or opposition. Such lawsuits have been made illegal in many jurisdictions on the grounds that they impede freedom of speech.
— Wiktionary
It’s all happening to charities: Australian Tax Office (ATO) audits, investigations by the charity regulator and the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), and new laws slated for early next month to stymie tax deductibility, contain advocacy and ban or restrict foreign donations. Many in the not-for-profit sector are scared to speak out for fear of reprisal.
Left-wing activist group GetUp went before the Senate inquiry into political donations last week and pulled out a report detailing the vast amount of money that is spent buying influence in Australian politics.
I should declare an interest here: yours truly did the research, which found 18 corporate lobby groups had raised $1.9 billion over the past three years.
These are vast sums, yet they only represent a few of the most powerful advocacy groups in a handful of sectors: banking, mining, property and big pharma. There must be 100 more. And, together with an estimated $1 billion in corporate political donations since 1998, the “revolving doors” between industry and government, and the hundreds of millions spent by individual companies on “in-house” government relations and external consultants, the real numbers involved in swaying politicians must be well north of $1 billion a year, or more than $4 million per federal politician, per year.
There is already a dangerous imbalance between corporate political power and people’s political power in this country.
In her new autobiography, Christine Milne: An Activist Life, the former Greens leader warns of the shift from democracy to plutocracy. “The takeover is almost complete … The rush toward the revolving door between business and politics has become a stampede. Of the 538 lobbyists registered by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 2016, 191 were former government representatives,” wrote Milne.
The farmer, and veteran of death threats, jail time and arrests as an activist, describes the hegemony of corporate influence as a “major factor in the disillusionment with politicians and democracy”.
Meanwhile, the government is slapping down its ideological adversaries with Tax Office audits and investigations by the AEC and charities regulator, the Australian Charities & Not-for-Profits Commission (ACNC).
Draft legislation is prepared and a bill is tipped to come before parliament in the final sitting week of this year. There are serious implications for democracy and free speech.
One one of the main planks of this “reform” is expected to be a ban on foreign donations. It is mostly designed to hit environmental groups such as Greenpeace, 350.org, Lock the Gate and the Australian Conservation Foundation but will also affect those charities working with Indigenous people, poor people, sick people and medical research.
If the bill gets up — and this may depend on what deal is dangled in front of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, given the government is no longer in majority in parliament — it may see off foreign donations and tax deductibility.
Such would leave an unlevel playing field. Membership to corporate peak bodies such as the Business Council of Australia and the Minerals Council of Australia is tax deductible. Like the charities and NFPs, they pay no tax, but their funding is enormous.
Keen to contain the influence of environmental groups whose message flourishes on social media, the Minerals Council has been the chief urger in lobbying for the government crackdown on NFP advocacy.
More pertinently, while the government moves against foreign donations for environmental and other civil society groups, the corporate lobby remains untouched. The question should be asked, is this fair? The Minerals Council, its state affiliates and the oil and gas peak body, Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), have raised more than half a billion dollars for advocacy over the past 11 years …
*Read the rest of this article at michaelwest.com.au
Thankyou, Michael – powerful stuff. It seems it’s not just those evil Islamic terrorists who hate us for our democratic freedoms!
Even in pygmy economies like South Australia’s, the numbers are alarming. A recent report in Murdoch’s Adelaide Advertiser (hidden away on p54 in the Business section, to be read only by approving eyes) stated that more than 450 companies employed a registered lobbyist in SA, using 65 companies, many of them employing ex-political hacks.
Economically, the cost of this is distorting our economy from more useful services. Politically, of course, it means our representative democracy is dead. Representative democracy is a very weak form of democracy, and can be considered democracy only if the people who are elected represent the interest of the voters who elected them. If ‘our’ representatives are instead representing the interests of the corporate plutocrats ahead of ours, then, as Christine Milne so insightfully suggests, we have already lost democracy for plutocracy.
What we need is more democracy and less rule by stealth. But when only 30% of the electorate vote in none compulsory local government elections and 60% of votes in compulsory elections are most likely donkey votes, we have a problem.
More political action is needed by ordinary Australians otherwise we are going to be in deep trouble. Political corruption appears to be rampant in the USA, and it now appears that the situation is possibly not much different here in Australia. Plus, it is beginning to look as though possibly 30% or more of Australian citizens may be ineligible to serve in Federal Parliament due to their family history, and so are de-facto second-class citizens.
What we need is more democracy and less rule by stealth. But when only 30% of the electorate vote in none compulsory local government elections and 60% of votes in compulsory elections are most likely donkey votes, we have a problem.
More political action is needed by ordinary Australians otherwise we are going to be in deep trouble. Political corruption appears to be rampant in the USA, and it now appears that the situation is possibly not much different here in Australia. Plus, it is beginning to look as though possibly 30% or more of Australian citizens may be ineligible to serve in Federal Parliament due to their family history.
A clear reading of the Constitution suggests that (a) parties are not recognised and (2) it is an offence for an MP to vote other than in the best interests of their constituents.
How lobbyists are allowed with cattle prod range of the political hacks, apparatchiks and timer servers is beyond me.
Almost as if they are not considered to be noxious vermin.
I do believe companies win government contracts by being dodgy. As Serco’s contracts grew, now worth more than $1.5 billion, its auditors managed to change it into a non-reporting entity. Max Employment was another whose contracts grew after it had to pay back more than $41 million in false claims. That said, many charities are dodgy too, just disguised marketing tools for businesses. Will they get caught by these reforms? I bet not.