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Australia’s status as an open democracy downgraded by The CIVICUS Monitor

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mac_was 7y ago
This is based not on any research, polls, just a group of people decide how is a country by reading newspaper articles. While in some cases a democracy status might really show what is happening in a specific country on the other hand there is bias involved, if we compare that in France we've got constant protests, fighting with Police and it is on the same level as Australia?
- brnt 7y ago
  Its based on human rights watch organisations, not people reading newspapers. Also, democracy does not equal absence of civil unrest. Possibly even the opposite.
  - petermcneeley 7y ago
    "democracy does not equal absence of civil unrest. Possibly even the opposite." This is next level thinking and reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#In_the_military https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#In_the_mil...
    - tpmx 7y ago
      The index it's based on attempts to rank "civic spaces" - not levels of democracy.
  - mac_was 7y ago
    The name implies how these organisations do their work - they watch. And the only way to watch is to read articles, watch TV news, etc. Civil unrest shows that people are unhappy and government is not doing anything, is this democracy? The difference between France and poor countries is if you live in a poor country you fight to survive and have got no energy to protest, in Europe, basic rights (food, vote, etc) are provided and people can protest and then go to supermarkets to get food. So again is French government truly democratic? Should we use the same measures in France, Australia and Kongo?
    - WilTimSon 7y ago
      That is absolutely not the only way to watch. These organisations talk to local activists, assess the court processes in countries, etc.
      - mac_was 7y ago
        While I believe that these organisation do more good than harm I do believe that they are biased in some cases.
    - simion314 7y ago
      Are you implying that protests happening is less democracy? AFAIK there are always a group of people that are not happy about something and they will protests. Teachers are not happy about salaries and they protests, X is not happy abut petrol tax and protest etc. I don't think that the number of protests were used anyway and from what I seen a there are countries like US were people are at most protesting on social media but I never seen major teachers,students,truck drivers,farmers protests in US either so I don't think is correlated if you are a poor country you are too busy to protest.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- rsynnott 7y ago
  Protest is a sign of democracy, really. If you find yourself somewhere where there's never any protest, ever, well, you're probably somewhere very nasty indeed.
  - BLKNSLVR 7y ago
    Queensland is attempting to pass laws as a knee jerk reaction to some of the climate protests that disrupted traffic recently. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/09/queensland-to-fast-track-laws-to-crack-down-on-climate-protesters https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/09/queen... https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-09/extinction-rebellion-protest-brisbane-annastacia-palaszczuk-laws/11585826?pfmredir=sm https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-09/extinction-rebelli...
    - rsynnott 7y ago
      Yeah, I've always had the impression that Australia, or at least its governments, has a disconcerting authoritarian streak that just isn't found to the same level in other western democracies. Possibly impacted by not having a real equivalent to either a US style bill of rights or something like the ECHR.
Fnoord 7y ago
How does this relate to the Democracy Index [1]? In the 2018 version, Australia is a full point ahead to USA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
- ImaCake 7y ago
  This CIVICUS rating has a lot less fidelity. But both seem to be based off surveying political scientists and other experts. I guess it is difficult to quantify something as complex as the "democraticness" of a government. It's somewhat funny that Australia and the UK should be lumped in with the US. Australia's democracy has a ton of features that the US system completely lacks; independent electoral commission, preference voting, an ecosystem of parties that have real power outside the two major parties, parliamentary system instead of presidential, and many more. I think a lot of alarm over recent scandals is just the ongoing tug of war between order and liberty. People who support more liberty or more order are always quick to argue that recent events extrapolate into infinite of whatever they think is bad. Very occasionally they are right, but mostly they are not.
  - thepete2 7y ago
    Yes, that's the problem with reducing all these things to one number.
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    Political science, like all the social sciences these days, has an extreme ideological skew. Consequently, any subjective evaluation of the openness (or any other kind of goodness) of a particular country is going to partially reflect merely the extent to which that country reflects the prevailing ideological skew among the experts doing the evaluation. In the present climate, it's difficult to imagine a well-run democratic country with politics opposite to that which prevails in Western academia receiving a great score no matter how well it's run. Personally, I consider these sorts of studies as just noise. I can't trust any of their methods or conclusions when the researchers are all drawn from an intellectual monoculture that demands constant activism in favor of that monoculture.
- 7y ago
shasheene 7y ago
This refers to the CIVICUS Monitor rankings. See the interactive world map: https://monitor.civicus.org/ https://monitor.civicus.org/
nness 7y ago
Thoroughly depressing.
WilTimSon 7y ago
As I was reading, I was about to pipe up with "oh, prosecuting whistleblowers and intimidating journalists? I hope the US and the UK are in the same boat" but yup, they are, according to the CIVICUS map. I see no reason to disagree. I do have to say I'm surprised that Canada is considered 'open'. I don't know much about their politics, are things really good there on all those points? Also, highly amused by Russia only being 'Repressed', the past few years of news from that place seem anything but democratic.
- mac_was 7y ago
  Very good point, journalists, politicians being murdered but it is repressed...
  - hjek 7y ago
    Well, an MP was murdered in the UK a few years ago, and the current PM is making light of the murder.
- Naga 7y ago
  On Canada, generally yes, it is.
- cryptica 7y ago
  Having lived in Russia for 6 months in the past, it's is not as bad as western media makes it seem. Unlike China, their internet is still open. Also, internet access is much cheaper there than in the west. Politically, people are definitely afraid to speak out against top government figures but there is still some freedom of expression politically but of course not quite at the level of most of the western world. Russia's government is relatively new and people are still getting used to capitalism and democracy. I think people are still in control because they know most of the facts. People are simply more tolerant of their politicians bending the rules. Russians like a strong leader; for most Russian people, this is more important than democracy itself.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
charliebrownau 7y ago
Same enemy in every nation of West and EU Global Left Cabal
ajxs 7y ago
I was hoping that this article was going to be more of an in-depth critique of the poor state of regulatory capture and disruption of democratic institutions by bad actors in the private sector. My local state government ( NSW ) has been steadily growing more ostensibly corrupt over the last decade. I don't think there's many people denying the fact that wealthy business stakeholders get a disproportionate say in legislation and the allocation of public resources at the moment.
- LIV2 7y ago
  I still have no idea why people voted them in again, Everything they do can be found to benefit the developers (like selling waterfront property in Woy Woy for only $40k to a developer, selling the land the powerhouse museum is on to developers, rail corridors etc) It's pretty depressing
  - roenxi 7y ago
    In a sense if that is the major complaint then it makes sense why they are getting relected - developers are taking land and building things people want. There has always been a background level of corruption in construction afaik. Everyone wants it to be a squeaky clean process, but everyone also wants infrastructure; we have high immigration and we need the groundwork laid in Sydney to support population growth. We can argue about whether they are making great long term decisions. They probably aren't. But there is a lot of activity in the right general space; they took political risks with their light rail build up for example. And the recent Federal Labor party has a questionable record at infrastructure projects and it seems unlikely that the NSW branch has a better handle on the situation.
  - jakecopp 7y ago
    Negative gearing and franking credits seem to be more important than absolutely everything else.
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    I see two major issues in politics right now. The first being that Democracy wasn’t ready for social media and the Internet and still isn’t. The second is a major one without an easy solution. It seems we’re always forced to vote for the least worst option. I feel many democracies need to consider alternatives. I think It would be nice to introduce a pre-election poll and first ask voters to decide on whether they’re actually satisfied with the candidates and policies put forth prior to the actual election. Else we just end up with 4 years of no one being happy with the lesser of two evils running the show. This is why people always say “I can’t believe X won”. It’s because there is often no alternative but democracy just plugs on as usual even though no one was really satisfied with their options. I believe it’s also why many major elections of late have been so close, people are just divided. I’d propose that if the voters aren’t ready to proceed with the election, say someone such as the Governor General (in Australia’s case), needs to work with major parties to start another pre-selection round. I’m also interested in the idea that politicians should be “pardoned” by those who elected them before leaving office, ie if major initiatives were not implemented, there should be some accountability for that and maybe some penalties, ie reduced pension. It’s insane to think one can be the leader of a country and not be held accountable for a single thing during a term in office, wow.
RVuRnvbM2e 7y ago
Yeah the current government has been accelerating an authoritarian slide unencumbered by a bill of rights. Neither major party supports such a document and without it you get bullshit like this recent secret trial and imprisonment: https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-21/canberra-prisoner-prompts-secrecy-debate/11726654 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-21/canberra-prisoner-...
- friendlybus 7y ago
  A bill of rights does not protect you against secret trials. Assange's secret indictment is a famous example.
  - Synaesthesia 7y ago
    No those rights need to be enforced and of the government won’t do it, the people have to put pressure on them.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Where is the trial of Assange secret exactly? You can consider his treatment to be unfair but there's been nothing secret about it.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      It will be secret if it ends up somewhere like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#Secret_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... . Given that we don't actually know anything about what happens in the FISA court it is plausible that Snowden will be dragged in there for reasons we are never told. Maybe we never even find out he appeared before the court, who knows. And GP said indictment not trial.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      For a few years he has claimed that the US had a sealed indictment on him in secret it was left unproven until recently when part of it was revealed and then it was confirmed. There's also the case of ladar levison getting a national security letter when his business was FBI'ed for hosting encrypted snowden emails. That letter meant he could not even tell his wife what was happening, including going to court and being generally railroaded by the legal system. His defcon talks on the legal lies he experienced in court are amusing. Being accuses of running from police put the backdoor of 5 story apartment building with no exit for the sake of speeding up proceedings along with his lawyer being bismurched for ties he knew nothing about and copy and paste text in the prosecution's legal docs. I mean the US had Guantanamo, secrecy in the US government has been the norm for a while.
mynameishere 7y ago
It will not surprise you to learn that this organization lists such explicitly oppressive countries as Sweden as "open". https://www.civicus.org/index.php/what-we-do/innovate/civicus-monitor https://www.civicus.org/index.php/what-we-do/innovate/civicu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Sweden a 70-year-old woman was prosecuted for expressing a ‘disparaging view of refugees’ on Facebook where she commented public order disturbances allegedly committed by the migrants...The crime does not prohibit a pertinent and responsible debate...nor statements made in a completely private sphere I like the qualifier at the end. In Sweden you can whisper truth under five layers of bed clothes, as long as you are sure the neighbors are thoroughly snowed-in. So, "open". The posted link appears to be a "leftist journalists alone can control the narrative" pressure group.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  Having laws that protect disadvantaged groups from hate speech is the opposite of being an oppressive country. The fact that these laws are actually enforced is further to be lauded.
- xorcist 7y ago
  > a 70-year-old woman was prosecuted for expressing Should you follow the Wikipedia links using a translator it seems she was investigated by the police, prosecuted, and then cleared in court. That's probably how a democratic society should work. Do also note that the only linked English source is a thin reprint of a right wing news site headquartered in Estonia that conveniently avoids that fact. Keep in mind which sphere of influence that likely falls under.
chvid 7y ago
https://monitor.civicus.org https://monitor.civicus.org According to this map Australia then joins the ranks of the US, the UK, South Africa and Japan. It is a fun map. But honestly it is silly. Australia is an open and functioning democracy, so is the UK or the US for that matter.
- charliebrownau 7y ago
  Just look at all the west AU + NZ + CA + UK + JP + USA We no longer have a proper Right wing pro West Pro Freedom Pro Nation parties All the parties are now LEFT - Liberals/neocons/Libertain/fake right wing Heck what western country doesn't bend over to ISRAELS demands to help the Jewish ethno state before every other nations interest and people The entire Western mainstream has been turned into Global Left wing activism From the 70-80s every western nation has removed local manufacturing to "help India and China" at each nations expense and failing economy Also without free speech actually enforced laws dont mean shit We have Western unis censoring Western mainsteam media censoring Western uni papers censoring Western companies censoring illegal kangaroo trails at western unis What does Trump do - NOTHING more censoring is ramping up since he took office We are heading towards a global Commie authoritarianism group like the EU by 2025-2030 run by the Zionist Jews, central banks and global left
PixyMisa 7y ago
The article doesn't go into any specifics. But I can't say I disagree, unfortunately, with actions like the bipartisan legislation on strong encryption last year. Australia needs to adopt the US Bill of Rights - just cross out "Congress" and write in "Parliament" and be done. It won't stop abuses, but would give a way to fight back.
- senectus1 7y ago
  yeah I dont disagree, but I find it hard to believe that the US has the same rating as Aus... Also, is it just me or is that map just a double of "Left or Right aligned" ?
  - PixyMisa 7y ago
    They list New Zealand as "open" when that country just passed new laws - almost overnight - allowing people to be jailed for their speech. So yes, they have a lot of bias. They are pointing out real problems, but they are also ignoring real problems.
hamhand 7y ago
One can argue that to fight authoritarian infiltration and culture clash, certain amount of de-democracy may be needed. After all, the free nature of democracy by which malignant powers exploited is what allowed the situation worsening to alarming levels.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  No we need more democracy, to combat this attack on democracy. A bad democracy is still in principle better than a benevolent dictatorship.
spectramax 7y ago
Why are Chinese nationals (or naturalized Australian citizens) allowed to run in the parliament!? [1] I stand on the liberal side of the political spectrum, but fuck the left-wing political correctness when the entire nation’s democracy is at stake. I’ll go out and say, a person who is not born in Australia should not be allowed to run for public office. Please provide a strong argument otherwise. A person of Chinese descend who is recently naturalized in Australia has no business in the government. Yea, it prevents a lot of people from holding a position in the public office but that’s the trade off we need to make to prevent China taking over the world with totalitarian fascist influence. They can still buy out Australian born citizens but that’s tangential to my aforementioned argument. [1] https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/782867301/china-wanted-a-spy-in-australias-parliament-reports-say?t=1575723510558 https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/782867301/china-wanted-a-spy-... Edit: Why is my comment flagged? You can disagree with me, downvote, no problem. Just presenting a conservative viewpoint and suppressing voice is not what HN is about. Also, it’s common for many nations to not allow non-citizens to run for public office. This is not something totally radical.
- docdeek 7y ago
  > I’ll go out and say, a person who is not born in Australia should not be allowed to run for public office. Please provide a strong argument otherwise. I'll bite. I'm an Australian citizen (born and lived +25 years there) who now lives in France. My son was born in France but qualifies for Australian citizenship. Should he return to Australia, renounce his French citizenship, and run for office, why shouldn't he be able to serve? Australia is a country of immigrants. Where someone is born is hardly a good guide to whether they are capable of representing other Australians in the parliament. Why do you believe that my son or anyone else born overseas would be set on subverting their new home? Or from another side, why would my son (born in France) be any more subversive to the Australian system than me (born in Australia)? Why is where I am born a good guide to whether I'll be subverting the system in favor of France (in this case, or China in your example)?
  - spectramax 7y ago
    I understand your viewpoint and agree with it. How do you prevent CCP members immigrating into country X and running for Parliament or influence legislation, rally support for pro-Beijing agenda with essentially unlimited funding?
frees_speech 7y ago
India, the "largest democracy" has been downgraded to 'Repressed'[0]. Those who may not be following what's happening there might have just heard of Kashmir issue, but the problem spans across the nation. Current government has systematically done everything possible to undermine democracy by infiltrating law, judicial, intelligence with its agenda. The recent revelations of WhatsApp of Journalists, activists being exploited with the help of Israel evaporated as soon as it came, as the party made it as if those activists deserved it. The saddest part when reading that when Citizen Lab asked the dalit(the caste of people who are made to carry human waste in their head) activist to change her smartphone, she said; she didn't have the money to do so[1]. The government's party has made polarization a powerful weapon, 'Why do you you have shitty life? It's the damn muslims'; It's a shame that there are millions who are gullible to such trick. [0]https://monitor.civicus.org/India.PeoplePowerUnderAttack.2019/ https://monitor.civicus.org/India.PeoplePowerUnderAttack.201... [1]https://scroll.in/latest/942218/nagpur-lawyer-notified-by-whatsapp-of-surveillance-says-bhima-koregaon-accused-were-also-targetted https://scroll.in/latest/942218/nagpur-lawyer-notified-by-wh...
wz1000 7y ago
I thought the notion that Australia was a democracy was laid to rest in 1975 with the CIA's coup of Whitlam's government. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

This is based not on any research, polls, just a group of people decide how is a country by reading newspaper articles. While in some cases a democracy status might really show what is happening in a specific country on the other hand there is bias involved, if we compare that in France we've got constant protests, fighting with Police and it is on the same level as Australia?

brnt 7y ago
Its based on human rights watch organisations, not people reading newspapers. Also, democracy does not equal absence of civil unrest. Possibly even the opposite.
- petermcneeley 7y ago
  "democracy does not equal absence of civil unrest. Possibly even the opposite." This is next level thinking and reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#In_the_military https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#In_the_mil...
  - tpmx 7y ago
    The index it's based on attempts to rank "civic spaces" - not levels of democracy.
- mac_was 7y ago
  The name implies how these organisations do their work - they watch. And the only way to watch is to read articles, watch TV news, etc. Civil unrest shows that people are unhappy and government is not doing anything, is this democracy? The difference between France and poor countries is if you live in a poor country you fight to survive and have got no energy to protest, in Europe, basic rights (food, vote, etc) are provided and people can protest and then go to supermarkets to get food. So again is French government truly democratic? Should we use the same measures in France, Australia and Kongo?
  - WilTimSon 7y ago
    That is absolutely not the only way to watch. These organisations talk to local activists, assess the court processes in countries, etc.
    - mac_was 7y ago
      While I believe that these organisation do more good than harm I do believe that they are biased in some cases.
  - simion314 7y ago
    Are you implying that protests happening is less democracy? AFAIK there are always a group of people that are not happy about something and they will protests. Teachers are not happy about salaries and they protests, X is not happy abut petrol tax and protest etc. I don't think that the number of protests were used anyway and from what I seen a there are countries like US were people are at most protesting on social media but I never seen major teachers,students,truck drivers,farmers protests in US either so I don't think is correlated if you are a poor country you are too busy to protest.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
rsynnott 7y ago
Protest is a sign of democracy, really. If you find yourself somewhere where there's never any protest, ever, well, you're probably somewhere very nasty indeed.
- BLKNSLVR 7y ago
  Queensland is attempting to pass laws as a knee jerk reaction to some of the climate protests that disrupted traffic recently. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/09/queensland-to-fast-track-laws-to-crack-down-on-climate-protesters https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/09/queen... https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-09/extinction-rebellion-protest-brisbane-annastacia-palaszczuk-laws/11585826?pfmredir=sm https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-09/extinction-rebelli...
  - rsynnott 7y ago
    Yeah, I've always had the impression that Australia, or at least its governments, has a disconcerting authoritarian streak that just isn't found to the same level in other western democracies. Possibly impacted by not having a real equivalent to either a US style bill of rights or something like the ECHR.

Fnoord 7y ago

How does this relate to the Democracy Index [1]? In the 2018 version, Australia is a full point ahead to USA. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

ImaCake 7y ago
This CIVICUS rating has a lot less fidelity. But both seem to be based off surveying political scientists and other experts. I guess it is difficult to quantify something as complex as the "democraticness" of a government. It's somewhat funny that Australia and the UK should be lumped in with the US. Australia's democracy has a ton of features that the US system completely lacks; independent electoral commission, preference voting, an ecosystem of parties that have real power outside the two major parties, parliamentary system instead of presidential, and many more. I think a lot of alarm over recent scandals is just the ongoing tug of war between order and liberty. People who support more liberty or more order are always quick to argue that recent events extrapolate into infinite of whatever they think is bad. Very occasionally they are right, but mostly they are not.
- thepete2 7y ago
  Yes, that's the problem with reducing all these things to one number.
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Political science, like all the social sciences these days, has an extreme ideological skew. Consequently, any subjective evaluation of the openness (or any other kind of goodness) of a particular country is going to partially reflect merely the extent to which that country reflects the prevailing ideological skew among the experts doing the evaluation. In the present climate, it's difficult to imagine a well-run democratic country with politics opposite to that which prevails in Western academia receiving a great score no matter how well it's run. Personally, I consider these sorts of studies as just noise. I can't trust any of their methods or conclusions when the researchers are all drawn from an intellectual monoculture that demands constant activism in favor of that monoculture.
7y ago

shasheene 7y ago

This refers to the CIVICUS Monitor rankings. See the interactive world map: https://monitor.civicus.org/ https://monitor.civicus.org/

nness 7y ago

Thoroughly depressing.

WilTimSon 7y ago

As I was reading, I was about to pipe up with "oh, prosecuting whistleblowers and intimidating journalists? I hope the US and the UK are in the same boat" but yup, they are, according to the CIVICUS map. I see no reason to disagree. I do have to say I'm surprised that Canada is considered 'open'. I don't know much about their politics, are things really good there on all those points? Also, highly amused by Russia only being 'Repressed', the past few years of news from that place seem anything but democratic.

mac_was 7y ago
Very good point, journalists, politicians being murdered but it is repressed...
- hjek 7y ago
  Well, an MP was murdered in the UK a few years ago, and the current PM is making light of the murder.
Naga 7y ago
On Canada, generally yes, it is.
cryptica 7y ago
Having lived in Russia for 6 months in the past, it's is not as bad as western media makes it seem. Unlike China, their internet is still open. Also, internet access is much cheaper there than in the west. Politically, people are definitely afraid to speak out against top government figures but there is still some freedom of expression politically but of course not quite at the level of most of the western world. Russia's government is relatively new and people are still getting used to capitalism and democracy. I think people are still in control because they know most of the facts. People are simply more tolerant of their politicians bending the rules. Russians like a strong leader; for most Russian people, this is more important than democracy itself.
- Fnoord 7y ago

charliebrownau 7y ago

Same enemy in every nation of West and EU Global Left Cabal

ajxs 7y ago

I was hoping that this article was going to be more of an in-depth critique of the poor state of regulatory capture and disruption of democratic institutions by bad actors in the private sector. My local state government ( NSW ) has been steadily growing more ostensibly corrupt over the last decade. I don't think there's many people denying the fact that wealthy business stakeholders get a disproportionate say in legislation and the allocation of public resources at the moment.

LIV2 7y ago
I still have no idea why people voted them in again, Everything they do can be found to benefit the developers (like selling waterfront property in Woy Woy for only $40k to a developer, selling the land the powerhouse museum is on to developers, rail corridors etc) It's pretty depressing
- roenxi 7y ago
  In a sense if that is the major complaint then it makes sense why they are getting relected - developers are taking land and building things people want. There has always been a background level of corruption in construction afaik. Everyone wants it to be a squeaky clean process, but everyone also wants infrastructure; we have high immigration and we need the groundwork laid in Sydney to support population growth. We can argue about whether they are making great long term decisions. They probably aren't. But there is a lot of activity in the right general space; they took political risks with their light rail build up for example. And the recent Federal Labor party has a questionable record at infrastructure projects and it seems unlikely that the NSW branch has a better handle on the situation.
- jakecopp 7y ago
  Negative gearing and franking credits seem to be more important than absolutely everything else.
- bamboozled 7y ago
  I see two major issues in politics right now. The first being that Democracy wasn’t ready for social media and the Internet and still isn’t. The second is a major one without an easy solution. It seems we’re always forced to vote for the least worst option. I feel many democracies need to consider alternatives. I think It would be nice to introduce a pre-election poll and first ask voters to decide on whether they’re actually satisfied with the candidates and policies put forth prior to the actual election. Else we just end up with 4 years of no one being happy with the lesser of two evils running the show. This is why people always say “I can’t believe X won”. It’s because there is often no alternative but democracy just plugs on as usual even though no one was really satisfied with their options. I believe it’s also why many major elections of late have been so close, people are just divided. I’d propose that if the voters aren’t ready to proceed with the election, say someone such as the Governor General (in Australia’s case), needs to work with major parties to start another pre-selection round. I’m also interested in the idea that politicians should be “pardoned” by those who elected them before leaving office, ie if major initiatives were not implemented, there should be some accountability for that and maybe some penalties, ie reduced pension. It’s insane to think one can be the leader of a country and not be held accountable for a single thing during a term in office, wow.

RVuRnvbM2e 7y ago

Yeah the current government has been accelerating an authoritarian slide unencumbered by a bill of rights. Neither major party supports such a document and without it you get bullshit like this recent secret trial and imprisonment: https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-21/canberra-prisoner-prompts-secrecy-debate/11726654 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-21/canberra-prisoner-...

friendlybus 7y ago
A bill of rights does not protect you against secret trials. Assange's secret indictment is a famous example.
- Synaesthesia 7y ago
  No those rights need to be enforced and of the government won’t do it, the people have to put pressure on them.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Where is the trial of Assange secret exactly? You can consider his treatment to be unfair but there's been nothing secret about it.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    It will be secret if it ends up somewhere like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#Secret_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... . Given that we don't actually know anything about what happens in the FISA court it is plausible that Snowden will be dragged in there for reasons we are never told. Maybe we never even find out he appeared before the court, who knows. And GP said indictment not trial.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    For a few years he has claimed that the US had a sealed indictment on him in secret it was left unproven until recently when part of it was revealed and then it was confirmed. There's also the case of ladar levison getting a national security letter when his business was FBI'ed for hosting encrypted snowden emails. That letter meant he could not even tell his wife what was happening, including going to court and being generally railroaded by the legal system. His defcon talks on the legal lies he experienced in court are amusing. Being accuses of running from police put the backdoor of 5 story apartment building with no exit for the sake of speeding up proceedings along with his lawyer being bismurched for ties he knew nothing about and copy and paste text in the prosecution's legal docs. I mean the US had Guantanamo, secrecy in the US government has been the norm for a while.

mynameishere 7y ago

It will not surprise you to learn that this organization lists such explicitly oppressive countries as Sweden as "open". https://www.civicus.org/index.php/what-we-do/innovate/civicus-monitor https://www.civicus.org/index.php/what-we-do/innovate/civicu... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Sweden a 70-year-old woman was prosecuted for expressing a ‘disparaging view of refugees’ on Facebook where she commented public order disturbances allegedly committed by the migrants...The crime does not prohibit a pertinent and responsible debate...nor statements made in a completely private sphere I like the qualifier at the end. In Sweden you can whisper truth under five layers of bed clothes, as long as you are sure the neighbors are thoroughly snowed-in. So, "open". The posted link appears to be a "leftist journalists alone can control the narrative" pressure group.

tsimionescu 7y ago
Having laws that protect disadvantaged groups from hate speech is the opposite of being an oppressive country. The fact that these laws are actually enforced is further to be lauded.
xorcist 7y ago
> a 70-year-old woman was prosecuted for expressing Should you follow the Wikipedia links using a translator it seems she was investigated by the police, prosecuted, and then cleared in court. That's probably how a democratic society should work. Do also note that the only linked English source is a thin reprint of a right wing news site headquartered in Estonia that conveniently avoids that fact. Keep in mind which sphere of influence that likely falls under.

chvid 7y ago

https://monitor.civicus.org https://monitor.civicus.org According to this map Australia then joins the ranks of the US, the UK, South Africa and Japan. It is a fun map. But honestly it is silly. Australia is an open and functioning democracy, so is the UK or the US for that matter.

charliebrownau 7y ago
Just look at all the west AU + NZ + CA + UK + JP + USA We no longer have a proper Right wing pro West Pro Freedom Pro Nation parties All the parties are now LEFT - Liberals/neocons/Libertain/fake right wing Heck what western country doesn't bend over to ISRAELS demands to help the Jewish ethno state before every other nations interest and people The entire Western mainstream has been turned into Global Left wing activism From the 70-80s every western nation has removed local manufacturing to "help India and China" at each nations expense and failing economy Also without free speech actually enforced laws dont mean shit We have Western unis censoring Western mainsteam media censoring Western uni papers censoring Western companies censoring illegal kangaroo trails at western unis What does Trump do - NOTHING more censoring is ramping up since he took office We are heading towards a global Commie authoritarianism group like the EU by 2025-2030 run by the Zionist Jews, central banks and global left

PixyMisa 7y ago

The article doesn't go into any specifics. But I can't say I disagree, unfortunately, with actions like the bipartisan legislation on strong encryption last year. Australia needs to adopt the US Bill of Rights - just cross out "Congress" and write in "Parliament" and be done. It won't stop abuses, but would give a way to fight back.

senectus1 7y ago
yeah I dont disagree, but I find it hard to believe that the US has the same rating as Aus... Also, is it just me or is that map just a double of "Left or Right aligned" ?
- PixyMisa 7y ago
  They list New Zealand as "open" when that country just passed new laws - almost overnight - allowing people to be jailed for their speech. So yes, they have a lot of bias. They are pointing out real problems, but they are also ignoring real problems.

hamhand 7y ago

One can argue that to fight authoritarian infiltration and culture clash, certain amount of de-democracy may be needed. After all, the free nature of democracy by which malignant powers exploited is what allowed the situation worsening to alarming levels.

Synaesthesia 7y ago
No we need more democracy, to combat this attack on democracy. A bad democracy is still in principle better than a benevolent dictatorship.

spectramax 7y ago

Why are Chinese nationals (or naturalized Australian citizens) allowed to run in the parliament!? [1] I stand on the liberal side of the political spectrum, but fuck the left-wing political correctness when the entire nation’s democracy is at stake. I’ll go out and say, a person who is not born in Australia should not be allowed to run for public office. Please provide a strong argument otherwise. A person of Chinese descend who is recently naturalized in Australia has no business in the government. Yea, it prevents a lot of people from holding a position in the public office but that’s the trade off we need to make to prevent China taking over the world with totalitarian fascist influence. They can still buy out Australian born citizens but that’s tangential to my aforementioned argument. [1] https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/782867301/china-wanted-a-spy-in-australias-parliament-reports-say?t=1575723510558 https://www.npr.org/2019/11/26/782867301/china-wanted-a-spy-... Edit: Why is my comment flagged? You can disagree with me, downvote, no problem. Just presenting a conservative viewpoint and suppressing voice is not what HN is about. Also, it’s common for many nations to not allow non-citizens to run for public office. This is not something totally radical.

docdeek 7y ago
> I’ll go out and say, a person who is not born in Australia should not be allowed to run for public office. Please provide a strong argument otherwise. I'll bite. I'm an Australian citizen (born and lived +25 years there) who now lives in France. My son was born in France but qualifies for Australian citizenship. Should he return to Australia, renounce his French citizenship, and run for office, why shouldn't he be able to serve? Australia is a country of immigrants. Where someone is born is hardly a good guide to whether they are capable of representing other Australians in the parliament. Why do you believe that my son or anyone else born overseas would be set on subverting their new home? Or from another side, why would my son (born in France) be any more subversive to the Australian system than me (born in Australia)? Why is where I am born a good guide to whether I'll be subverting the system in favor of France (in this case, or China in your example)?
- spectramax 7y ago
  I understand your viewpoint and agree with it. How do you prevent CCP members immigrating into country X and running for Parliament or influence legislation, rally support for pro-Beijing agenda with essentially unlimited funding?

frees_speech 7y ago

India, the "largest democracy" has been downgraded to 'Repressed'[0]. Those who may not be following what's happening there might have just heard of Kashmir issue, but the problem spans across the nation. Current government has systematically done everything possible to undermine democracy by infiltrating law, judicial, intelligence with its agenda. The recent revelations of WhatsApp of Journalists, activists being exploited with the help of Israel evaporated as soon as it came, as the party made it as if those activists deserved it. The saddest part when reading that when Citizen Lab asked the dalit(the caste of people who are made to carry human waste in their head) activist to change her smartphone, she said; she didn't have the money to do so[1]. The government's party has made polarization a powerful weapon, 'Why do you you have shitty life? It's the damn muslims'; It's a shame that there are millions who are gullible to such trick. [0]https://monitor.civicus.org/India.PeoplePowerUnderAttack.2019/ https://monitor.civicus.org/India.PeoplePowerUnderAttack.201... [1]https://scroll.in/latest/942218/nagpur-lawyer-notified-by-whatsapp-of-surveillance-says-bhima-koregaon-accused-were-also-targetted https://scroll.in/latest/942218/nagpur-lawyer-notified-by-wh...

wz1000 7y ago

I thought the notion that Australia was a democracy was laid to rest in 1975 with the CIA's coup of Whitlam's government. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...