West Australia’s council elections seem a strange place to pinpoint a warning about American radicalising political games infiltrating the Australian landscape. While it is strange, it is nonetheless important.

American conservative and commentator Andrew Breitbart declared a (contested) doctrine that “politics is downstream from culture.” According to his institutional heir, Steve Bannon, this means strategists must change culture to open up the possibilities in politics. From his time as Breitbart News editor to Chief Strategist of Trump’s White House, he fomented culture war. He continues the goal through hosting his War Room podcast and video.

It is crucial not to underestimate the importance of podcasting in the conveying of “news” and the creation of information bubbles. Bannon’s War Room podcast and video has become a major influencer in the international Right. It continues to chart in the top 10 political podcasts in the USA and the UK. In Australia, it is charting at No.11. Naomi Klein’s important book Doppelgänger describes how crucial the podcast is to the Mirror World inhabited by the radical and conspiratorial Right.

Bannon’s message is anti-democratic, ultraconservative religious and conspiracist, with his podcast performances pitching him substantially to the right of Fox News, playing to the Trumpist CPAC crowd. His production is described as the “top spreader of misinformation in the conservative media ecosystem.”

Bannon’s repeated advice to his audience is that every possible election must be controlled and contested by their faction. In America this means sowing chaos in school boards and library boards, fired by the energy of outrage against pandemic measures and infiltrated with QAnon talking points about “groomers” in schools and libraries.

It is not clear that Bannon’s approach will work. It has varied outcomes in America. What is true is that it is motivating coalitions on the Right to coalesce and contest the most minor of elections where they can have more impact, shaping decisions on culture war issues.

The group behind Perth’s council campaign is called Stand Up Now Australia which was established by Peter Harris. It runs Community Connect, where candidates who know to keep their “mouth shut when it was needed,” campaign on more mainstream issues, concealing their conspiracy agenda. The group claims to have achieved between 11 and 20 successful candidates, with potentially 3 or 4 of the 9-member Busselton council emerging from the program.

They represent conspiratorial positions opposing the 15-minute or smart city idea, as well as promoting sovereign citizen fantasies.

The other category of special interest targeting council elections, just as it targets state and federal contests, is the Pentecostal movement. West Australia’s experience illustrates the degree to which these two movements are intermingled. “Freedom” movement’s Harris was the founder of, and a key donor to, the federal “Family First” party and a member of the Assemblies of God church in South Australia. Harris claimed in 2005 that his political position was not aligned to the American Christian Right, but around the party’s founding in 2004, it was claimed that the many candidates around the country were “coy” about their religious beliefs “on advice.”

It is noteworthy that the Christian Right gives permission to “lie for Jesus.”

In Australian councils, winning elections means taking steps to gain influence over the “economic, social and cultural development” of the community. Instead of fringe figures bullying councils to the point that they have taken their meetings online, conspiracists would become part of shaping what groups and events the region chooses to fund.

A quorum of 3 councillors allows the setting of agenda as well as considerable sway. The role can also, as in Moira Deeming’s climb to state politics, help build profile.

Anything that could be defined as “woke,” such as events tied to First People or multicultural groups could be challenged. This includes libraries which have become a focal point for conspiratorial opposition to LGBTQIA+ celebrations.

Solving the problem of understanding what Australia must do to address the crisis of candidates contesting our elections with anti-democratic goals is not simple.

Much damage can be done in one term. Trusting democracy to remove problematic representatives at the next election allows harm to be done in the meantime.

A group that secretly plans to deceive the electorate about their intentions could be considered to commit the crime of conspiracy. It is very unlikely that an Attorney-General or Director of Public Prosecutions would act on this, not least because of freedom of speech (or silence) objections. States with an obligation to truth in political advertising might have more scope to pursue such a false impression, even produced by omission.

We need changes to the electoral laws to prevent people from lying or hiding their intentions.

Our media is clearly not capable of conducting the appropriate level of investigation and revelation so voters know what is at stake. The ABC does not have the funding to carry out its core mandate, let alone adding this task to the portfolio. It would, however, have the benefit of being a relatively trusted source by those who care enough to research their candidates’ views and intentions.

Nor are our commercial networks the trustworthy bodies to task with this project. Ninefax is compromised by its leadership, not to mention understaffed. Moves on Australian Regional Media (radio) and Australian Community Media (The Canberra Times etc) in recent weeks need monitoring for the impact on their integrity.

News Corp clearly is not a contender. Added to its integrity crisis is the fact that News Corp bought the body that published our suburban and regional mastheads. In 2020, it stopped printing them, putting 76 online and closing 36 permanently. It cut the number of journalists covering local news to a third of the former force. News that used to be delivered to most homes is now unwritten or locked behind paywalls. In Australia, 2.8 million people remain “highly excluded” from internet access. Online news can also limit access to reliable news for some older Australians. These actions by News Corp function as another of its major blows to Australia’s democratic project.

We require a database across the three levels of government so that voters can see what relevant commentary and affiliations our candidates are disguising. This is not something easily tackled by a civil society organisation. It constitutes a substantial workload. A crowdsourcing platform, for example, would require constant monitoring to prevent defamatory submissions remaining on display.

This is a debate Australians need to have urgently, so that voters can know the crucial facts about the candidates they must elect. Democracy demands transparency.

This essay first appeared in Pearls and Irritations as Deception: radicalised groups are infiltrating Australian democracy in your town

By Stephen Charles and Lucy Hamilton

The Victorian government has just acted to ensure that the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) is neutered by a subtle gambit in the crafting of the advertisement seeking applicants for the position of Commissioner.

The first requirement in the ad was for a “leader with demonstrated experience and exceptional capability in: public sector leadership and management”. This can only have been intended to place that role not in the hands of someone independent and of judicial stature, but someone with experience in the public service, someone suitable for the role of chief executive officer, rather than the Commissioner of IBAC.

The advertisement that was released for Victoria’s new IBAC Commissioner was clearly crafted in defiance of the IBAC Act. The act specifies that to be eligible for appointment as a Commissioner, a person must be a judge of the High Court, the Federal Court, or a Supreme Court, or be qualified for such an appointment.

Within the Victorian Constitution, however, these requirements were expanded to include people “admitted to practice for not less than five years.”

The advertisement’s wording makes it clear that hardly any judges or barristers could qualify for the role. Judges and leading senior counsel almost invariably have little experience or known capability in public sector leadership and management, and therefore cannot have developed an understanding of the operation of the public sector, its governance or accountability framework. It is believed no judge or senior king’s counsel was on the short-list for consideration, and, if that is correct, the framing of the advertisement provides the explanation.

IBAC’s Commissioner must have the experience, knowledge and standing to challenge the most senior figures in politics, public service and police, and on the bench, if necessary, in the course of performing these duties. The Commissioner must be equipped to be able to decide matters such as whether to start an investigation, including whether there are reasonable grounds for suspecting a crime; whether to investigate a supreme court judge; whether to enter police premises to seize evidence; whether to authorise phone-tapping.

Victoria’s integrity system, consisting of the IBAC, Ombudsman and Auditor-General’s Office, performs a crucial role in ensuring Victorians can have full confidence in the state’s public sector and that it is free from corruption. Each of these bodies can be damaged in various ways to reduce their effectiveness.

Integrity commissions such as IBAC can be unduly limited by restrictive legislation, by funding cuts, by the quality of the staff appointed as Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, and by reducing their capacity to make public their investigations into corruption and misconduct.

In its first decade of operation, IBAC has suffered from time to time: inadequate funding, flawed legislation, and the inability to expose misbehaviour to the public by matters such as the requirement for “exceptional circumstances” to exist before a hearing can take place in public. Victoria’s IBAC Act limits the definition of corrupt conduct to criminal matters, which would exclude, for example, the pork-barrelling that so disgusted the nation in the 2022 federal election.

Notwithstanding these problems, IBAC has survived and thrived by virtue of the quality of senior staff, in particular its Commissioners, and produced admirable reports after lengthy investigations demonstrating repeatedly the misbehaviour of aspects of the Victorian government and public service.

Victoria is not alone in this battle between politicians and integrity bodies. Only NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has the strength required, yet several NSW Premiers have repeatedly praised ICAC for its great work protecting the state from corruption, making them the rare exceptions to the rule.

In September 2021, South Australia’s legislature combined across party lines to attack the powers of investigation of their state’s anti-corruption commission. The Commissioner at the time, Ann Vanstone, described her powers as having been “decimated.”

The definition of what constitutes “corruption” was reduced and the ability to investigate maladministration and misconduct was removed.

No MP in either House, not even the Greens, voted against these attacks on the efficacy of the South Australian ICAC.

In 2020, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) had its funding cut “in revenge” for its crucial findings about corruption of the sports grants program and carparks funds under the Morrison government.

Preventing public hearings is one of the most harmful of the restrictions besetting state bodies. These are a crucial resource to show that integrity is being pursued, to attract witnesses and to educate our politicians and public servants on what corruption might look like. They are regarded by most commissioners as a critical factor in demonstrating what is corruption to the public and in their principal function of exposing corruption.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), finally legislated after long consultation by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’s department, is only able to stage hearings in public in “exceptional circumstances.” This is the result of a deal with the Coalition and is a significant blight on the most important development in the Albanese government’s integrity platform. It will certainly reduce severely the number of the NACC’s public hearings and the public’s trust that corruption is being pursued.

The block to transparency in the expression “exceptional circumstances” in the NACC Act was taken from the IBAC Act. No other state’s integrity body has a similar provision.

It is particularly important that the new Commissioner of IBAC is strong enough to steer the body towards the reforms that Victorians require for its anti-corruption remit to be carried out in a way that fosters confidence. The South Australian government too is looking to restrengthen their ICAC.

One of the principal functions of anti-corruption bodies is in exposing and preventing the corruption and misconduct in government that threatens in so many ways to undermine democracy.

The more subtle the attack on the integrity body, the harder it is for the public to perceive the effects brought about by the manipulation. The framing of this advertisement meant that some of the people best qualified to protect Victorian democracy were apparently not represented on the short-list.

This was first published in Pearls and Irritations as Only parliaments are able to set up integrity bodies, but politicians hate and fear them

Stephen Charles is a retired judge who served on the Supreme Court of Victoria Court of Appeal between 1995 and 2006. He is a member of the boards of the Centre for Public Integrity and the Accountability Round Table. He is the primary author of the 2022 book: Keeping them Honest: the case for a genuine national integrity commission and other vital democratic reforms.

The fact that Elon Musk has just halved his election integrity team this week on X/Twitter at the same time as a former integrity executive at the platform warned that foreign government and extremist bad actors are intervening there to distort the debate on the Voice, policy action to protect our ability to trust government, the media and social media is more important than ever.

Protecting the democratic project ought to be one of our most important goals. The Albanese government has made several timid steps in this direction, but in other crucial areas is dawdling over integrity measures that need urgent attention. One of the most important aspects will be legislating towards promoting truth in political speech.

This ought to have been done before the announcement of the Voice to Parliament referendum: the disinformation deployed by the No campaign threaten this crucial project that ought to be debated based on truths not fear-mongering fantasy.

The Right has elected to make the Voice into a political weapon to try to damage Albanese and strengthen its own chances at the next election. Given that the Voice is such a mild proposed advisory body, the No campaign is manufacturing deceptive propaganda to alienate an inflation-stressed public. Politicians will not even be obliged to consult with the Voice when making policy regarding First Nations’ people, so the dire threats are ludicrous.

The knowledge that the official AEC Yes and No campaign pamphlet sent to every home in Australia was not obliged to be factual is shocking: Australians do not understand the utter cynicism of the contemporary Right and many are likely to assume something issued by a government-affiliated body will be factual, missing the later fact-checks that pointed out the many misleading elements in the No campaign section of the booklet.

This unreliable material was issued at taxpayer expense; so too is the campaigning against the Voice being carried out by serving Right wing politicians. This ought to impose obligations towards truth, even if it doesn’t oblige politicians to serve the public interest.

It is a Herculean challenge to control the flow of conspiracy disinformation on the internet. Some of it is started by paid operatives and spread by bots, but much of the rest is organic, each new conspiracy detail slotted into the metaconspiracy (or omniconspiracy) that the political Right is exploiting. Health misinformation related to the pandemic merged into QAnon and ideas from Pentecostal preachers. These intermingle in a digital jigsaw that makes room for every other conspiracy theory, to form what Naomi Klein in her latest book labels the “Mirror World.”

Such is the complexity of the mirrored “reality” that its people believe those in the fact-based world are actually in a “clown world” or “the matrix.” Klein explains “we are not having disagreements about differing interpretations of reality – we are having disagreements about who is in reality and who is in a simulation.”

In Australia, the Voice is being used (like the war on “gender”) to activate this radicalised base drawn into MAGA Plus Trumpist politics. It is depicted as an “elite” conspiracy aimed to “enslave” Australians to a “global landlord.”

Above all Klein’s Mirror World features a loathing of everything that emerges from academic and professional expertise. Anything from the old sources of authority is intended to deceive and exploit. Fact-checkers are part of the conspiracy world’s enemy elites. There is no source of information outside their sphere that people within the Mirror World will trust (unless it reinforces their current beliefs).

AEC commissioner Tom Rogers declared the scope of the wild rumours spreading about the Voice referendum is “tinfoil-hat-wearing bonkers mad conspiracy theories” including that the vote is rigged or that the AEC is using Dominion voting machines, the company targeted in the Trump election lie conspiracies. These illustrate that the wider implication of the demonisation of the Voice is an unfounded attack on our democratic processes as unreliable.

With this epistemological crisis, it is crucial that political speech – and the news media that disseminates it – is obliged to lean closer to truthful speech. We must earn and protect the trust that the community not yet drawn into the Mirror World should be able to have in these sources.

Truth in political advertising must be legislated at the federal level as it is in many of our states.

We must also legislate that government-affiliated bodies’ publications be fact-checked before publication, not merely trust that the public will find such fact-checks after the item is distributed.

It is time for debating whether we need sanctions for politicians who systematically mislead the electorate. Obviously this would be unpopular with both main parties since, for example, misleading the public on the functionality of climate “solutions” such as carbon sequestration is standard business. Nonetheless, we can only make the best decisions for the country’s present and the world’s future by pushing for this political reiteration of corporate spin to be challenged.

We should demand a public and real-time register of affiliations of politicians (and political journalists). From whom do they accept money to perform speeches? From whom do they accept travel and accommodation? With which bodies do they regularly associate?

We need a more stringent definition of the nature of “think tank.” If the nature of the thinking is to generate propaganda talking points rather than actual research, they need to be accurately labelled as lobbyists. Bodies that are connected to international ultra-free market strategists like the Atlas Network need to be publicly labelled and forced to reveal donors and pay tax.

The Murdoch Royal Commission must be commenced, with other commercial news organisations to be covered by findings about ensuring true “fair and balanced” coverage. In an age where politicians deploy lies in abundance, we need news organisations compelled to be cordoned off from the propaganda mission – or labelled accordingly.

The ABC needs the many recommendations to strengthen its independence from political interference implemented.

The Greens and independent candidates are correct: there should be no exemption for “professional news content” in the attempt to crackdown on social media misinformation.

This domestic program ought to be more straightforward than the daunting challenge of dealing with international mis- and disinformation fomented on the internet. That ‘X’ is so much worse for bigotry and disinformation than Twitter illustrates two key points. The settings implemented by management can work to limit disinformation. It also illustrates the damage of leaving massive platforms in private hands.

Robert Reich recently posted this message: “The forces undermining our democracy, polluting our planet, and stoking hatred are counting on you to give up.

“They have money.

“They have megaphones.

“And they have an even more powerful weapon – one that’s harder to spot but incredibly effective: Cynicism.

“Don’t give up.”

The Albanese government has the power to ensure that Australian political speech is as truthful as possible in a world where reliable information is both difficult to determine and utterly crucial.

This essay was first published at Pearls and Irritations

If you have been watching the aftermath of the Barbie movie, you might have learnt a lot about the Right. The most important lesson is that everything is sex.

Barbie, like almost every “woke” development now, is a “groomer.” Poor Stereotypical Barbie thought she’d fixed the world for women’s equality, and now it turns out she’s a demonic force.

The American radicalising Right had been allowed to like Barbie because, for them, she was only about training girls in the utterly unattainable standards of femininity to which they must devote their lives. It’s all clothes and makeup and the perfect figure. Be pretty/perfect. Be still and silent.

Barbie the movie reminded the moral minority starkly that there was a more dangerous side to the doll than that. She threatened to teach their daughters (white liberal) feminism. Aw heck no.

Barbie has no reproductive organs and, for this Right, woman has no other purpose. Woman is utterly defined by her ability to spawn. Biological essentialism is back with a vengeance. No reproductive rights for you, girlfriend. No contraceptives or ability to initiate divorce. No vote. No career. Get baby fever and know your God-given place.

The opening scene of the film is sin made celluloid. Bored girl children are being socialised into deadening domesticity over their baby dolls, when sexy Barbie appears causing a violent orgy of destruction. Smash those baby dolls, little sisters.

The movie’s central tension between Barbie Land and Patriarchy makes clear that Barbie, for all the damage she does, is meant to help girls aspire to a role in the civic space, or even in space.

More dangerous still is the fact that Ryan Gosling’s Ken reveals the Right’s “truth” about the feminist project: the neutered man. Cue spasms of incel horror. The Right completely missed that the film’s joke was about the movie industry: Ken was being put in the female role in movies. Instead he was perceived as another weapon in the ginned up Masculinity Crisis.

Some on the Right saw what the Left saw: Barbie ultimately leaves the gender dynamic pretty much untouched. They could see Barbie’s conclusion (spoiler alert) in a visit to the gynaecologist as a reinforcement of their anti-trans sentiment: sex is genitalia. I prefer to see it as a pro-trans message: this woman chooses her womanly genitalia.

The Right loathes the concept of “gender.” “Sex” is all, binary and heterosexual. 

Sex – identity and act – at least for women, must be sacred and reproductive. 

The idea of blurring,“races” or sexes, is a nightmare for the bigots on the Right. And so their performance of gender online is about sexual polarity. 

The Right’s performance of gender is only out-dramatised by one sector: drag artists.

For the Right’s men, they are inspired by the fascist posturing of figures like Bronze Age Pervert with constant inspiration from the muscled White warriors of the ancient world. In a homoerotic act, they ogle the glistening muscles of the biggest men. No wonder Melbourne’s gym-junkie Nazis turn out in black shorts instead of black shirts. Hello sailor?

The women of the Right have moved from the honeytrap sexual appeal of their earlier influencers like Lauren Southern to the Tradwife. In this performance of Barbie-like submissive femininity, they hope to tempt women to the glories of domesticity, to catch the Right’s baby-fever.

Some on the young Right also saw a warning that Barbie Land conveys for men. Barbie Land has been equated to “the longhouse.” The Right used to fret about “the cathedral,” a description of the modern world which argued that the liberal establishment had destroyed everything. Only a revolution into patriarchal and authoritarian monarchy could save the nation. The cathedral has become the longhouse, emphasising the shift in focus. The longhouse says that the feminisation of the modern world is the true crisis.

Apparently before those muscled Greek idols forged everything worthwhile about civilisation – including manly architecture – people lived in matrilineal longhouses ruled by the Den Mother. That society was barbaric, muddy and lame. Just like Barbie Land (minus the pink).

The destruction caused by this modern feminised, diverse, and excessively egalitarian world – a new longhouse – has apparently fostered cross-breeding between “races.” It has led, oh horror, to moral destruction in not just extra-marital sex but the existence of LGBTQIA+ people in public. Even worse, they exist in front of children.

If gender ceases to be about wholistic identity and freedom of choice about how the individual presents themself to the world, and instead is a representation of genitalia, everything becomes unavoidably sexual.

There is safe sexual where men are manly and women are cute. 

There is dangerous sexual where this mandated binary is confused. Any LGBTQIA+ presentation that does not abide by that binary represents a derangement of genitalia.

Thus the existence of LGBTQIA+ people – or feminists – in front of children is “grooming.” In the Right’s obsession with genitals, this “deviant” presentation of gender is advertising confusing or aberrant genitalia.

This is why a story book that includes a family with two penguin dads or someone with non-binary gender identity is described as “pornographic” in the Moms for Liberty purges taking place in American schools and libraries. A Mem Fox picture book with a woman discreetly pictured in a bath was removed for being pornographic.

And so anyone who merely supports the equal existence of LGBTQIA+ people will find themselves labelled a “groomer” by online commentators. One community member fighting the Florida book bans explained the intent: This entire effort is “designed to put LGBT people back in the closet and keep us there.” Ron DeSantis’s recent campaign ad made clear that his presidential campaign was pursuing that very goal.

A figure that epitomised the clash of worlds in Barbie was Dr Barbie. The vast majority of normie viewers probably never noticed that the actor, Hari Nef, is trans and that’s just fine. It’s the performance not the “sex” that counts. For the Right, this was one of the appalling efforts by the demonic Left to “indoctrinate” their children with “pornography.”

The same cohorts that are driving the attacks on LGBTQIA+ existence are the ones hyper-sexualising prepubescent children in kiddie beauty pageant displays which border on “child sexual abuse material.” Florida is the driving force in the war on Queer. It is also the state where “conservative” rural mothers partake in the highest number of child beauty pageants of anywhere in Republican America where these grotesque displays dominate. Apparently the only safe place to display sexualised womanhood in Purity Culture America is on the pre-teens. No wonder these are also the states supporting child marriage most vehemently.

These mothers treat their children like Barbies.

Barbie was a lot of fun. The lessons the Right are taking from it, however, are scary. Any of us living in a secular world where incels are a laughing stock and the domestic goddess is a cookbook need to pay attention.

Our efforts towards an inclusive and egalitarian world are a call to revolution for them. America is showing us what they intend as theocratic Right forces table ever more laws to constrain sexuality. 

The same forces are at work in Australia. The IPA is trying to drum up a parents’ rights campaign (which translates to radicalised Right wing parents dictating what everyone’s children learn at school). The attempt to stop Big W stocking a guide for parents on how to talk to children about sex was precisely the game plan. The campaign to make this an Australian battle is underway.

Don’t ignore them. They are sure as hell not ignoring you.