Reforming money in politics: crushing Dark Money without eliminating quality independents
One of the most crucial decisions about the shape of our democracy is about to be resolved. The Coalition and the ALP appear to have reached a decision to block any further challenge to their duopoly control. While it is crucial that we introduce strong reforms to stop third parties distorting our elections, we cannot do so in a way that prevents quality independents and minor parties from challenging hidebound incumbents.
The major parties’ falling primary vote has them unnerved and prepared to distort democracy to protect their manifold advantages. We saw over the referendum weekend that the tools of deception, fear and loathing have too much power to sway our elections. Protecting against the big parties’ gambits is crucial to a future where the public has some influence on the shape of the nation.
Alan Kohler has reported on a cynical deal apparently being forged by shadow special minister of state Jane Hume for the Liberals against the so-called teals and Special Minister of State Don Farrell for Labor against Clive Palmer. Their deal will involve “increased transparency, caps on donations and campaign spending, and increased public spending for elections.” These are all measures to be celebrated, unless they work to prevent Australian voters freeing the country from state capture by industry sector.
Ensuring integrity both in donation reform and election spending are critical reforms to ensure transparency in politics; we must have governments that build policy for the common good, not for the donors.
At the same time, it is crucial that we allow scope in our politics for transparent, integrity-run organisations to support quality candidates. Distinguishing this from insidious spending by vested interests and conspiracy cohorts takes fine reasoning and cautious designing of the reforms.
Dark money distorting the Voice debate
The Voice campaign has revealed how much Dark Money is distorting our political debates. Clive Palmer spent over 200 million to distort the 2019 and 2022 federal elections. He claimed to have swung the former to the Coalition with his preferences. Now the coal miner is reportedly spending $2 million on advertising in a last minute bid to swing two crucial states away from supporting the Voice referendum.
The low barriers of the social media era mean that the quantity of money spent cannot be the only metric used to assess disinformation. A Melbourne crypto trader has spent at least $16,000 spreading Voice fearmongering with paid advertising created on a $140 per-month app.
The 7.30 Report last week added to earlier reporting on Dark Money subsidising the Advance group and through it, its subsidiary Fair Australia, which led the No campaign. The ABC’s report focussed attention on Simon Fenwick, also using his Wall St money to fight climate action. Earlier reporting in Crikey listed Advance’s donors including a number of other wealthy Australians.
Mark Kenny described Advance as being founded in the wake of the Marriage Equality plebiscite to mobilise “a hitherto disparate conservative citizenry whose adherents blame “wokeism” for everything from the declining authority of the Christian church to gender fluidity, environmentalism, and the Voice to Parliament.”
We will need to design a strategy that accounts for money in all its forms, including the scope for small social media spending to manipulate democracy.
American strategies in Australia
American Dark Money manipulation is notorious for its longterm vision and its cunning.
Sydney University of Technology lecturer Jeremy Walker has drawn the connections and parallels between Advance and Fair’s No campaign to the insidious American Atlas Network that has worked to dismantle societies for plutocrat gains across the globe. Its ultra-free market machinations have particularly worked to protect fossil fuel interests. As Walker points out, the gas sector in Australia is particularly interested in stopping the union of Indigenous people and climate action.
The connections are rarely straightforward: money and influence have worked in labyrinthine ways over decades to distort the playing field for the interests of the wealthy, in particular for tobacco and fossil fuels.
Over the weekend, investigative reporter Anthony Klan revealed the shadowy status of Advance and its promoters. Precisely in the Atlas model, it has a network of fake “grass roots” seeming bodies – a strategy called astroturfing – that include entities dedicated to attacks on climate action.
One of the great concerns for figures in the fossil fuel sector at this moment when governments have been mainly neutralised is the possibility that court action will become an impediment to projects and profit. Cases brought over combined Indigenous and climate interests have proven themselves to be a merger that the Dark Money does not want to fight.
Jones Day, a law firm at the heart of the insidious “conservative” legal movement in America, with several Australian offices, has focused on the obstacle in the Australian market.
Advance denies connections to Atlas but there is personnel overlap with the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) which is part of the Atlas Network. Warren Mundine and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price both work with the CIS as well as Advance’s affiliate Fair organisation. Mundine chairs LibertyWorks, the Atlas affiliate with connections to fighting climate action and to promoting Trumpist politics in Australia through the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Mundine is also chairman of CPAC Australia.
In the USA, parallel spending is also funnelled through Super Political Action Committees (Super PACs). These are independent bodies that have unlimited spending ability to channel donors’ money into advertising campaigns in support of candidates and parties. This frees Dark Money to distort the political information space with minimal constraint. The Australian Coalition already has roughly 86 bodies able to function as a swarm of PACs.
Unless Australian caps on spending are accompanied by careful restraints on how parallel spending is executed, the money that has gone to parties – and much more – will continue to expand on their ability to distort our politics away from the national interest towards vested interests.
Determining good money and bad
It is uncertain how much power the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) has, or whether it is following instructions from the parties’ strategists.
The challenge stands for the committee to work out how to distinguish between the money that distorts democracy and the money that enhances it. The Coalition and the ALP however have little interest in allowing greater democratic freedom which can disturb their hold on power.
Climate 200, for example, has supported a range of independent campaigns. Once a potential candidate establishes that they have community support in the electorate, and if they share values – a foundational concern for integrity and climate action, as well as supporting women in politics – Climate 200 helps provide the money, largely from 11,000 crowdfunded donors, that will enable the independent candidate to compete with the party politician not meeting their electorate’s concerns.
Climate 200 is unusually transparent about its funding and adamant that it holds no control over the candidates beyond that. Compared to Clive Palmer’s candidates, Climate 200 has backed intelligent, thoughtful people displaying integrity in their goals and responsiveness to their electorates. Most of the candidates elected with a Climate 200 start-up fund have shown themselves to be much more responsive to issues of economic inequity than their major party-affiliated peers.
Up to $3 million was spent on Josh Frydenberg’s federal seat in 2022 and a candidate has almost no chance without seed funding of between $250,000-$500,000 to open an office and hire one or two staff to begin to balance the inherent benefits of belonging to a major party. The Australia Institute estimates that federal politicians receive incumbency benefits approximating almost $3 million from the public purse each electoral cycle.
By enforcing public spending to fund elections across the board, however, the major parties are limiting the ability of the small players and quality independents to challenge the duopoly. Victoria’s state reforms, for example, mean that parties gain a much larger public pay-out from elections once they meet the 4% of primary votes benchmark. Parties can also receive this public funding in advance of a looming election. Independents and minor parties have no way to match that if dramatic caps are also instituted. That money is not taxable for party candidates but is taxable income for independents. All these factors undermine quality independents’ ability to challenge the incumbents.
Candidates representing the major parties also currently enjoy huge uncosted advantage in elections. Brand recognition, habit and national spending campaigns are a boost: if the JSCEM’s proposal to cap spending per seat is instituted, this will be a substantial further advantage for the duopoly.
Victoria’s state transition to public money spending dominating election campaigns has been shaped in such a way as to stop quality independents from being electable.
The interim report of the JSCEM has shown the intention to control money spent on garnering an electoral impact by “associated entities and third parties.” It appears not to have been well designed: Kohler, for example, believes Clive Palmer will still be able to drive “one of his trucks through the loopholes” that the JSCEM reforms will enact. There seems to be no intention to tackle the major parties’ business councils where “memberships” are not treated as donations. The JSCEM needs to do better: this is crucial democracy protection.
We will need an independent committee to assess bodies and individual spending for integrity, transparency, and honesty. Money that tends to be spent on distorting debates ought to be taxed and/or fined. This should cover so-called think-tanks, especially ones allied with international shadowy groups like the Atlas Network. This last category includes the CIS, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and the Australian Taxpayer Association.
The Albanese government has been a disappointment above all in its failure to act on climate beyond mere rhetoric. The new 116 fossil fuel projects listed to commence are a disaster in a moment when every fraction of a temperature rise means more compounding extreme events set to befall us.
Labor, like the 2022 Coalition, must be open to challenge by quality independents and minor parties. Otherwise, the fossil fuel sector is set to maintain its state capture of our governments. Our climate action potential will remain stalled. Parties of government must be forced to respond to community concerns rather than corporate and sector investments. Crushing protest and blocking competition from independents is not how democracy should function.
The referendum showed how vulnerable our electorate is to all the games emerging out of the American Right. It is imperative that we urge the Albanese government to speed up the integrity platform reforms it promised, and to do them with precision. No government lasts indefinitely: Labor needs to protect itself from a post-democratic Right as much as the nation needs them to do it.
If the major parties plan to prevent future challenges to their control of government we need to protest before they embed it in legislation.
This was first published in Peals and Irritations as Dark Money is distorting the Voice debate
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Mark & Margaret -
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Lucy Hamilton -
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Clakka -
GL -
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Return to home pagecompounding extreme events
Anyhow, I went there. Below, seems that what follows is a description of Australia., as it has been for the last few thousand years. Do we detect a hint “Doom”.
“Imagine for a moment that your community has suffered a lengthy drought. Several years without adequate rainfall have left farmers alarmingly close to running out of water and stockfeed – resources that are essential for the local economy.
Now imagine that your community, already under pressure from the drought, experiences a catastrophic bushfire. One that covers much of the region and goes on for weeks. Your power is knocked out, your comms towers are down, and major access roads are cut off. Food and fuel supplies run low. People and supplies cannot easily come in or go out of the region. It’s a disaster.
Even that isn’t the end of the story though.
The fire is followed by two years of flooding rains. The first big rains after the fires cascade down on the parched earth. After the drought and fire, it is welcome – but there’s so much water and debris from burned landscapes that it overwhelms the dams. Water treatment plants fail. The Australian Defence Force is brought in to truck water to the towns for drinking. And the seeds that have been washed across the land – often from the feed that was brought in during the drought – cause an explosion of weeds, causing yet more problems for managing the recovering landscape.”
Why can’t all the conspiracy theorists focus on this stuff rather than their ludicrous chemtrail/adrenochrome/vaccine/transphobic/anti-climate change action/anti-science fantasies? Everything Lucy has mentioned here has hard evidence and is enormously detrimental to both national and personal freedom, but they prefer to target things that don’t even exist instead of finding out where the real problems are and doing something about them.
The TEALS have demonstrated the challenge to the two major political parties and the loss of control by their respective sponsors. This is not a new phenomenon, rather it has been occurring with the NOtional$ for decades.
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Given the racist preferences of regional voters, getting a progressive candidate elected is extremely difficult, as shown by the few Independents elected in regional electorates over the past 23 years and even fewer in the past 50 years.
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Indeed, the nomination of adulterer, alcoholic, misogynist Beetrooter in New England and watch the world Mark Coulton in Parkes leaves control of the numbers on the floor of Parliament with the political apparachniks acting for foreign owned multinational corporations rather than representatives of their electorates seeking the best interests for Australian voters.
Better control of political funding is essential, as is breaking the Murdoch Media Monopoly that spreads political propaganda rather than credible public interest news.
Agreed, Leefe. Naomi Klein’s book is great on this. She describes antisemitic conspiracy theories about globalists as having the reputation of being socialism for idiots.
She says the conspiracists are right about the metaphor and the emotion but pick the wrong target. It’s very useful for the big money planning to capitalise on the climate catastrophe to have all the under-educated or susceptible focused on the wrong “bad guy.”
“”Up to $3 million was spent on Josh Frydenberg’s federal seat in 2022 and a c””
…and….?
Richard Marles……spent……?
A pigs trough is still a pigs trough, irrespective of the breed of pig.
Very good and shows what Jane Mayer of Dark Money fame calls the ‘architecture of influence’, and ‘not just changing what we think, but how we think’.
Example is The Voice campaign (‘No’ started earlier in the year via social media) where many talk about the motivation and reasons of voters, but ignore above and the past, now a generation (?), of RW media promoting conspiracies (mostly unchallenged).
Repeating the same Atlas think tank ‘deep south’ talking points and memes targeting rusted on above median age MSM audience with the LNP as the ‘delivery system’ (and too often ALP) e.g. bipartisan bigotry and nihilism conditioned by decades of dog whistling of refugees, immigrants and population growth as an ‘environmental hygiene’ issue (eugenics tropes), while avoiding climate science, carbon pricing and need to transition fast from fossil fuels.
Unfortunately most Australians nowadays are not informed well, hence, tend to vote in an uninformed way; ever decreasing circles impacting media too.
@Andrew Smith October 16, 2023 at 5:43 pm.
“Unfortunately most Australians nowadays are not informed well…”.
That is so Andrew, & I would add that no Government wants an educated electorate.
“Unfortunately most Australians nowadays are not informed well, hence, tend to vote in an uninformed way;”
This is so true. Me and You, mate we’re informed. It’s the other mob, hey.!
Thank you Lucy for yet another informative and scholarly argument.
It feels so true about misplaced conspiracy theories (as leefe comments), which merely give their neglected facts a bad name in the process.
What is behind this mass avoidance of grim reality, this compulsion to substitute with concocted nightmares?
Is there an analysis of the demographic of these willing carriers of the “long range cunning” of the Right?
The Price family would seem to be captives (as noted above) with their Christian Right origins appropriately disguised by the incoherent political rhetoric of mightier powers who’ve popped Princess Price into power and pen all her speeches.
All very tragic and dangerous for us all if Albanese does not get on with his “integrity platform reforms” as as a matter of urgency post-Voice.
“mass avoidance of grim reality”
Aaah, Yes. Those who cannot see.
Really is a problem.
Is the Mark and Margaret account pushing a conservative line that is questioning climate crisis projections?
I’m having trouble working out the text and subtext.
Thanks Lucy,
Indeed, from what I’ve seen so far, the process of allegedly ‘fixing’ the political donations imbroglio is farcical, and seems only to serve entrenchment of a duopoly. A duopoly whose machinations are increasingly opaque, and have been the cause of a dramatic and deserved loss of faith in politics, MPs and what constitutes equity. Albeit, the ‘right’ side of the duopoly has, in the referendum process, broken ranks and brazenly imported and used Trumpist post-truth ‘culture war’ tactics in full, inspiring doubters, conspiracists, malcontents and haters. Coupled with the ‘left’ side of the duopoly’s penchant for ‘trust us’ silence and obscurantism, exemplified by AUKUS per se, the entire populace smells rats, losing trust and causing them to shut down from the entire political system, voting only because they must. It would seem then to be a race of ‘dirty tricks’ to the bottom.
We are seeing this playing out across the world, most noticeably in the UK and USA where its affect is demonstrably depleting and chaotic (so much for the ‘rules-based order’). Of course, China is standing by, its economy quivering, desperately waving its ‘belt and road’, taking every opportunity to be on topic (Israel & Palestine) with its Four Point Plan. Given its history, eg. Tibet, the Uighurs and Hong Kong and the 9 dash line, virtue signalling, who would know? Suffice to say, it takes on the USA and Oz in the Indo-Pacific, with understandable opportunistic success with East Timor and Sogavare’s Solomon Islands and it has its eyes well fixed on PNG.
Of course the reactions and consequences can be weird, but also depletive and chaotic, like in Germany and Malaysia, where the democratic process has duped itself to the point where there are so many splinter parties and independents elected that it’s almost impossible to form a government, and then to attain consensus enabling the government to effectively function.
And then there’s Africa, exploited and neglected by the ‘west’ for centuries. Now with Russia’s proxy, Wagner, in the north and centre, east to west, helping itself and playing roulette with the old black masters of the game. Just who and what will be won, who knows. Ah, but what the heck … whilst we gaze at our navels, Africa’s population is set to grow by over a billion by 2050 and more than 2.5 billion by the end of the century. How and with whom will they be aligned?
Oh, and who could forget Putin’s Russia and Ukraine and their surrounds … what of their alignments and influences?
As the globe shrinks and becomes sophisticated because of the internet of things, how do we know ourselves? What do we identify with? And to know ourselves, upon what do we reflect? Certainly after the outcome of the last weekend in Oz, others may be recasting their view of us, and those views may soon be far more relevant to our state of being than our own insular inward-looking delusions.
Will our politicians do anything about it?
Will they get to an unequivocal and functional political donations regime that doesn’t circumscribe political opportunity?
– Apparently not.
Will they make unequivocal legislation requiring truth in all MP’s (and their officials) and political party’s promulgations?
– Apparently not.
Will they make unequivocal legislation deconstructing monopolistic domination of news mass media?
-Apparently not.
I guess we’ll just have to remain beholden to the flooding in of Dark Money and its dark narratives.
Both major parties make noises, with fingers crossed behind their backs, about doing something with curbing “donations” (dark or otherwise) then promptly forget about it and hope nobody notices.
Questioned. “mass avoidance of grim reality” Aaah, Yes. Those who cannot see.
Really is a problem.
It is happening.
1. Has happened, will continue to happen.
2. There are those who do not see. This is of course a FACT.
and 3. Yes. A huge problem…?…!
Marxist, Conservative, Liberal, Socialist, Libertarian, Radical:- whatever tag you wish to pin on it.
Does it matter.
The picture is seen by many eyes. Always the same picture. Always a mass avoidance of a grim reality, unseen and a problem.
Wow did frydenberg win?
Apart from Michael, which independent is quality?
Apart from Canberra which independent is quality?
Which of the loonies are quality when they settle as a party?
Which of the teales are quality and deserves re-election?If by a miracle the teals get elected the the lnp and labor should swap preferences and get rid of the independents and the loonies.
Oops except the quality ones, cela va sans dire?
Not your best contribution, WAM
A wide ranging reflection on the campaigning outcome and meaning of the referendum.
It reflects upon all Australians, and raises serious issues for all. All folk, the mass media, government and the parliament need to take action to avoid the demise of our democracy due to ignorance, bigotry and laziness.
The whole world is watching.
Yes, Lucy, pareillement was my intention but you say it so succinctly?
Wam. If you want to criticise the independents who were chosen for match-up contributions by Climate 200 (that the lazy media chose to present as “Teals” and “a Party”) then you need to prove your point rather than compile a montage of vaguely satirical, rhetorical questions.
You might well like the majors and good luck to you, sir. They aren’t really working for us, although Labor is less corrupted by influence than the LNP.
I’m intrigued to see what you count as “loony” about any of these highly professional, intelligent and integrity-filled women. (I suppose you might be a pharmacist and angry about Monique Ryan’s changes to scripts that will save money for pensioners. You might be a zionist and really angry that some of them said we should express sympathy for Palestinians as well as Israelis. Apart from that, I’m struggling to think of anything outlandish from them.)
At this moment in history, the only way the public is going to win a representative government is to push the majors into a minority government.
WAM: …pareillement… showing off are we, or just being multicultural? Please stop. Spare a thought and consider how unreadable this place would be if everybody used google translate to encode their comments into their favorite language.
The problem with independents is that we have no idea what they stand for.
My local member, Monique Ryan, refuses to answer questions on a range of policies.
I find this unsatisfactory.
That’s why I am now a confirmed critic of the independents.
Supporting minor parties in far more rational. They have policies and leaders.
The Australian Democrats have green policies, like the teals, but talk about all political issues.
I joined them. Others should too
AC, you’re painting all independents with the same brush. I cannot comment on Ms Ryan, but I can on my own member, Helen Haines, who is 10/10.
You may need to move up my way to satisfy your expectations.
Actually, do move here. We could go bush walking together. Chat about life in general. You could be our house sitter when needed. Help in the garden. Look after our cats, etc etc.
I’ll tell Carol the good news.
I’m now on the delightful but windy Victorian coast! And did I mention my cat allergy?
My wheezing is even more annoying than my conversation!
You need what the Japanese call “forest bathing”. It’s good for the mind.
Plenty of forests around here. Plus there’s my company. 😁
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Forest bathing? I’d need a wetsuit, because it’s cold.
But I’m sure my company is far more tolerable during quiet meditation! Yours too!