POLS 2067 Australian Political Parties

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POLS 2067Australian Political Parties

• Party Organisation and Finance

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Ratio of party members () to number of voters
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Australian Labor Party
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The Pyramid of Power- Barry Jones
Faction leaders National Conference delegates
2000 Total active ALP party membership 10
000 Total Labor Party national membership 50
000 Voters who are members of trade unions 2 000
000 Voters who are not members of trade unions 3
000 000 Total of potential Labor Party voters in
Australia 5 000 000
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Arguments for internal party democracy

• Parties effectively decide who will be elected to
  public office, so there is a legitimate
  expectation that their own internal procedures
  should be democratic.
• This expectation reinforced when parties are
  recipients of public funding in order to perform
  their democratic roles.
• Democratic organisation and culture within
  parties helps create habits of democracy.
• Democratic deliberation within parties helps
  improve the quality, accountability and
  inclusiveness of the policy processes.

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Arguments against internal party democracy

• Politicians should be responsive to voters, not
  to party activists who may have a different set
  of policy preferences.
• It gets in the way of effective inter-party
  competition in the political market-place.
• It is a brake on effective and efficient
  decision-making
• It is irrelevant to the selection of the most
  saleable candidates and policies.

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Difficulties of regulation

• What exactly are the general principles of fair
  and democratic elections?
• Who should determine them?
• To which aspects of party activity should they
  apply?

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Internal and External Regulation of Parties

• Electoral law covers how parties operate within
  the electoral system
• - public funding of elections
• - political broadcasting advertising
• - dislcosure of political donations
• Common law (mostly) applies to parties internal
  workings
• - no federal requirement for internal democracy
• - no requirement for participation of membership

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Some comparisons

• Germany
• - internal organisation shall conform to
  democratic principles
• Portugal
• - must be governed by the principles of
  transparency, democratic organisation and
  management, and the participation of all of its
  members

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Justice Wooten, NSW Supreme Court, critical of
the judicial culture of avoiding matters
political
One can understand that judges, who feel so
keenly the importance of standing apart and being
seen to stand apart from partisan politics would
be reluctant to see the internal factional
struggles of political parties brought into the
courts. But the proper desire to avoid
identification of the judiciary with partisan
politics is not a justification for eschewing
responsibility for legal questions which happen
to arise in the political arena. - McKinnon v
Grogan (1974) 1 NSWLR 295
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Rudd governments proposed changes on funding

• Set the campaign donation disclosure threshold at
  1000, reversing the Howards government huge
  increase in the threshold which took the
  disclosure limit from 1,500 to over 10,000
• Ban donations from overseas or from
  non-Australian companies, ensuring donations come
  from a jurisdiction where our laws apply, and can
  be enforced
• Tie election funding to reported and verified
  electoral expenditure directly incurred by a
  candidate or party for an election, to stop any
  candidate making a financial gain from the
  electoral funding system
• Remove the loophole whereby separate divisions of
  a party are treated as separate entities, so
  preventing large donations from being hidden by
  paying portions across state and territory
  branches of the same Party and
• Increase public scrutiny of donations by reducing
  disclosure timeframes from 12 months to six
  months.

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POLS 2067 Australian Political Parties

• The Politics of Coalition