The KPMG saga shows the glaring need for whistleblowing reform
Support for stronger whistleblower protections has reached an all-time high. The Labor government has an opportunity to fulfil its promises and deliver meaningful change.
Bill Browne is Director of the Democracy & Accountability Program. His diverse areas of interest include the use of opinion polling, forecasting to predict policy outcomes, truth in political advertising reforms, digital technology and the role of the states and the Senate in Australian democracy.
Support for stronger whistleblower protections has reached an all-time high. The Labor government has an opportunity to fulfil its promises and deliver meaningful change.
It is perfectly legal to lie in a political ad in New South Wales, it shouldn’t be. And with Artificial Intelligence “deep fake” technology getting more convincing and easier to produce, political lies are only going to become more common unless something is done to stop them.
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Controversially, the Liberals and Nationals recommended preferences for the far-right One Nation ahead of centrist independent Ms Milthorpe, a move criticised by more moderate Liberals. But did Liberal and National voters toe the party line? Not particularly.
Politicians are rethinking how Victoria’s house of review, the Legislative Council, is elected – with implications for how fair and representative the state’s elections are.
With One Nation recording a higher first-preference vote than Labor or Liberal in the latest RedBridge polling, Pauline Hanson has again been asked about her prime ministerial ambitions. She told 3AW that she is considering running for a seat in the lower house, but even if she doesn’t: “You can be prime minister from the Senate.” That is true.
Australians elected climate and integrity super-majorities, giving Labor two paths through the Senate: with the Greens and crossbenchers, or with the Coalition. And while Labor is quick to blame the Coalition for Labor’s failure to act, the reality is that Mr Albanese has always been willing to negotiate with the Greens when he actually wants something to happen.
Recently, in the Queensland Parliament, LNP Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie used parliamentary privilege to identify Labor MPs who, he speculated, may have had relationships that they did not properly disclose. I’m less concerned with the relationships than with what the exchange says about Parliament, conflicts of interest and freedom of speech.
One purpose of a party is to manage contradictions by committing to a shared platform, dangling promotion as a reward for discipline, and working out disputes privately. The community independents, also known as the ‘teals’, represent new forms of organisation – with their own contradictions.
Politics is a dirty word. Politicians are all as bad as each other. Power corrupts. Cynicism towards politics is as old as politics itself. But I am increasingly concerned about the form of political cynicism that comes disguised as idealism: that politics is dirty, corrupting, and ineffective, but it can be perfected with “independent” and, apparently, unbiased processes.
The Albanese Government has broken an election promise, which is worth calling out. People should keep to their commitments or explain why they have broken them. But the policy debate is useless if, having called out a broken promise, journalists and politicians have nothing more to say.
