Life on the West Island - Democracy revisited?

This year’s West Island federal election has laid bare the depths to which democracy has decayed in our country and perhaps unwittingly has shone a light on a better way forward. For too long, we have blithely assumed that we live in a free, democratic country, where all adults can make an informed decision about who to select to govern the nation. We may even believe that our wonderful democracy had its origins in the wisdom of the ancient Greeks.

The word “democracy” derives from two Greek terms meaning people (demos) and rule (kratos). Western political thinkers now largely agree that, flowing over the centuries from the governance of some Greek city-states “constitutional democracy” has become a system where the citizens of a state take an active role in the government of their country and manage it directly or through elected representatives. But Athenian democracy of the sixth century BC was far from a system where all the people ruled. Only male adult citizens were able to vote, meaning that women, slaves and non-citizens were excluded. This meant that only around 20-30% of adults could actually have a say in who was to represent them in government.

But we continue to believe that we live in more enlightened times, where constitutions, legislation and independent electoral commissions safeguard the rights of the ordinary citizen to vote. This is only partly true, because of the way our system distorts and limits our chances of making free and informed choices.

In two of the great Western democracies – the United States and Australia - our colonial political and economic systems were built on the back of slavery and forced convict labour, not to mention slaughter, dispossession and disenfranchisement of First Nations peoples. It took over 100 years before women were allowed to vote and almost 200 years before Indigenous people were granted that privilege. Now, the West Island has something approaching a universal adult franchise, but other factors are distorting election outcomes.

For a start, it is clear that money talks. When one fossil fuel billionaire can gleefully spend $80 million on dubious advertising riddled with lies, half-truths and impossible promises, the potential distortion of voter outcomes is evident. In the previous election, a similar spend by the same individual in one state – most of it directly attacking one political party - was probably enough to swing the national result.

Our political donation laws are so weak as to be almost laughable. Many vested interests can make enormous donations to political parties or spend small fortunes trying to directly buy votes. Some limited information about these huge expenditures (including those from political parties themselves) is made public – but not until many months after an election result has been swayed by the slick advertising campaigns they bankroll. Added to this is the growth of corruption within the main parties, particularly in pork-barrelling grant funds in the absence of any federal integrity oversight.

Then there is the theory that democracy rests on all voters having access to complete and accurate information on policy and ideological issues so that they can make informed choices. This West Island election has demonstrated in no uncertain terms that this is not the case. The major parties – especially the coalition – have built a campaign based on lies, distortions and misleading use of statistics. For example, there is the contention that the nation has been “world leading” in its response to the COVID pandemic. This relies on out-of-date and carefully manipulated statistics. On a world listing of over 200 countries, our nation has now recorded almost seven million coronavirus infections, ranking as the 17^th worst in the world, even though we are only 88^th in terms of population. This year, we have seen over 5,000 COVID deaths at a rate per head of population worse than 80 other countries. But the Prime Minister, using cherry-picked statistics from previous years, still claims that we lead the world in dealing with the virus.

This is similar to the spurious but much-repeated claim that we have reduced carbon emissions by 20%, even though OECD figures show the West Island languishing toward the bottom of the table of advanced nations.

Complete voter information is also limited by the poor performance of (often biased) mainstream journalism and the proliferation of false conspiracy theories, hatred and unsubstantiated rumours on social media.

But this unedifying West Island election campaign might have a few glimmers of light for a return to a better form of democracy. The emergence of a wide range of independent candidates shows that the stultifying effects of a rigid two-party system are eroding. Many of the independents base their campaign platforms on values and principles, not the rusted-on ideological approaches of candidates from the old parties. They take great pains to consult with their communities, to build grassroots support and to genuinely represent the issues raised by their constituents. This election, these have tended to cluster around effective action against climate change; fairer treatment of women and disadvantaged groups; and the creation of an independent anti-corruption commission with strong powers.

Perhaps our federal lawmakers could have learned some of the principles of a well-functioning direct democracy if they had paid greater heed to the system which operated well in Norfolk Island for 36 years. This was marked by the absence of political parties and their demands that their elected members voted as directed; a voting system that ensured that the most popular candidates were elected (not the least unpopular, as on the mainland); a totally open and uncensored legislature; and citizen-initiated referendums on issues of concern.

Is it too much to hope that the ruling elite of the West Island – including big business, political parties, unions, media barons and vested interests – could see the error of their ways and revisit true democratic principles, many of which were shown to work in Norfolk Island? Perhaps this federal election will take a halting step in that direction.