Time to apply TPA?
Is it time to apply the Trade Practices Act to political parties?
I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now. And I have decided to share some of my thoughts out loud – so to speak.
I think it’s important to break down what political parties are, not just to think of them as political institutions, a necessary evil of today’s political system. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the fact that they do politics. We hear about them on TV and radio and hear from their politicians each night during the suite of news and current affairs programs. We read about them in the newspapers and magazines in any number of daily papers, and stable of periodicals.
However, when you get past the politics and consider them at their organisational level they look like any other non-government or community organisation. They have memberships, annual general meetings, branches and grapple with budgets. There are executive committees and councils with agenda. There are branches. They even employ people and from time-to-time do a great deal of advertising.
They even have something to sell. And this is a key aspect to applying the Trade Practices Act, because they have to be engaging in some sort of trade.
They’re selling us ideas. They’re selling us ‘solutions’ to problems. They’re trading in security, stability and a future of prosperity.
They offer representation services by offering up candidates for elections. We get to decide who gets the gig of representing us when we cast our votes. In essence the politician is the political party’s sales person.
They also have their own branded merchandise. You know they sell t-shirts, mugs, books, DVDs, green bags, pens, etc etc. I think you get the picture that in many ways political parties are much like any other business.
And they are required to operate within legal frameworks.
Starting to sound just like every other business aren’t they.
Political parties are, however, exempt from a number of laws and regulations. They have different financial reporting requirements from other not-for-profits or corporate entities. They also have additional matters to deal with like audits of members to make sure they are registered voters in the state, area they claim.
Of course there will be those that will argue that political parties don’t seek to make a profit. But here I disagree because they seek to make a profit through winning more seats. But in the Australian political system, political parties (and independents) receive approximately two dollars ($2) per vote, and can make a profit. One could also argue that winning more seats, greatly improves a party’s influence, and thereby enabling greater access to potential donor bases.
So what’s with the application of the Trade Practices Act (TPA)?
It’s no secret that many people are becoming more and more cynical about what constitutes as debate in our public discourse over important policy issues.
Australians are, and for good reasons, a little sick to death of the ‘spin’.
Even the issue of ‘spin’ is now regarded part of public discourse, further distracting the nation from more important issues. After all, ‘spin’ is only a PR word that most people are fully aware of, and now seek out alternative information for a balance of opinion.
But when promises aren’t being implemented, and therefore not living up to their sales pitch, what can people do? Think of Howard’s core and non-core promises. Or think of the policies that are implemented that weren’t mentioned during the campaign.
It’s like a classic case of bait-and-switch.
You might be convinced that the TPA should be applied to political parties and complaints handled by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). You might have also started wondering why I haven’t been referring to legal cases or precedents. Well because they’re treated differently to other kinds of businesses.
In fact they’re not treated like a business at all!
Under the establishment of political parties you’ll discover a range of associated legislation to trawl through on how they operate and what exemptions they’re entitled to and what, and by when, things need to be reported. However, given the nature of the operations of a modern day political party they resemble in many aspects the operations of small-to-medium sized businesses.
I think that the threat of applying the Trade Practices Act would, in some cases, offer a better way of regulating the kind of spin that is put forward as legitimate talking points in public debates. It would definitely mean that political parties may be compelled to stick to the policies they ‘sold’ at the election.
This could also be a way of ensuring that we longer suffer the core and non-core promises syndrome we’re treated to by political parties. Sure there’s an argument that it’s the politicians, the spokespeople (sales personnel if you will for the business analogy), that do the talking and make the promises so it should be the politician the bears the burden.
And they should bear some of the burden but so to should political parties. After all the politicians are only the public face for political parties. It’s the organisation behind the politicians determines the policies, helps determine the priority of policy issues and builds the bank accounts in order to run their organisations, and the election campaigns.
But if it isn’t possible to use the Trade Practices Act then what alternatives are there in dealing with the core and non-core promises problem?
It may be possible to, at least rein in, the amount of spin that is put out there by political parties and increasingly by lobby groups like the Australian Industry Group (AiG) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI); and a myriad of newly formed anti-[insert government proposal here] groups.
But to do that will have to return to electoral reform and more specifically that relating to political advertising.
When Howard was in government with a majority in both houses, he took the opportunity to relax the standards for political advertising. It used to be a requirement for all organisations doing political advertising to submit the proof for claims made in the advertising to FreeTV Australia. This was something that largely made it difficult and impractical to make misleading claims. You had to get approval from the authority before the advertisements could be used – no approval, no network would run them.
However, Howard’s amendments no longer required proof of claims in political advertising.
This of course made it possible for political parties and third party campaigns to make claims without having to produce the research and justification for claims. The measures allowed campaigns (the parties or independents and third party) to run the kind of negative advertising that was rolled out in the most recent election cycle. It’s why we’re treated to the rubbish public relations campaigns put forward by the mining industry, tobacco companies and now the pokies industries, with sensational claims.
Advertising by the anti-carbon price, anti-pokies reforms probably wouldn’t stand up under scrutiny if these lobby groups were required to assert the claims they made.
Yet while re-introducing requirements to provide proof of claims would help diminish the amount of spin masquerading as debate, it won’t really tackle what I think is the more systemic problem of political parties’ practices – making promises they know they can’t fulfil.
Perhaps it’s time to find ways of applying the Trade Practices Act to the trade practices of political parties. If there are any barristers, legal eagles etc out there or other learned types, I’d be interested in your views. I’m sure there’d be a few others interested in such views too.
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Time To Apply The Trade Practices Act To Political Parties?
November 27, 2011 in Thoughts
Tags: accountability, analysis, Australia, commentary, legal system, merchandise, personal opinion, political parties, politics, representation, Trade Practices Act, transparency
Time to apply TPA?
Is it time to apply the Trade Practices Act to political parties?
I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now. And I have decided to share some of my thoughts out loud – so to speak.
I think it’s important to break down what political parties are, not just to think of them as political institutions, a necessary evil of today’s political system. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in the fact that they do politics. We hear about them on TV and radio and hear from their politicians each night during the suite of news and current affairs programs. We read about them in the newspapers and magazines in any number of daily papers, and stable of periodicals.
However, when you get past the politics and consider them at their organisational level they look like any other non-government or community organisation. They have memberships, annual general meetings, branches and grapple with budgets. There are executive committees and councils with agenda. There are branches. They even employ people and from time-to-time do a great deal of advertising.
They even have something to sell. And this is a key aspect to applying the Trade Practices Act, because they have to be engaging in some sort of trade.
They’re selling us ideas. They’re selling us ‘solutions’ to problems. They’re trading in security, stability and a future of prosperity.
They offer representation services by offering up candidates for elections. We get to decide who gets the gig of representing us when we cast our votes. In essence the politician is the political party’s sales person.
They also have their own branded merchandise. You know they sell t-shirts, mugs, books, DVDs, green bags, pens, etc etc. I think you get the picture that in many ways political parties are much like any other business.
And they are required to operate within legal frameworks.
Starting to sound just like every other business aren’t they.
Political parties are, however, exempt from a number of laws and regulations. They have different financial reporting requirements from other not-for-profits or corporate entities. They also have additional matters to deal with like audits of members to make sure they are registered voters in the state, area they claim.
Of course there will be those that will argue that political parties don’t seek to make a profit. But here I disagree because they seek to make a profit through winning more seats. But in the Australian political system, political parties (and independents) receive approximately two dollars ($2) per vote, and can make a profit. One could also argue that winning more seats, greatly improves a party’s influence, and thereby enabling greater access to potential donor bases.
So what’s with the application of the Trade Practices Act (TPA)?
It’s no secret that many people are becoming more and more cynical about what constitutes as debate in our public discourse over important policy issues.
Australians are, and for good reasons, a little sick to death of the ‘spin’.
Even the issue of ‘spin’ is now regarded part of public discourse, further distracting the nation from more important issues. After all, ‘spin’ is only a PR word that most people are fully aware of, and now seek out alternative information for a balance of opinion.
But when promises aren’t being implemented, and therefore not living up to their sales pitch, what can people do? Think of Howard’s core and non-core promises. Or think of the policies that are implemented that weren’t mentioned during the campaign.
It’s like a classic case of bait-and-switch.
You might be convinced that the TPA should be applied to political parties and complaints handled by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). You might have also started wondering why I haven’t been referring to legal cases or precedents. Well because they’re treated differently to other kinds of businesses.
In fact they’re not treated like a business at all!
Under the establishment of political parties you’ll discover a range of associated legislation to trawl through on how they operate and what exemptions they’re entitled to and what, and by when, things need to be reported. However, given the nature of the operations of a modern day political party they resemble in many aspects the operations of small-to-medium sized businesses.
I think that the threat of applying the Trade Practices Act would, in some cases, offer a better way of regulating the kind of spin that is put forward as legitimate talking points in public debates. It would definitely mean that political parties may be compelled to stick to the policies they ‘sold’ at the election.
This could also be a way of ensuring that we longer suffer the core and non-core promises syndrome we’re treated to by political parties. Sure there’s an argument that it’s the politicians, the spokespeople (sales personnel if you will for the business analogy), that do the talking and make the promises so it should be the politician the bears the burden.
And they should bear some of the burden but so to should political parties. After all the politicians are only the public face for political parties. It’s the organisation behind the politicians determines the policies, helps determine the priority of policy issues and builds the bank accounts in order to run their organisations, and the election campaigns.
But if it isn’t possible to use the Trade Practices Act then what alternatives are there in dealing with the core and non-core promises problem?
It may be possible to, at least rein in, the amount of spin that is put out there by political parties and increasingly by lobby groups like the Australian Industry Group (AiG) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI); and a myriad of newly formed anti-[insert government proposal here] groups.
But to do that will have to return to electoral reform and more specifically that relating to political advertising.
When Howard was in government with a majority in both houses, he took the opportunity to relax the standards for political advertising. It used to be a requirement for all organisations doing political advertising to submit the proof for claims made in the advertising to FreeTV Australia. This was something that largely made it difficult and impractical to make misleading claims. You had to get approval from the authority before the advertisements could be used – no approval, no network would run them.
However, Howard’s amendments no longer required proof of claims in political advertising.
This of course made it possible for political parties and third party campaigns to make claims without having to produce the research and justification for claims. The measures allowed campaigns (the parties or independents and third party) to run the kind of negative advertising that was rolled out in the most recent election cycle. It’s why we’re treated to the rubbish public relations campaigns put forward by the mining industry, tobacco companies and now the pokies industries, with sensational claims.
Advertising by the anti-carbon price, anti-pokies reforms probably wouldn’t stand up under scrutiny if these lobby groups were required to assert the claims they made.
Yet while re-introducing requirements to provide proof of claims would help diminish the amount of spin masquerading as debate, it won’t really tackle what I think is the more systemic problem of political parties’ practices – making promises they know they can’t fulfil.
Perhaps it’s time to find ways of applying the Trade Practices Act to the trade practices of political parties. If there are any barristers, legal eagles etc out there or other learned types, I’d be interested in your views. I’m sure there’d be a few others interested in such views too.
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