Today is the last day to submit a comment to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters in relation to the
Inquiry into the Conduct of the 2004 Federal Election and Matters Related Thereto
. The issue of government regulation of political speech on the internet through the power vested in them by the Electoral Act has been a hot-topic lately. This is an opportunity to present your views directly to the Committee. Please don't forget to send them an email, no matter how small - one line if need be. Email the committee at jscem@aph.gov.au
Inside is a copy of my submission to the Committee.
Dear Committee Members;
The Internet And Political Speech
I would like to comment on the role of political speech in relation to the internet and the conduct of elections.
The freedom encompassed by the ability of individuals, and groups, to speak freely and outside of regulation is a wonderful positive for political debate and the market of ideas.
In particular I have been impressed with the emergence of "flash-advocacy" groups. The cost of publishing on the internet is so low that these websites pop-up for a single issue and present information that is readily available for any voter searching for it. Either through a link from another site, such as a blog, or from a query in a search engine.
I see these sites as adding to the political debate. In addition, for each flash advocacy group that appears, there is another that appears in opposition. For every johnhowardlies.com there will be a johnhowardtruths.com; now a voter has a greater wealth of information to draw an opinion from. This is a major positive.
Another aspect of the internet is the emergence of flash-research groups. These flock around a meme, disseminating and dissecting it. Acting like a single issue journalist organization. Any information that does not survive these flash-researchers is widely discredited. A good example of this is Rathergate where a TV News Anchor in the United States was discredited by a flash-research group.
The Special Minister of State, Eric Abetz, has suggested that internet websites, such as flash-advocacy groups and bloggers, acted in contravention of the Electoral Act during the 2004 Commonwealth Election. I presume he means Section 328 when speaking of this.
The policing of speech on the internet is impossible. Currently five percent of the Australian population resides outside of Australia - while remaining politically active. They are beyond the reach of electoral laws. In addition bandwidth and servers are cheaper overseas than in Australia too. This makes the websites and people running them impossible to police.
In conclusion, I believe that regulating internet political speech is an impossible task; that will become arbitrary and punish those that wish to partake in the public political debate. I believe the lasse-faire approach to the internet in relation to elections will increase public and political debate.
Request For Publishing Of Fiscal Transactions Between Party and Individual
In addition I would like to request the committee look toward Parties publishing a list on the internet which contains the individuals and websites that have received political money from them. This would need to be done in a timely manner, in the same day as the transaction taking place.
I believe this will give individuals the information to make rational decisions if a website, or individual publishing to a website, has a biased view due to their fiscal relationship with a political party.
This requirement should also extend to government departments during the electoral cycle as well.
Other Issues For The Committee
I would also like the Committee to look into the use of tax-payer money and public service resource for the use of advertising, pamphleteering and mailing by the major parties during the election.
Another issue I would like addressed is Sections 94 and 95 which dis-enfranchise Australians who are currently working and living outside of Australia. The Australian Diaspora is unfairly discriminated against in those sections.I would like to see Section 94.1c removed from the Electoral Act.
In a long term view, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters should inquire to the possibility of establishing a Commonwealth Electoral Roll for Australians currently living outside of Australia as part of Senate representation for the Australian Diaspora.
Cameron Riley
www.southsearepublic.org
www.newcopia.com
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
To require a single person to carefully watch what they say on the topic of politics places a onerous responsibility upon them. They must make a decision, \"Is this item political or electoral?\" If they allow the reader to leave a comment - as most personal websites do - they are required to ensure that each comment can be traced back to an individual. What are the implications oft he global nature of their site? Must they ensure that a South African reader must leave an address?
These decisions can only lead to a chilling effect on political speech. With apparantly little to differentiate political speech, electoral material, and personal opinion, the very real possibility of a not-insignificant fine or an expensive court case to clear one\'s name will lead to self-censorship.
Worse, it requires the author to know of this requirement; ignorance of the law is not an excuse in Australia, and yet it is unlikely that every Australian who ever writes a sentence on Australian politics is familiar with section 328 of the Electoral Act. This suggests that extending Section 328 to cover websites will create a class of Australian\'s unwittingly breaking the law, which will then lead to a malingent lottery - who will be unlucky enough to be caught and made an example of to - so to speak - pour encourager les autres. The solution to this seems obvious; simply give an address for someone who takes responsibility for the content (Note: This does not solve the issues relating to reader comments). However, I propose that Section 328 of the Electoral Act is unnecessary. The Federalist Papers were anonymous and, by the standard set by Mt Abetz when citing johnhowardlies.com, electoral material - they were clearly attempting to influence the vote of the people of New York. Yet, the Federalist Papers are also a primary source for interpreting the Constitution of the United States of America. It is hard to imagine that they could have been published as they are if the authors had not been able to write as Publius. Anonymity is recognised as an important quality in our political life in the form of the secret ballet, innovated here in Australia in the 19th century and exported so widely it is seen as fundamental to democracy. Section 328 of the Electoral Act shows every appearance of existing solely to make Section 329 enforcable. This is not sufficient reason, if only because on a global internet with servers located outside of Australia and Australians overseas able to effortlessly publish to Australians living locally via the internet, Section 329 is already laregely unenforcable.
To prevent the chilling of political speech and the criminalisation of a whole class of Australians, section 328 must not be extended to the internet. Furthermore, careful thought should be given to its legitimacy in an open democracy. (I stringly considered submitting as Publius to make a point, but decided to be realistic)