Thank you to everyone of you for signing & sharing! We NEED the Senate's STRONG & RETROSPECTIVE National Integrity Commission Bill on the House of Representative's Agenda EARLY in 2020!
Further discussion on INTEGRITY - as the AEC's LACK of resources & legislative power given to it - was very much overshadowed by the end of year political drama:
The Guardian reported yesterday (6/12/19) that OUR Australian Electoral Commission lacks "... the resources and powers to investigate the opaque funding used to spread political ads on Facebook, an inquiry has heard."
As ordinary VOTERS we NEED to ask WHY does OUR AEC NOT have the resources to chase up on this?
WHO BENEFITS from paid BLATANT LIES being put onto FB - pretending to be benign 'interest groups' trying to influence the way Australians might vote?
"....The Guardian revealed this year that one the world’s biggest coalminers, Glencore, was covertly funding an influence campaign on Facebook to undermine renewable energy, boost demand for coal and change government policy.
The operation, codenamed Project Caesar, set up fake interest groups online, including one named Energy in Australia, and used them to spread paid political messaging to unsuspecting voters."
So GIANT CORPORATIONS use FB to INFLUENCE our thinking? To influence the GOVERNMENTS we ELECT so as to MAKE their profits larger?
...The Greens senator Larissa Waters questioned the Australian Electoral Commission about what it can do to investigate such advertising at a hearing of the joint standing committee on electoral matters on Friday morning.
Australian law requires that paid political ads provide the name and location of an authorising officer but do not compel advertisers to say who is providing funding.
...The AEC’s chief legal officer, Andrew Johnson, said his organisation lacked the resources to investigate who sat “behind the veil” of such ads, particularly during election campaigns. Johnson said that made public awareness campaigns and media reporting critical.
“The challenge is a resourcing issue, and during a five-week election campaign and the volume of communications that are happening so we really are looking at that authorisation detail and the ability to look beyond is very difficult,” he said.
...Johnson said legislation only compelled an authorising party to give their name and location.
So Australian LEGISLATION - in this WORLD where HONESTY, ETHICS and INTEGRITY are no longer seen as ESSENTIAL among Political OR Corporate culture - basically ALLOWS those who PAY BIG MONEY to INFLUENCE the way we VOTE which ultimately affects the LIVES of ourselves and our children's FUTURE?
The Guardian reported that ... Internationally, Facebook has rolled out new transparency measures for paid political advertising on its platform. But it declined to do so in Australia before the federal election.
WHY? Was that because FB stood to make MANY MILLIONS of dollars from CORPORATIONS, their 'UNIONS' like the Business Council of Australia and also THINK TANKS trying to INFLUENCE us?
And now we also find out it's ALSO foreign COUNTRIES trying to INFLUENCE us who to VOTE for to REPRESENT US and MAKE DECISIONS FOR US in our Parliament!
The comments come as the Guardian this morning revealed the existence of a new disinformation network, operated from Israel, which used 21 far-right Facebook pages to spread coordinated disinformation for two years. That network did not use paid advertising and so would not have fallen into the AEC’s sights.
But the network has attempted to influence politics across the western world, including in Australia, promoting far-right candidates and criticising and undermining Muslim politicians and high-profile leftwing leaders.
Why don't the MAJORITY of our Politicians want the AEC to have the power/resources to INVESTIGATE this?
How can we KNOW WHO and WHAT we are voting FOR when we have NO idea WHO is behind an 'innocent' FB post or campaign? Who BENEFITS?
This IS CORRUPTION and WE (and our children and grandchildren) are PAYING the price for it..
Is THIS what YOU WANT Australia?