Absolutely we should know who pays the piper.

People who don't think pollies listen and respond to money are in la la land. In actual fact in a strong democracy political donations should be banned.

Already the parties get over $1.93 per vote received (subject to a few qualifying percentages)and the taxpayers paid out around $41 million in 2004.

So unless we want to end up like the USA wouldn't it be better to limit the funding through the AEC and therfore keep it relatively transparent.

It would mean that political parties would have less to spend but does that really bother anyone... afterall democracy is supposed to be transparent and open to all not just the wealthy. Plus it would limit the influence that can be gained when political parties spend so much with highly influential media owners.

I actually do find the fact that religions can fund political parties and/or advertising offensive as it blurs the line between church and state plus they are financing it using tax free income earnt through their religion. Hardly what their tax free status was meant to achieve.

Four days and only one comment!

Well, hardly surprising in a way. Most contributors to this forum know that political advertising, or indeed conventional media journalism, does little to alter their views as to what constitute issues or how they should vote. Forums like OLO, or well written informative blogs, are where real political debate is occurring, for what it may be worth. More importantly, perhaps, the readers decide the relative significance of items on the political agenda (indeed, what goes onto the agenda itself), not the media editoriate.

Perhaps equally importantly, the vast majority of comments to the forum are submitted under nomes-de-plume, a convention that many see as a means to avoidance of the ad hominem tactic so frequently resorted to in political debate, or in attempts to suppress political debate on particular issues. I suggest most forum contributors also see attempts to require disclosure of support for political causes or candidacies as primarily attempts to identify individuals with a view to those collating the disclosures using the ad hominem tactic against donors. Intimidation and victimization can easily follow.

Transparency as to the source and extent of financial contributions for electoral purposes can provide an all too easy excuse, on occasions, for not thinking about the issues themselves. Frequent and prolonged argument over its inadequacy can provide a smokescreen for much more basic failings in electoral administration, failings that can directly threaten the freedom and fairness of the conduct of elections.

Following this line of thought, Anthony, given your position in the Australasian Study of Parliament Group and your role in the Senate Procedure Office, could you help track down the originals of the four Writs for the conduct of the 3 September 1988 referenda? They don't seem to be in the Archives, nor in the Federal Executive Council records. Facsimiles of them have been published in Commonwealth Government Gazette No. S 254 dated Monday 24 July 1989. I feel sure they're not meant to be missing.

And no, you were not talking to yourself in your last post on the Kanck Hansard thread.

Anthony Marinac,

Sorry about the Franglais in the previous post. It should of course have been 'noms-des-plume', not 'nomes de plume'.

I also neglected to mention (I think due to the word limit) that Commonwealth Government Gazette No. S 254 dated Monday 24 July 1989 was published within, or under the cover of, Commonwealth Government Gazette, Government Notices edition, No. GN 29 dated Wednesday 2 August 1989.

GN 29 seems to have been the first Government Notices edition to carry re-gazettals of Special gazette notices. This change seems to have been to do with the logistics of publication of multi-page notices. It will be observed that S 254 contained a multi-page notice, that of facsimiles of the four writs for the 1988 referenda. It would thus appear that gazette No. S 254 was the first multi-paged notice to have been published in accordance with the suggestions given in the explanatory panel enfaced upon gazette GN 29. This might make it a very special gazette notice.

One could be forgiven for thinking that, far from allowing total dissemination of its information, S 254's special position helped hide what it contained.

Whilst this information may appear a little off-topic, I assure you that it may ultimately be seen to be related to the proper and transparent conduct and administration of matters electoral. An appropriate matter to pursue, that of the location of the originals of those writs, I should think.