Compulsory voting is the Australian way, and it is wise to have our rights and responsibilities more clear.

Income Tax and all Government revenue including traffic infringements, council rates, fees, levies and charges are compulsory. It is compulsory to complete your census, attend school, having our bodies disposed of with hygene after our deaths.

Yet very little promotion was spent on the census this year in comparison to unessential propaganda on other matters. Many thought it was just a choice to fill it in. It is essential for the government to have the statistics for accurate planning. Many forgot to do it. Why wasn't more money spent on the census responsibility promotion rather than rambling on about how we should force the disabled to work.

A lower quota on Government electoral spending and Government propaganda has to be regulated. We chose Governments as our democratic responsibilities. The government, therefore, should not tell us who or what to vote for as our national responsibility, at our own tax payer's expense.

There is a big difference between the two in ethics.

I’m finding it a bit hard to understand just what you are getting at Saintfletcher.

So I’ll offer this:

I think that whenever the government uses public funds to promote anything, it must allow the opposition the opportunity to have an equal input. And it must allow minor parties and independents to have a proportional input.

Funding for election campaigns needs to be drawn entirely from the public purse, so that donations are eliminated, and any perception of favours for donors eliminated along with it.

I agree, Ludwig, that sufficient funding from the Australian Electoral Commission to the parties or the independents avoids sleazy private funding. I don't question that.

The question I raised, though admittedly: on the run, my grammar was ordinary, pointed to promotional commercials that were not funded directly from the Australian Electoral Commission. The tax payer's money could have been seen as misappropriated from the departments themselves. The Government allocates "special promotional grants" and the department usually use them before election time.

The funding is not directly through the AEC, but it does promote propaganda for the incumbent government which is in fact an election marketing strategy. This could be seen as misappropriation at taxpayer's expense.

My apologies for the grammar. I really did rush this one without proofing.

The Party in power doesn't need to waste a cent of taxpayers money on election advertising, as it has its previous record to stand on. From that record, anybody can form their own opinion on the general direction it is heading. A good product,i.e. Rolls Royce, doesn't need to advertise. Political parties can also upload their policies on the net where all Australians can access them, for little cost. Unless some unexpected event happens, I believe most people already know how they will vote in the next election and no amount of advertising will change that.

Public funding sounds OK except it only favours the encumbent or the Big Two monopolist parties.
It is a wonderful thing for the media sellers.
Give the two major parties all the taxpayers money so that they can manipulate the monoplist Australian media.
As an independent free thinker who finds solutions outside the square,I will never win an election with the two giants dominating the Australian political scene. Australians are trapped in a net of media ownership that only supports the rich.The poor will never be told the truth,the real truth and nothing but the truth.
Thank God for the internet.
The poormans media!

“Public funding sounds OK except it only favours the encumbent or the Big Two monopolist parties.”

But Brock if it favours one party, it isn’t ok. It’s antidemocratic.

Every issue that the government, or the opposition or minor parties, feel they need to publicise, needs to have equal opportunity, or perhaps opportunity proportional to the numbers of elected reps.

Most of time this happens, sort of, more or less, in the media. But of course it doesn’t happen with ‘commercials’ on television and in newspapers.

Issues need to be judged on their merits, not on the willingness for the incumbent party to dip into the public purse thus presenting a totally one-sided picture.

I agree that where this sort of ‘advertising’ is one-sided, it does amount to a misappropriation of public funds.

The incumbent parties do get more funding than the opposition in State and Federal levels. On the Federal level, the funding is scaled on the number of seats won on the previous election. On the State level, it is scaled on the percentage of votes won in the election in NSW. The State system is more friendly to the minor parties that have fewer seats, yet may have higher percentages of over-all votes.

It is true that the sleaze factor in funding the parties is a problem. It could be an idea to ban any company donation to the Government in election as it is in a process of a contract with them. Funding that party, at election time, so that any possible conflict of interest with the other political parties that threaten their contract, is corrupting democracy.

Foreign owned companies should be banned from donating money to parties for elections.

Also tobacco companies and casinos should be banned from donating money to political parties for elections as they have a set interests in deregulating sales and consumption.

Tobacco companies foreign companies and casinos are funding the major parties already. The interests of those that fund the two political parties may not be in the best interests of ordinary Australians. This is cause for more standards and rules in overall funding to be more regulated.

It is interesting to see that the discussion has got around to that of the public funding of political parties, after having also ranged over the issue of prohibition of private and corporate donation to political parties.

Could it be that public funding has been advanced not so much as a counter to, or substitute for, corporate donation, but because there has been progressively less willingness of private and corporate donors to donate in support of political party structures? Could it be that, far from private and corporate donations buying favorable treatment and policy, the reverse is true; that donors are few and far between and that political party machine functionaries actively seek to avoid the chore of fund raising? Could it be that the effectiveness of political advertising and publicity has far less effect on electors than it has been credited with over the years?

It was revealing to see the undisguised glee with which the initial conviction of Pauline Hanson was greeted by both Peter Beattie and the AEC. It wasn't sufficient that the public funding that had been allegedly improperly claimed had been repaid into consolidated revenue from private subscription long before the verdict, or even the trial. They wanted payback! Pauline Hanson (and other One Nation candidates) had attracted a significant number of primary votes, votes that constituted the basis upon which public funding of political parties is assessed. Pauline Hanson's very presence in that electoral context with the associated claim for public funding, whether intendedly improper or resulting from an honest misunderstanding of the law, had deprived one of the major political parties of a significant part of 'their' public funding! It was plain straight dog-in-the-manger stuff! The fact that the Queensland taxpayers were saved around a million dollars through the privately subscribed repayment of the funding didn't even rate a mention.

If once the only legitimate source of funding for political parties becomes public funding, then kiss goodbye to any semblance of accountability to the public by party functionaries and representatives.

You could have a point there Forrest, particularly for the Independents. I sometimes wonder if Pauline Hanson was hijacked by those fiddling-the-till in her own party.

Incumbent parties always have the advantage of funding firstly as funding is scaled from previous elections.

Funding from the AEC is not at question here.

The problem is when the incumbent Government, state or Federal, launch bogus campaigns, just before election time, using all departmental funding, as well as AEC funding. This could be seen as misappropriation of taxpayers' money.

Even the NSW ALP Government is into it now with its "future strategy" campaign. That funding is not from the AEC for elections. The opposition and minor parties do not have the same perks from taxpayers.

Yes, it is true, both the ALP and Liberal Parties do accept funding from tobacco companies and other multi-national corporations. The minor parties and independents don't.

Crikey Saintfletcher you are threatening to cut off the revenue stream of country commercial television stations if you restrict political advertising by the incumbent party. Often 80% of the advertising in prime time viewing is from the state and federal government and you can bet they pay full price for their advertising spots.

Of course the party in power would argue that the advertisements are really public information projects like "Wipe Off 5" to reduce speeding on our roads or "Everyone will be better off under Work Choices" which has proved patently not to be the case. It's hard to argue against advertisements encouraging you stop speeding, protect yourself from skin cancer, or save water but other advertisements are more contentious and less apolitical yet they are still funded by the grateful taxpayer of all persuasions.

It's also niave to assume that political advertisements only appear in the election campaign. Sure their intensity increases in the lead up to an election but the political lobby groups are moulding public opinion to shift Australia from a democracy that believed in a Fair Go For All meaning that Australians looked after the underdogs to a society that looks after itself and ignore the people unable to look after themselves like children.