Who, Why, What, How
From Lobbyocracy.org.au
Contents |
Who
Lobbyocracy.org is run by the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice. The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice is a social and environmental justice organisation that aims to deepen democracy in Australia by engaging the community and creating debate. We work in a global context towards the goal of communities being in control of their own destinies by addressing the power imbalances in society. We try to raise new ideas and approaches and show that there are highly democratic solutions that a just society on can be built on.
We are greatful to the assistance we have recieved from NSW Greens and Democracy 4 Sale whose data has formed a significan part of this wiki.
Prosper have also played a significant role in the development of this campaign.
What
A Lobbyocracy is a country that allows lobby groups to have a high level of influence on the policies of the government. This lobbying is often tied to large donations to political parties.
Why
Relative to the values expressed at democracyandjustice.org/believe, we argue that a Lobbyocracy undermines the democratic process because lobbyists have a much higher level of influence than those with large financial and political resource available to them. This reduces access for most people to the nodes of power. Moreover, access to information regarding these donations is often hard to obtain, hidden behind anonymity, front groups “backdoor” donations.
This then decreases the amount of control communities have over their own destinies. The decisions made by governments are not based on community concern but on commercial interest. This gives large multi-national corporations more say over the running of the country than those that are directly affected in their day to day lives.
This is immoral and needs to be exposed.
How
To expose the Lobbyocracy we need your help. We’ve set up a Wiki here which allows you to help us track the donations an their outcomes. Wiki is short from ‘What I Know, Is…’ A Wiki is a piece of web based software which allows you, the user, to add and edit content as you see fit. As you look through our site, if you see a piece of information that is missing and you have some information then add it in. If you can see an error or think something is poorly expressed then you can edit it.
We are using the Media Wiki software program.
