Senate Environment and Communications References Committee Enquiry The State of Media Diversity, Independence and Reliability in Australia and the Impact that this has on Public Interest Journalism and Democracy Submission

Contents 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 1 2. Is There a Murdoch Media Monopoly? …………………………………………… 3 2.1 The Australian Media Landscape ………………………………………………... 3 2.2 The Allegation of Political Influence and the Issue of Climate Denial ………... 10 2.3 Cause and Effect? The Formation of Individuals’ Opinions …………………… 23 2.4 Should there be a Royal Commission? ………………………………………… 26 3. Democracy and the Media ……………………………………………………… 32 3.1 A Brief Survey of the History of Democracy ……………………...... 33 3.2 What Democracy? ……………………………………………………………… 55 3.3 An Information Society? ……………………………………………………….. 71 3.4 The Australian Culture War ……………………………………………………. 76 3.5 The Principle of Tolerance ……………………………………………………... 86 3.6 The Role of ‘The Fourth Estate’ in Democracy ………………………………... 92 3.7 The ABC ……………………………………………………………………… 105 3.8 The Education of Journalists – and of every Australian ……………………… 112 4. The Freedom of the Press ……………………………………………………… 120 4.1 The American Constitution …………………………………………………… 130 4.2 The Supreme Court Decision in the Matter of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ ………. 131 4.3 An Australian Bill of Rights ………………………………………………… 136 4.4 Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom White Paper on Press Freedom in Australia 137 5. Summary ……………………………………………………..………………… 140

1. Introduction

1.1 Terms of the enquiry:

1 The state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy, including:

a. the current state of public interest journalism in Australia and any barriers to Australian voters’ ability to access reliable, accurate and independent news; b. the effect of media concentration on democracy in Australia; c. the impact of Australia’s media ownership laws on media concentration in Australia; d. the impact of significant changes to media business models since the advent of online news and the barriers to viability and profitability of public interest news services; e. the impact of online global platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter on the media industry and sharing of news in Australia; f. the barriers faced by small, independent and community news outlets in Australia; g. the role that a newswire service plays in supporting diverse public interest journalism in Australia; h. the state of local, regional and rural media outlets in Australia; i. the role of government in supporting a viable and diverse public interest journalism sector in Australia; and j. any other related matters.

1.2 I am not a media analyst or commentator, and I am not qualified to offer more than a personal assessment of the majority of areas to be considered by this enquiry. Section 2 below will consider media-related questions. 1.3 As this enquiry is concerned with the relationship between the media and democracy, it is necessary to define how this should be understood. In my opinion, neither government nor journalists nor the general public in Australia display a satisfactory understanding of the historical evolution and principles of democracy. The majority of this submission is concerned with the questions ‘What is democracy?’, ‘Do we have democracy in Australia?’, ‘What is the role of the media within a democracy?’, and ‘Is democracy in Australia seriously threatened by any section of the media in Australia?’

2 1.4 Democracy does not consist merely in a given system of elections, parliament, and law in its actual operation, or in an absolute, unaccountable and inviolate sovereignty of government over the people: it consists in the maintenance of the well- being, prosperity, dignity, autonomy and freedom of the entire population without exception; the direct participation of the people in their own government; and the permanent accountability of government to the people as their delegated representatives. 1.5 The role of the media should be to serve as a tribune of the people (tribunus plebis), if necessary against government, in order to protect democracy from potential abuse and the weakening of it by government; that is what the traditional designation of the media as ‘the fourth estate’ means. Where that in fact occurs, the last and the present Coalition governments in particular have frequently sought to intimidate, criminalise, silence or otherwise weaken the media platforms responsible and their sources, not to respect and protect them. 1.6 This submission argues that the greatest “cancer” on democracy in Australia is not a section of the media, but government itself. 1.7 Until all Australians, including all politicians, have an adequate understanding of what democracy is, and should be, and agree unconditionally to respect and protect that, there is little benefit in questioning any alleged threat to democracy – what democracy? – that may allegedly be posed by the media. 1.8 This submission goes to some lengths to argue for a conception of democracy and of the role of the media within it, because such an argument is generally lacking in politics and in public debate. This argument needs to be made, and seriously considered, if we are to arrive at an adequate resolution of this matter.

2. Is There a Murdoch Media Monopoly? 2.1 The Australian Media Landscape

2.1.1 A ‘monopoly’ is defined in economic terms as a market structure with a single seller, whereas at law, it is defined as a business entity with significant market power. This need not be a large business as long as it is able to control and manipulate a market, including the charging of high prices. It is a situation characterised by a lack of competition. This may also consist in multiple companies apparently independent but all owned and controlled by one individual and/or parent company. Rupert

3 Murdoch’s News Corps may be considered legally as a monopoly, but not in economic terms. 2.1.2 A business monopoly is inconsistent with the economic theory of competition, which requires a reasonable diversity of actors in an economic sector that are independent of one another, that do not collude to manipulate or dominate a sector, within which there is genuine competition that delivers the ostensible benefits of quality and affordability of goods and services. In Australia we arguably have more the theory or the illusion than the practice of competition. This is also evident in other sectors such as the dominance of Coles and Woolworths as supermarket chains; that dominance is not desirable, it has had enormous adverse effects on supply chains, it should be reduced, and the scale of that dominance would not be legal in many OECD countries. 2.1.3 It is not clear to me that any action by News Corp is directly responsible for any alleged effects that its majority market share may have either on the media landscape or on the quality of democracy, including public debate, in Australia. 2.1.4 News Corp controls 64.2% of print media in national and capital city circulation. Nine Entertainment owns 26.4%. The most-read national daily is News Corp’s The Australian, with Nine’s Australian Financial Review enjoying less than half of its circulation; this pattern is replicated for weekend nationals, with Schwartz Media’s The Saturday Paper approximately comparable with the AFR. 2.1.5 The ownership of capital dailies is more complex, and varies from state to state. Nine owns The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, both reputable mastheads. It would require further research to establish the ownership and relative importance of regional and local newspapers, and whether Murdoch has been responsible for the closure of regional papers. The Guardian is also a crucial publication, although its major presence is now online rather than print. There should be at least two daily newspapers in every capital city, not including The Australian, which are not owned by the same corporation. It is obviously not desirable that News Corp should own the only state newspaper or all state newspapers in any state or territory, but in some states this is the case. There are multiple other online daily news and commentary outlets, for example, The Conversation. 2.1.6 Media concentration in Australia is exceptionally high in international comparison, and earlier restrictions have been lifted in recent decades (e.g. on limits

4 of foreign ownership in 2007); which governments have been responsible for allowing this level of concentration, and why? It would be reasonable to consider bringing Australia into line with other OECD countries in more strictly regulating permissible percentages of ownership and, in particular, reducing News Corp’s market share to not more than one third (33%). 2.1.7 Australian Associated Press is clearly an essential news service and its independence and survival should be protected; it should also be capable of employing more than 80 editors nationally. To the extent that all other media coverage in Australia depends on this service, government should consider ways of ensuring its survival and continued viability. It should not be owned by one company or magnate. Its current status as a consortium of investors who are in principle committed to quality independent media coverage is positive, but the threat to it posed both by its uncertain financial viability and by a News Corp rival (NCA Newswire) need to be addressed. Were AAP to be shut down and replaced by NCA Newswire, then the media landscape in Australia would be seriously compromised, in view of the dependence of all other media outlets on such a source, and the clear bias of News Corp. 2.1.8 Statistics for audiences of the evening television news broadcasts, and the relative reach of Sky News and Nine in particular would need to be clarified. The ABC is the other important broadcaster in this context, providing a number of current affairs programmes in addition to the news, and also operating regional broadcasting and an online presence. The ABC (and SBS) is arguably the most important counter- balance to Murdoch. The ABC is, unlike other media platforms, directly dependent upon government for its funding, and therefore for its capacity to provide a high quality independent news and current affairs service. It is the responsibility of government to assure this, which under the Howard and Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Coalition governments has not been adequately assured. This matter is considered further below in Section 3. SBS is important for media diversity not only in relation to its daily evening news but for its daily broadcasting of various international foreign-language news programmes, which are watched primarily but not only by our multicultural population. At the same time, however, there is generally a rather inadequate level of reporting of international or global news by mainstream media, including SBS’ general news coverage.

5 2.1.9 A further question, which is decisive for deciding the alleged political bias of the media in Australia, is whether Nine tends to be ideologically comparable with News Corp, whether it engages in the same type of biased reporting and exercises similar editorial control over its journalists. If this is the case, then it can be argued that the Australian media landscape is exceptionally biased, and that bias and dominance should be terminated. If, on the other hand, Nine offers more responsible and balanced reporting and allows greater freedom to its journalists, then there is, notionally, a reasonably strong degree of media diversity in content. Continuing the tradition of Fairfax (merged with Nine in 2018), Nine mastheads do also engage in investigative reporting, which is an important measure of media independence. This also appears to be true in some degree with Murdoch publications; it should be noted that in some circumstances, Murdoch media have also been critical of the government (e.g. following the June 2019 AFP raids). Given that there are far more Australians aspiring to careers as journalists than there are career opportunities for them, this can affect the willingness of individuals to work for any media outlet that offers them a position, regardless of its orientation. A principled stand is not a professional or career option when basic employment is at stake. Journalists also have little or no control over the independence of their reporting when they are either pressured to present their reports in a pre-determined manner or when editors control content. 2.1.10 The readership demographic for major print newspapers tends to consist of baby-boomers and older Australians, so that these no longer reach a majority of the population, in particular, younger Australians, whose principal news and information sources are online media platforms, social media, and the internet. Circulation statistics are therefore no longer a reliable indictor of media presence and influence. 2.1.11 The internet is far more diverse and cannot be regulated or controlled in the way that print, television and radio can be. The internet now allows any Australian with access to read any media platform in the world, including high quality [foreign language] international publications, either for free or for modest subscriptions. It also allows anybody to further research any issue of interest or importance to them, consulting any information in the public domain. For this reason alone, I do not believe that Murdoch is capable of disproportionately dominating or influencing the Australian public, unless the Australian public, or significant swathes of it, allow him to by their reliance upon News Corp. In other words, if News Corp exercises an

6 unhealthy and disproportionate influence upon the Australian public, that can only be because Australians allow him to do so, by choosing not to consult other media platforms and to form their own opinions. They do have sufficient access to alternative sources of news and commentary. 2.1.12 The growing importance of social media as a news source has recently raised the question of making those platforms pay for their media content. I agree that social media platforms should pay for all content they derive from other sources, which have themselves invested money in producing that content.1 A second question should be the quality and reliability of that content, and whether, as a potentially principal source for some people, it is also ‘influential’. Social media have both advantages and disadvantages; in many countries, they have been instrumental in the defence and advocacy of democracy. 2.1.13 There are a number of current affairs and public debate periodicals, primarily still print publications, including Quadrant (unfortunately far from always being a non-partisan journal, and a contributor to the culture war), The Monthly, and Quarterly Essays. Once important periodicals that no longer exist include The Bulletin and the National Times (1971-1986, a Fairfax publication with a high reputation for investigative journalism). Consideration might be given to the question why such quality periodicals have shut down. Australia does have a reasonable range of cultural periodicals, such as Griffith Review and Meanjin, which combine Arts with current social and political commentary, as also does Quadrant. This makes us reasonably comparable with the international context, relative to variables such as population size, levels of public education and interest, as reflected for example in the regular online round-up Eurozine. 2.1.14 There is a considerable range of think tanks spanning the political spectrum, although one suspects that only a small proportion of the population directly engages with their publications. Few of them enjoy much of a public profile or potential ‘influence’, even if different daily publications do source some of their materials (e.g. the Grattan Institute). 2.1.15 Australia does have several reasonably high quality current affairs periodicals, but we do not have either newspapers or news magazines of the quality of leading 1 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/03/essential-poll-two-thirds-of- australians-say-government-should-regulate-facebook-and-google

7 American and European publications (e.g. Die Zeit, Der Spiegel), and this deficit adversely affects the mediocre level of most public debate in this country. This is a question that raises two issues: (1) Are Australian journalists and sufficient numbers of the general public adequately educated and engaged to produce and read higher quality news and current affairs or commentary journalism? This issue is considered further from several perspectives below in Section 3. (2) How financially viable would higher quality journalism be as a purely private enterprise if it could not reach a reasonable readership? A high standard of investigative reporting and of public debate requires a high level of education of journalists and of a broad section of the general public; an accepted intellectual cultural tradition within which such debate is framed; and the publication of long essays and articles that people take the time to read and discuss. These elements are all largely lacking in this country, though they continue to characterise the international media environment. 2.1.16 It needs to be asked how much diversity is financially viable. The Murdoch media imperium enjoys a degree of financial resources probably not equalled by any other media concern in Australia, with its diversification into film, television and book publishing internationally and other revenue sources. It is well known that the decline of print news publications and the transition to online platforms has considerably reduced the advertising revenue that was essential to maintaining the print publication viability. Comparable alternative sources of revenue have not been forthcoming, and that is compounded by the fact that some online outlets are free, depending largely on donations and financial support from other sectors. Under these conditions, given also a relatively small population and little diversification into multiple media that would generate greater revenue, as in film and television and book publishing (none of which are major sources of profit in Australia), beyond dependence upon advertising revenue (now substantially reduced), financial viability of greater media diversity is problematic. I do not consider our modest population size to be a decisive factor against the sustainability of a more diverse and financially viable media landscape, insofar as countries with significantly smaller populations appear to be able maintain adequate diversity and sustainability. However, in order to achieve that, we may need to consider having fewer publishers, or more government financial assistance for them.

8 Given the dominant neoliberal political ideology of both major parties and the influence of the right-wing faction particularly within the Coalition, it is unlikely that such proposals would be implemented, or that they would remain untouched if implemented – even were the public to favour more government support. Without more news media outlets being better invested in and supported by government and the private sector than has been the case, it seems probable that the outlook for significantly greater media diversity and quality, which would also be capable of undertaking more public interest and investigative journalism, is poor. This also means that even were News Corp to be reduced in its market share, it is questionable whether other platforms would emerge or evolve to fill the gap left by that reduction. 2.1.17 Another possibility would be to adequately fund the ABC and SBS on a continuing basis so that they were able to provide more public interest programming. That would require a fundamental attitudinal shift in the Coalition on several fronts, and a clearer commitment from Labor. Whether because of limited budgets or for other reasons, the educational and public interest programming of SBS is seriously deficient, and should be reviewed. SBS could, and at its inception was expected to, play a far greater role in the education of the population relative to our growing multiculturalism, which is not served by endless cooking programmes, World War II documentaries, and travelogues. In light of issues pertinent to democracy to be discussed below, of still widespread racism and ignorance about Islam, and of major social, economic and political factors driving the global migration crisis which also affects Australia, SBS should in my opinion be fulfilling a very different function. 2.1.18 The problem of financial viability is also reflected in the redundancy of many journalists and very limited career opportunities because of the much tighter financial constraints of existing media outlets generally. As in other professional areas, more journalists are forced to work freelance which, unless by choice, is not a satisfactory, sustainable long-term or permanent form of employment. Media outlets cannot afford to employ large numbers of journalists in a full-time capacity. Journalists should have the same right as every other Australian to full-time, adequately remunerated and reasonably secure employment, with long-term career prospects. Currently, neither many journalists nor millions of other Australians have those opportunities. If we want more and better journalism, then somebody has to pay for it.

9 2.1.19 It cannot be said that there is no diversity in the Australian media landscape, but that some greater diversity would be desirable. It could be argued that if we take into account all of the various sources mentioned here, there is reasonable diversity, despite News Corp’s majority market share in some areas. The statistical estimate of market share is distinct from questions of quality and standards, and of how many Australians choose to rely upon one media source rather than another; these questions should not be confused or conflated. 2.1.20 It cannot be said that Murdoch has forced the global transition to online media and the resulting loss of advertising revenue. He has merely taken advantage of an increasingly challenging financial situation and acted as would be expected of any normal entrepreneur. 2.1.21 If there is reasonable diversity in the media landscape, even despite Murdoch’s monopoly, but it is still alleged that views espoused by Murdoch’s media (and others who share them) appear to be disproportionately influential, then the question should be, why more Australians read those newspapers than read alternative newspapers? 2.1.22 Are we assuming that there is nothing worth reading in News Corp publications? Do News Corp journalists also engage in public interest investigative reporting? What exactly is the relationship between Murdoch and his Australian editors? How long has Murdoch been held to be influencing Australian society and politics?

2.2 The Allegation of Political Influence and the Issue of Climate Denial

2.2.1 The fact that an estimated 79% of Australians now want more, and more decisive, government action on climate change2 means that the alleged influence of Murdoch’s climate change denial has had limited effect. Australians have now begun to experience the immediate effects of climate change and global warming, and on the basis of their experience and observation, rather than on what they may have read in Murdoch tabloids, they have clearly not subscribed in large numbers to this alleged Murdoch influence. 2 e.g. "New polling shows 79% of Aussies care about climate change. So why doesn't the government listen?" — https://theconversation.com/new-polling-shows-79-of-aussies-care-about-climate-change- so-why-doesnt-the-government-listen-148726 and https://www.theguardian.com/australia- news/2020/dec/01/three-quarters-of-australians-back-target-of-net-zero-by-2030-guardian-essential- poll-shows

10 2.2.2 The fact that 500,000 Australians signed Kevin Rudd’s petition for a royal commission into the influence of Murdoch on Australian politics, that possibly more who did not sign it nonetheless sympathise with it, and that a high percentage of Australians continue to support and value the ABC, also suggests that Murdoch’s influence is not as extensive as might be alleged. 2.2.3 I am obviously unable to comment upon the particular experiences of Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull that have made both of them now vocal critics of Murdoch, in direct dealings with him, or the extent to which he may have sought to influence politicians in ways that are not visible to the general public. 2.2.4 However, the principle of the freedom of the press means that neither Murdoch nor anybody else who espouses climate change denial or other ideological and controversial views is in breach of that principle. They are entitled to express their views equally with those who oppose such views or who hold different views, no matter how factually inaccurate or offensive such views may be. The cause of democracy, which should be predicated upon tolerance of diverse views and beliefs and not upon censorship, is not protected by advocating or taking measures in contravention of the principles of democracy and free speech and the freedom of belief, unless it can be demonstrated according to juridical standards of evidence that those views cause harm or pose a real threat. The mere allegation of such harm or threat is not sufficient. The expression of different views is not in itself bias. Bias occurs when it serves a political agenda, is not factual and not subject to effective discrediting but continues to shape how people think and act, including in ways that undermine democracy – but the line here is not clearly drawn. 2.2.5 It might be asked whether it is desirable to have stronger and enforceable – but not voluntary - standards of truth in all journalism. Any such standard would still be confronted by the problem of freedom of speech and belief, and these problems apply in many other areas as well, including social media and gossip magazines. The fact that even the Australian Electoral Commission does not have power to require truth in election campaigns and to sanction falsehood is a measure of how defective our community standards are, and an indication of the extent of government tolerance of lies and distortions; similarly, recent instances of political corruption and election manipulation are just as much a threat to democracy, if not significantly more so, than a media mogul, and yet there appears to be little political willingness to prevent,

11 investigate, and punish this corruption. A higher standard would probably limit, but not stop, the proliferation and dissemination of undesirable journalism; any such standard would have to be embodied in the example set by politicians. 2.2.6 Were any attempt to be made to impose such a standard, it would have to define and delimit the area to which it applied and the reasons for it, but it could not be applied indiscriminately, arbitrarily, or in ways that would restrict civil liberties outside of what was defined as news reporting and commentary, for example. The general public would then be aware that there was a specific expectation of truthful and reliable reporting, and that such standards applied only to any publications (print, digital or other) included in that classification. This standard could, and arguably should, be extended to include all sources of information provided to or used by the public in the formation of their opinions on any matter upon which they are asked to vote. This would in effect include all news reporting. Those standards would need to be approved and legislated by government, but should not be defined by government alone. There would also need to be robust and independent, i.e. unprejudiced, mechanisms to enforce this, without which it would be meaningless. The purpose of such a standard would be in the interests of ensuring reliable information as a necessary basis for functional democracy. 2.2.7 It may also be asked whether existing laws are sufficient to stop Murdoch (and others, such as fellow politicians, and radio talkback hosts) from attacking, misrepresenting and otherwise causing a nuisance to politicians. One aspect of complaints against Murdoch is that he attacks and seeks to discredit politicians whom he does not support, and that this is also a damaging influence upon democracy. Yet some politicians behave in the same way towards colleagues and others in the community. This claim is problematic. Is the intent merely to remove Murdoch from the media landscape so that he can no longer act in this way? If so, then by what right, and on what basis? How can his alleged pernicious influence be quantified, as would normally be required in a libel suit? Is the concern here with attacks on individual politicians, or is it with the alleged manner in which that influence then leads voters to support another candidate when, had such attacks not occurred, they would have supported those who have been discredited? How can this be proven beyond reasonable doubt? Are libel laws sufficient to address this problem, or do they need review? What are Murdoch’s motives: purely ideological, or in order to seek business

12 advantage, or both? And is it not in the normal nature of politics that politicians would be publicly mocked, criticised, and attempts made to discredit them? How, then, is the case with Murdoch different or exceptionally problematic? Is there a double standard in the Coalition’s hostility towards the ABC while being willing to benefit from Murdoch support – which is a clear case of bias that discredits Coalition politicians’ accusations of bias against the ABC? How is any alleged attempt to influence politicians by Murdoch any different from clearly successful influence by other lobbyists and interest groups – such as the mining industry (including donations)? Why is one instance more problematic than any other? All such influence represents the corruption of government, and if one issue is to be remedied, then all such issues ought to be similarly remedied. Such questions do need to be satisfactorily resolved before a credible case can be made against Murdoch’s alleged pernicious influence; they have not been so resolved. 2.2.8 If, however unlikely, Australia had a preponderance of left-wing media outlets, or a left-wing media monopoly (according to the legal, not the economic definition), would we argue that this was unacceptable and advocate in favour of more right-wing publications? 2.2.9 Any untoward political influence on Australian government that Murdoch may exercise does not need to be numerically significant. Given the increasingly autocratic character of government decision making, which ignores public and dissenting concerns where possible, Murdoch and likeminded figures only need to influence those decision makers and their backers; he does not need to directly influence a majority, or even a significant minority, of the general public. At the same time, however, many of those decision makers, i.e. politicians, share his views and do not need to be persuaded by him to do anything; they will anyway. 2.2.10 Whereas Murdoch’s media anti-climate change views are publicly expressed, the influence of the fossil fuel lobby is potentially more damaging, insofar as it is less visible. It is known to have conducted campaigns comparable with and directly inspired by the tobacco industry’s campaign to deny the harmful effects of smoking. If the corruption of politics by any climate change denying lobby group is of concern within the parameters of this enquiry, then the influence and activities of the fossil fuel industries ought to be examined more closely and assessed in their influence relative to that of any media outlet. That should begin with an investigation of the relationship between our mining magnates and all politicians.

13 2.2.11 Murdoch is not responsible for the increasingly polarising and divisive nature of public politics in Australia. As with his acquisition of a majority market share, so also here, he may have benefitted from an existing situation, but he has not caused it. There has been a discernible decline in bipartisan agreement on what is in the best interests of the entire country and an increase in political corruption, opportunism, contempt for the electorate, a blatant power struggle, and visible aggression in the ‘bear pit’ of parliament. None of this brings any benefit whatsoever either to the standards of governance in this country or to the lives of individual Australians. If Murdoch’s alleged influence is to be reduced, then a better place to begin would be with the conduct of politics itself. This should extend not merely to greater mutual respect and less division, but also to the actual manner in which policies and legislation are discussed, and how consensus is sought and achieved, not merely between political parties (which frequently has the appearance not of genuine consensus but of a quid quo pro, or bribery and corruption) but equally between government and the general public. If politicians set the national example, then the polarising effect of Murdoch would be obviated. 2.2.12 Murdoch did not cause the increasing trend in politics both in Australia and around the world towards neoliberal economic and social ideology from the 1980s to the present. This topic is considered further in Section 3 below. This is evident in the dominance of the right-wing faction within the Coalition, just as it is in the comparable dominance of the Tea Party faction in the American Republican Party and the failure of the Democratic Party to advocate for more socially constructive policies and to engage with the discontent from which Donald Trump ultimately profited – both of which are responsible for considerable political dysfunction – as well as the rise of neo-fascist and right-wing parties and agendas in Europe. All of these trends are anti-democratic, also in Australia. All of these are ‘normal’ historical processes of reaction. Centrist/moderate and left- wing political parties have failed to provide viable alternative policies, and to address major social challenges. Populations have historically tended not to the Left but to the Right when confronted with major unresolved causes of discontent. This is also true in Australia. We have had hugely damaging and increasingly inequitable social, economic and other policies beginning under the Hawke-Keating government and continuing to the present without ANY credible responses by governments, which have themselves instead imposed and perpetuated them. Murdoch may feed upon and

14 foment public discontent, but he has not caused it. Murdoch was himself once socialist leaning, and his family certainly would not have identified with his current politics. The solution to the alleged influence of Murdoch in this context would be for governments to finally begin to address the damage of badly regulated, rapacious neoliberal policies in this country, for both major parties to decisively abandon their neoliberal ideology, to eliminate the causes of public discontent, and to stop exploiting and perpetuating causes of social division to their own advantage. 2.2.13 To the extent that Murdoch and his editors have engaged in climate change denial, they cannot be blamed for the failure of Australia to develop and implement a response to climate change. Once again, Murdoch may have benefitted from and fomented a situation, but he has not caused it. 2.2.14 The world has known about the theory of greenhouse gases since 1824, and by the end of the 19th century their effect on climate had been sufficiently established. 2.2.15 We have known about environmental damage and pollution (including urban air pollution) in varying cases from the beginning of the 20th century through to the 1960s, which saw a major increase in concerns around this issue.3 2.2.17 We have become increasingly aware of climate change resulting from human activities since the 1970s; research has been able to trace the climate history of Planet Earth back almost one million years. Concentrations of toxic gases (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased significantly and globally since the Industrial Revolution, i.e. since the 18th/19th centuries); more than half of the increase of carbon dioxide has occurred since the 1970s. This increase is unprecedented over the past 800,000 years, and most of it is only explicable as a result of human activity. The global surface temperature had already increased on average 1° by 1900, and each of the past four decades has been hotter than the previous decade. There is now overwhelming evidence of the fact of climate change, so that it should no longer be an issue requiring public debate, as if it still might not be true. 2.2.18 It would have been a reasonable expectation of any government, once reliable evidence was available, to have established a department to monitor continuing research and to brief both the government and the public on this issue; to improve our environmental protections and to clean up pollution, areas in which the effects of

3 e.g. The Portable Sixties Reader, ed. Ann Charters (London: Penguin, 2003), pp. 543-586; Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (London: Penguin, [1962] 1999).

15 climate change are worsened; to improve our management of our resources, above all water and food; and to have developed and implemented policies, irrespective of opposition from lobby groups, to reduce our carbon emissions and to invest in a sustainable economic transition away from dependence on fossil fuel energy and exports to renewable and alternative energy. If any of that has indeed happened at all, it has not achieved the goals we as a nation needed to achieve at any time over the past four decades. 2.2.19 Australia has participated in Rio 1992, Kyoto 1997, Copenhagen 2009, Durban 2011, and Paris 2015, as well as the intervening meetings, and we have had world- leading climate scientists conducting research, but we have not acted to fully meet or exceed our obligations.4 2.2.20 It is evidence of the Commonwealth government’s anti-democratic behaviour that it has resisted public demand for action; reversed the Rudd-Gillard government’s carbon tax which has since been recognised internationally to be an effective mechanism; introduced ineffective and weaker alternative instruments; sought to discredit responsible action by state governments and other community groups; opposed the Children4Climate movement; misrepresented this country’s actual achievements; lied to the public; cut and refused funding for climate initiatives; weakened environmental protections; been responsible for the sacking of 600 CSIRO scientists primarily because of their internationally recognised and significant work on climate change; benefitted from climate change denial media support in particular from the Murdoch media; favoured short-term economic priorities with continued support for coal and gas mining and extraction and new projects;5 and engaged in other anti-climate change activities. None of this behaviour is genuinely democratic or in the best interests of this country, and none of it should ever have occurred. This

4 As useful as the government publication, Australia and the United Nations, ed. James Cotton and David Lee (Sydney: Longueville Books/Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2013), is for some factual information, I do not consider it to be a satisfactory treatment of individual topics it covers, including its chapters on environmental issues and on human rights. 5 e.g. "'Unjustifiable': new report shows how the nation's gas expansion puts Australians in harm’s way" — https://theconversation.com/unjustifiable-new-report-shows-how-the-nations-gas-expansion- puts-australians-in-harms-way-151199, and see also https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/03/great-barrier-reef-outlook-critical-as-climate- change-called-number-one-threat-to-world-heritage, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/03/frydenberg-proposed-delisting-wetland-to- allow-queenslands-toondah-harbour-development?CMP=share_btn_link

16 is unmitigated contempt by government towards the Australian people. This pattern is fully paralleled by and identical with this country’s behaviour towards human rights. 2.2.21 Despite reportedly 39 earlier (now 40) royal commissions and other enquiries into bushfires having been conducted between 1939-2020, the recommendations of those enquiries have clearly not been acted upon sufficiently by any state and territory or federal government, so that to date, this country remains ill-prepared to manage bushfires of increasing frequency, intensity, duration, and severity. The 2020 royal commission found that climate change was a significant factor in the 2019-2020 bushfire season. 2.2.22 Despite this country being continuously subject to severe and economically damaging drought, we have failed to manage our river systems properly and to ensure their health;6 we have not invested in adequate irrigation and dam projects; and we have not implemented the Bradfield project originally proposed in 1938 (abandoned 1947) to capture and pipe abundant heavy tropical rainfall across northern Australia to the south of the continent, which would have significantly reduced the impact of drought – instead of allowing so much precious rainwater to run off into the sea. Our desalination plants are also not properly maintained and well-used. 2.2.23 The farming community has long resisted experimenting with improvements to grazing practices to make our livestock sector more sustainable and less environmentally damaging. We have also failed to adequately address the problem of increased desertification. 2.2.24 We have allowed economic self-interest to weaken if not effectively destroy sectors essential to our domestic food supply chain and to reduce our autarchy. Trade agreements have also not been in our national interest in this respect. 2.2.25 We have tolerated very inadequate protections of the environment, endangered species and habitats, and often weakened rather than strengthening them where possible. This is also true in the case of our offshore marine environment. There has been little or no satisfactory remediation of former mining sites and appropriate management of industrial and mining waste, so that high levels of risk remain to the community and the environment. Environmental impact assessments by mining companies as part of their approvals applications have often been manipulated,

6 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/04/murray-darling-basin-nsw- government-officials-busted-favouring-irrigator-groups; Margaret Simons, Cry Me A River: The Tragedy of the Murray-Darling Basin, Quarterly Essay 77 (2020).

17 and responsible government agencies have not properly and independently evaluated those assessments. 2.2.26 We have failed to invest in a comprehensive and adequate domestic recycling and waste disposal industry, which should have been established by the 1980s, on a scale comparable with countries such as Germany. Shipping waste to other countries with no oversight of their handling of that waste or their protections of their own environment and populations has been grossly irresponsible. Australia could have afforded to have properly invested in our own waste recycling and disposal sector. It is disgraceful that no federal government has stared down drink producers and forced them to accept a national bottle and can buy-back agreement, and to prefer the use of recyclable glass bottles over plastic, as other countries have done; and that we have apparently not noticed the enormous use of plastics and their damaging effects on the environment, even to the extent of entering our food chain, much earlier and acted appropriately to reduce the use of plastics. 2.2.27 No government since 1945 has implemented or even advocated and supported an economic strategy that would have reduced our national dependency on agriculture and mining as major economic sectors, and ensured that we developed and diversified our economy sufficiently so that we were capable of transitioning quickly and efficiently to renewable and alternative energy; that we were sufficiently supported by revenue from exports other than agriculture and mining; and that we remained capable of providing full, adequately remunerated and appropriate employment for the entire population. Neither government nor the private sector has ever been prepared to provide sufficient venture capital investment in the way that every more developed OECD country has done, in order to support R&D, innovation, on-shore globally competitive manufacturing, full on-shore development and marketing of research outcomes, and other opportunities. That failure is arguably now, and has been over several decades, the single greatest impediment to any responsible political action on climate change – aside from the disproportionate and corrupting influence on government of the mining lobby. We have squandered our mining revenue, which ought to have been intelligently and fairly distributed to and invested on behalf of the entire country to fund our future prosperity (as, for example, Norway has done with its oil revenue, and as Timor-Leste plans to do). We are ranked among the top dozen wealthiest countries in the world,

18 but between 80-90 in terms of the development and complexity of our economy.7 This is not the place to provide a detailed analysis of our economic history; suffice to say that that history is extremely aberrant and atypical of any other OECD country. We have destroyed major industries such as wool and dairy and steel; we have closed considerable areas of manufacture and moved thousands of jobs off-shore; we have forced much innovation to seek investment abroad that we have refused to provide; and our chronic economic under-development (and entrenched age discrimination) is the principal reason why we are still unable to provide full employment of the population in careers of their choice, appropriate to their education, and why many workers fearing the loss of their jobs if or when we transition to renewable and alternative energy realistically have a very limited and potentially impoverished future. This is chronic failure of governance over the entire post-war period from 1945 to the present, and it, not Murdoch, has created the social and economic challenges we now face.8 This, not Murdoch, is also the cause of the growing public dissatisfaction with government. The same national mentality is reflected in our failure to adequately and permanently invest in our education and health systems, a welfare system fit for purpose, or in infrastructure projects before they become fully necessary, and in a propensity to out- source and to attempt cost cutting, both strategies typically resulting in overall higher costs than if they had been properly funded at the outset and kept within government service departments. It is precisely for this reason, and not necessarily any alleged influence of Murdoch and other climate change deniers, that many workers particularly in Queensland have been so concerned about loss of employment if, for example, the Adani project were to stop. Their fears are fully justified in comparison with the continuing

7 https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu (not the only index available) ranks Australia at 87 globally in 2018, the last year for which data are currently available. In 2000, we were ranked 62, and have not been ranked more highly over that period of 19 years. Our annual rankings have fluctuated, but the overall tendency has been one of decline. 8 While there has certainly been relevant public debate over decades, and while many in the community do recognise many of these issues, I am not aware of any satisfactory economic history of modern Australia that provides a full assessment of these issues across all sectors of the economy and society, although the writing of such a history is a desideratum. It is deeply regrettable, and tragic for the country, that neither our political nor our business nor our union leaders appear to have a functional comprehension of them. This assessment is based upon my own reading, but see for two examples: Charles Massy, Breaking the Sheep’s Back: The Shocking True Story of the Decline and Fall of the Australian Wool Industry (St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2011); Gideon Haigh, End of the Road? (Melbourne: Penguin, 2013), on the Australian car industry. See further e.g. Xavier Pons, A Sheltered Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994); Frank Crowley, Tough Times: Australia in the Seventies (Richmond VIC: William Heinemann, 1986), and other references in this submission.

19 unemployment of many older workers across the country, but more particularly those who have lost their jobs in the auto industry (e.g. Elizabeth in Adelaide) and in the closure of coal fired power stations (e.g. La Trobe Valley), and who have not found new employment. The employment problem, not climate change denial, is arguably the principal culprit here, and neither major party has to date offered any viable solution to that problem; if anything, they have both helped to make it worse. In these and other ways, Australia has failed over many decades to address major national problems that will be exacerbated by climate change, in ways that would otherwise have reduced the impact of that change. 2.2.28 It is revealing that the public, both consumers and shareholders, increasingly demand that businesses become supportive of renewable and alternative energy and stop investing in and funding fossil fuel projects; that state governments formed by both Labor and the LNP are increasingly moving towards renewable energy transition, regardless of the behaviour of the Coalition federal government;9 that more business investment is now occurring in that same transition; and that several economic plans developed by the Greens and community organisations (e.g. Beyond Zero Emissions, the ACTU)10 for our recovery from the COVID-19 recession have all focussed on a renewable energy transition, or the so-called Green New Deal. All of these trends are indicative of growing public concern about climate change. This is despite the fact that the current government is still supporting fossil fuel projects, refusing to offer the electorate the kind of climate change policy we now demand, and has still not confronted the fact that as our major trading partners themselves commit to more robust climate change policies, they will stop purchasing our coal and gas and leave us economically unprepared. The hand of Rupert Murdoch is not very visible in any of this. It should be noted that no post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan I have seen will generate the several million full-time continuing jobs across all sectors that we need, ensure that every Australian is in a job or career path of their choice and commensurate with their education or training and aspirations, or fully address all of the entrenched weaknesses in our economy.

9 e.g. "Australia's states have been forced to go it alone on renewable energy, but it's a risky strategy" — https://theconversation.com/australias-states-have-been-forced-to-go-it-alone-on-renewable-energy- but-its-a-risky-strategy-151086 10 e.g. Sharing the Benefits with Workers: A Decent Jobs Agenda for the Renewable Energy Industry, ACTU, November 2020.

20 2.2.29 Insofar as climate change denial is an issue, whether with Murdoch or with anybody else in the public arena, there are other factors at work here, too. First and foremost is the fact that Australian politics is increasingly driven and determined by ideology, not evidence, and by concern for its backers to the detriment of the general community. This represents a political tendency to ignore facts, as well as to distort, select, and misrepresent evidence for other ends, instead of acting appropriately in direct response to a disinterested evaluation of as much available evidence as possible. The assumed chain of a rational cause and effect, that rational and responsible action would necessarily follow from a dispassionate consideration of evidence, no longer functions. This is a product of neoliberalism, it is a facet of ‘fake news’,11 it is intertwined with a propensity to conspiracy theories, and it is an example of what has been called the ‘death of expertise’.12 This is paradoxical, considering the view that we now live in an information-based economy and society, and that in many areas we have more information available than we know what to do with or how to use. 2.2.30 There is also the question, considered further below, of the standards of our education and the capacity of much of the public to undertake any critical and independent thinking. If, despite the significantly increased demand for and access to higher education, the quality of that education, as well as of our secondary education, is mediocre to sub-standard, and if a majority of the general public does not invest the time needed to maintain a functional level of being informed and engaging with more complex information and ideas, or public debate – if, indeed, the general level of most public debate is poor - then the public is not equipped, and perhaps little inclined, to form opinions other than those it is fed by short-concentration, simplified and biased news outlets. This reportedly characterises some of our politicians as well, whose principal source is Sky News. This unsatisfactory level of education and informed, independent and critical thinking, is yet another context that Murdoch has exploited but for which he is not responsible. The still widespread prejudice against ‘Greenies’ and implicit perception of them as enemies is also a symptom of deeper problems.

11 e.g. "¿Es usted capaz de reconocer claramente un medio de desinformación?" — https://theconversation.com/es-usted-capaz-de-reconocer-claramente-un-medio-de-desinformacion- 150046, "El ocaso de la verdad y el populismo digital" — https://theconversation.com/el-ocaso-de-la- verdad-y-el-populismo-digital-150812 12 e.g. Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

21 2.2.31 If it is assumed that greater media diversity would be an effective antidote to that problem – leaving aside for the moment the challenge of improving the average level of people’s education – then the question is how one persuades more people to read other news publications and to read or listen to less of Murdoch. If few people read Murdoch publications now, he would not enjoy the monopoly he currently does. 2.2.32 Has nobody read Noam Chomsky, Marshall McLuhan and others on the ways in which the public are manipulated by the media?13 2.2.33 In my opinion, the greatest cancer on Australian democracy at multiple levels is not Rupert Murdoch, but the two major political parties. This view will be further developed in Section 3. 2.2.34 Rupert Murdoch is Australian by birth and upbringing, but not now by citizenship. Notionally, that means that he constitutes a foreign, not a domestic influence upon our political system. I would not wish to push this argument too far, but to the extent that the matter of Section 44(i) of the Constitution was recently applied to MPs who were forced to resign or were further investigated because, whatever their personal histories, they were, technically, citizens of another country, the same argument should apply to Rupert Murdoch and his successors. This would then require that all media magnates are Australian citizens and have their principal domicile in this country. This suggestion is directly analogous to that applied to MPs insofar as a free and independent press as a ‘fourth estate’ is, according to the principles of democracy, a quasi-political agency. This question is also relevant to the deregulation of foreign ownership limitations upon Australian media enterprises.

2.3 Cause and Effect? The Formation of Individuals’ Opinions

2.3.1 No voting age individual is a tabula rasa upon which the views of a Rupert Murdoch can be inscribed, who will then unconditionally believe those views and

13 e.g. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 22002); Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, ed. Terrence Gordon ([1964] Berkeley: Gingko Press, 2003); Neil Postman, Amusing ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business ([1985] London: Penguin, 22005); cf. also e.g. John Keane, The Media and Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1991); idem, Democracy and Media Decadence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). There is no very obvious or easily definable distinction here between the ways in which the media operate, and advertising or propaganda; cf. e.g. Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders (London: Penguin, 1960); Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928 repr. Desert Books); Jason Stanley, How Propaganda Works (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016).

22 than vote, think and act accordingly. We are not automatons in that way. The implicit assumption here that Murdoch or anybody else is capable of exercising the kind of influence upon people that seems to be behind concerns about media influence is therefore facile and unfounded. 2.3.2 Any psychologist or sociologist should confirm that every human person is a complex product of multiple factors, including DNA and epigenetic inherited influences at conception, their unique personality, their family environment, their larger social and economic environment, the education they receive both in and outside of school, and their personal life experiences and how they are affected by them. All of these factors coalesce in varying degrees to shape whether people will be receptive to views that have the effect not of influencing but of reinforcing how they already view the world. This process is identical, whether one reads News Corp newspapers or The Guardian. By the time that people arrive at voting age, this process is largely complete, and not easily susceptible to change. People are not left-wing because they are persuaded by an ideology, any more than those on the Right. They are so because of a particular world-view they already have, which more in the case of those on the Left than the right means issues such as culture and social justice. If they adopt any recognisable political engagement – which those on the Right also do – then it is in order to advance their cause, also on behalf of others. But in essence there is nothing to distinguish those on the Right and the Left except the causes they believe in. 2.3.3 The Australian population is composed of an exceptionally high percentage of people from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and an estimated one sixth of the population was born overseas, so that our population, while still dominantly Anglo-Saxon, is far from being homogeneous. That diversity means that many people of other cultural and ethnic backgrounds would not naturally be susceptible to much influence by Murdoch. 2.3.4 Developed western societies tend to fall roughly into two broad groups: on the one hand, those who tend to accept a high degree of social equality and display a sense of collective responsibility and of a social contract, who are more tolerant, ‘progressive’, and inclusive; and on the other hand, those who don’t and aren’t, but who are more individualistic, and less concerned about others or about society as a whole. It is inevitable that any society will include more or less equal proportions of

23 each group, and the extent to which one world-view or the other dominates depends upon the historical evolution of that society. 2.3.5 There are variables in that disposition. In recent years in Australia, we have seen considerably increased support for some ‘progressive’ issues, greater tolerance and inclusion, and demands for action on a range of issues, which previously had much less public support. On specific issues, but on a growing number of them, what had previously been a predominantly conservative Australian population no longer is so. This means that the still predominantly conservative views in some political parties and factions are increasingly unrepresentative of the Australian electorate. 2.3.6 All European societies are predominantly social democracies, in which even right-leaning individuals accept elements of social democracy and not an unconditional neoliberalism, whereas in Australia, the situation is the reverse. Here, the division is deeper and more far-reaching, and the dominant tendency is not towards social democracy but towards neoliberalism – albeit with caveats. Not all conservative-leaning Australians are consistently conservative in their views. Social democracy is arguably an embodiment of democracy tout court, whereas the current form of individualism is anti-democratic. They are not both equally democratic, merely with different emphases and priorities: one group is, and one group is not, democratic. The tendency of all western democracies to have two principal political parties, one tending towards the Right and the other tending towards the Left on some issues – however many other minor parties they may also have along the spectrum, and whatever variations in policies the two principal parties may have – is a reflection of this basic division in all societies. 2.3.7 Nonetheless, any functional democracy must include both population groups and afford them a voice. Both broad groups display heightened sensitivity towards some issues, concern about and perception of them, and proportionately less in relation to others. For this reason, both groups are susceptible of charges of bias. Very few individuals achieve a high degree of balance and comprehensiveness in their views or a willingness to accommodate qualifications of them, or to actually change their views on the basis of persuasive evidence. The challenge for democracy is to determine which bias is tolerable and which is not, which is harmful and which is not, to the whole of a society, and to find ways of incorporating that acceptable range of difference. The tendency in Australia is for the political Right to attempt to deny the

24 voice and legitimacy of those they define as the Left – not by any means all of whom would define themselves as ‘Left’. 2.3.8 This social diversity and complexity means that there is no simple cause and effect relationship between the espousal of fake news, Murdoch news, or climate change denial, and the level of public support for such views. A more helpful approach would be to consider why there is a dominant, but by no means universal, tendency in Australian society to lean towards particular beliefs and attitudes and not towards others. The decisive factor here is individuals’ dispositions and the motivations for them, not the ideas to which they are exposed. 2.3.9 This is not to suggest that the media exercise no ‘influence’. However, in order to quantify that alleged influence, you would need to prove that those who are so influenced are so directly by their exposure to a particular media source, and not by any formative factors mentioned above; and that such influence disinclined them from considering other views and evidence that may contradict or disprove that influence, which they would otherwise have considered. 2.3.10 It is reasonably obvious why economic sectors such as the fossil fuel industries would publicly deny climate change: it goes to the heart of their business model and they stand to lose from a global transition to renewable and alternative energy. It is equally obvious why people employed in or dependent upon those sectors would also act in ways that appear to support climate change denial, whether or not they share those views: without any government economic plan to ensure that they all have full and sufficient employment opportunities in alternative jobs; that they will be able to get those jobs when they need them; and that there will be adequate welfare support and re-training options in the interim – and there has been no such plan from either major political party – they are quite understandably concerned for their livelihoods. It is less obvious why anybody who is not directly affected by such economic concerns, but who is capable of seeing the evidence of climate change, would nonetheless prefer to deny it. Such views correspond to a religious ideology that is impervious to rational argument and a balanced consideration of evidence, and to conspiracy theories, which have long had significant political traction in American politics and society,14 and which are also in evidence in Australia in relation to

14 e.g. Kathryn Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History (New York: Riverhead Books, 2011); Lance de Haven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014); Jesse Walker,

25 diverse controversial issues (e.g. vaccinations, fluoride in water). This tendency has also been observable in response to COVID-19. 2.3.11 Within the context of this enquiry, or in relation to climate change more generally, it would be appropriate to attempt to quantify how statistically significant this tendency is, what relation – if any – it bears to the alleged influence of Murdoch media, and what the psycho-social and cultural reasons are for it. Without a better understanding of this phenomenon, it is not possible to address it.

2.4 Should there be a Royal Commission?

2.4.1 This enquiry was convened in response to Kevin Rudd’s call for a royal commission into media influence, which attracted 500,000 signatures. Of particular concern to Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull is the alleged influence of the Murdoch media, and leading newspapers such as The Australian, on this country’s failure to respond appropriately to climate change. 2.4.2 In addition to the foregoing comments, it may be noted that prior to the 2020 royal commission into bushfires, there have reportedly been at least 39 previous royal commissions and other enquiries into that problem. Before the ABC’s Four Corners exposé into Don Dale, there had been at least 50 previous enquiries into juvenile detention. The vast majority of the recommendations of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody have still not been implemented, since 1991, a fact that should be recognised as a contributing cause of the estimated 441 Indigenous deaths in custody since that date, as well as the continuing disproportionate percentage of Indigenous youths in detention and gaols, and of what is now considered as a second ‘stolen generation’. There have been 32 reports on mental health between 2006-2012, but at least 30 years of evidence with very little to show for it.15 There have been numerous enquiries into university funding, aged care, welfare, training and employment, and other issues – NONE of which has ever properly resolved the issues they were tasked with investigating. These figures do not include the countless coronial inquests, other government enquiries, and private sector reviews.

The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory (New York: HarperCollins, 2014); Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (New York: Vintage, 2008). 15 http://inside.org.au/thirty-years-and-counting

26 2.4.3 Since 1981, there have been at least 14 enquiries into the media in Australia, including two still sitting but not including the present enquiry. What will this one, or what would a royal commission, really achieve – or change?16

1981: Norris Inquiry 1988: Bond Media Inquiry 1991: Print Media Inquiry 1994: Percentage Players Inquiry 1999: Productivity Commission’s Competition Inquiry 2006: ACCC on Blogs 2012: Convergence Review 2012: the Finklestein Inquiry 2017: Inquiry into the Communication Legislation Amendment (Online Content Services and Other Measures) Bill 2017: Public Hearing – Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Media Reform Bill, provisions) 2018: Competitive Neutrality of the National Broadcasters 2019-2021: Senate Environment and Communications References Committee Inquiry into press freedom 2019-2022: Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media 2020: Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security Inquiry into the Impact of the Exercise of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Powers on the Freedom of the Press.

16 Quarterly Essays are probably the country’s best forum for public debate. It is extraordinary how many issues of national importance have been intelligently addressed in them, in some cases repeatedly, which like public enquiries have achieved nothing. In relation to the media: Robert Manne, Bad News: Murdoch’s Australian and the Shaping of the Nation, Quarterly Essay 43 (2011). On environmental issues and climate change: Amanda Lohrey, Ground-Swell: The Rise of the Greens, Quarterly Essay 8 (2002); Tim Flannery, Beautiful Lies: Population and Environment in Australia, Quarterly Essay 9 (2003); Tim Flannery, Now or Never: A Sustainable Future for Australia?, Quarterly Essay 31 (2008); Guy Pearse, Quarry Vision: Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom, Quarterly Essay 33 (2009); Andrew Charlton, Man-Made World: Choosing Between Progress and Planet, Quarterly Essay 44 (2011); Tim Flannery, After the Future: Australia’s New Extinction Crisis, Quarterly Essay 48 (2012); Anna Krien, The Long Goodbye: Coal, Coral, and Australia’s Climate Deadlock, Quarterly Essay 66 (2017); Judith Brett, The Coal Curse: Resources, Climate and Australia’s Future, Quarterly Essay 78 (2020); Alan Finkel, On Getting to Zero: Australia’s Energy Transition, Quarterly Essay 81 (forthcoming, 2021); also, Clive Hamilton, Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change (Sydney, 2010).

27 2.4.4 These figures do not include reviews, reports and enquiries conducted either by lesser government agencies or in the private sector, including think tanks and charities, or comparable enquiries in academic research. 2.4.5 Any major new enquiry normally reviews previous enquiries and relevant research; there are also in the cases of some senate enquiries separate bodies responsible for monitoring the implementation of previous enquiries. Why, then, do politicians’ staff and the responsible government departments, as well as any incoming government that should have already developed its own policies, all apparently fail to do what yet another enquiry is expected to do? Why is there not greater continuity on such matters between governments? What makes another enquiry necessary at all? If recommendations and policies were effectively implemented, with on-going evaluation processes internal to that implementation, or responsible agencies established with effective powers of their own, or the already existing government departments doing what the public expects them to be doing, then we would not need interminable new enquiries. 2.4.6 While it is true that many enquiries have had relatively circumscribed terms of reference and have concentrated on limited issues rather than everything pertaining to a problem or sector, it remains a question why some enquiries could not have been broader in scope to obviate the necessity of holding multiple enquiries. Equally, this fact does not account for the fundamental failure to implement recommendations. 2.4.7 The chronic failure of any Australian government EVER to act efficiently and conscientiously in order to actually resolve these issues, rather than neglecting them until another wave of public outrage or another national catastrophe occurs, thus leading to calls for yet another royal commission at enormous public expense, is not a reflection of the enquiries themselves. Many of these enquiries have produced sensible and workable recommendations, and display a high standard of intelligence, professionalism, research and methodology, and have often been experienced by participants as positive. The failure here is one of government. 2.4.8 Public demands for royal commissions are no longer made with any confidence in such enquiries actually achieving anything, but rather out of sheer frustration that government in this country is so utterly incompetent, criminally negligent, not acting as a matter of course in the best interests of the public, which has allowed so many problems to worsen without acknowledgement or amelioration, untold lives to be unnecessarily lost or permanently harmed, and because royal commissions are the

28 strongest means of forcing government to even pay attention. It is VERY, unmistakably evident, that human lives are not important to government – not to either political party in office, but also not to many other Australians employed in branches of government, either. If government acted as a matter of course to recognise and address problems as they occur in the interests of the well-being of the entire community, if we already had all of the requisite mechanisms in place, and if all branches of government had sufficient powers to be able to take initiative and enforce existing laws and regulations as required, then there should be very little need for such enquiries at all. Government would itself do what such enquiries, in effect as a last resort, are expected to do. There are many mechanisms for accountability and transparency, and information publicly available, but the general public is not aware of much of this and journalists do not routinely explicitly refer to it. However, those mechanisms obviously often do not function well, or individuals ordinarily expected to comply with them do not. There is clearly also often poor coordination and consistency between government departments and agencies, so that, for example, the same regulations may be interpreted and applied differently from one to another. Not all regulation is useful or effective; there is a paradox between the perception of Australia, in particular the economy, being enormously over-regulated, and yet whatever regulations exist, they are not having the effect that the general public expects them to have. Not one of the problems that has attracted increased media and public attention as a result of COVID-19 or of any recent enquiry, is ‘new’. Every single one of those problems has existed within Australian society for years and decades, and yet during all of that time, none of them has ever been effectively addressed. It might be understandable had one such problem escaped attention and redress, but it is not explicable that numerous such problems have all suffered the same fate. Even these public demands have become increasingly an exercise in futility – as evidenced by the failure to act properly in response to the banking, superannuation and financial services royal commission (which the Coalition government was reluctant to hold), and this government’s weakening instead of strengthening of public protections, and by the still unsatisfactory response to the bushfire royal commission. The aged care royal commission has revealed little that was not or which could not have been known about a system unchanged over at least the past 40 years, and

29 probably longer. There remain many matters of public concern that have still not even attracted comparable attention, such as domestic violence. Jacqui Lambie has fought long for a royal commission into veteran suicide, and shown that proposed lesser alternatives would be unsatisfactory, but the Coalition government has resisted her demand. This suggests that government does not wish to investigate the estimated 500 ADF veterans who have taken their lives, and both them and others who suffer from mental illness without receiving appropriate support – including their families. This fact in turn suggests that government is not prepared to properly address either the relatively high incidence of suicide in our community generally or to address the full scale of mental health problems and the extremely pathetic services available, despite the government publicly professing to be concerned. It may thus also be the case that government perceives a threat in the holding of a royal commission, which it also did in the case of the banking royal commission and may have done with the bushfire royal commission, and/or that it does not consider an enquiry into some issues of sufficient importance, however much it may be of importance to those Australians adversely affected by the issue. This strategy can then be a means of suppressing democratic process and human rights. 2.4.9 The purpose of holding any such enquiry or royal commission should be to comprehensively identify and analyse a problem, to produce a set of recommendations, and to then implement those recommendations so that the problems are definitively solved, and there should be no new catastrophe or wave of public outrage, and no need for any major review or another enquiry for a generation. All of this activity occurs at enormous cost to the taxpayer, and is grossly irresponsible waste if too little or nothing results from them. The fact that this is consistently not happening can only be the fault of government, both state and territory and Commonwealth. That applies to governments formed by both major parties. This failure of governance is a failure of democracy itself. It is also precisely because of this scale of incompetence that investigative reporting by the media is so crucial, as a means of exposing what government fails to do and to exert public pressure upon it. 2.4.10 There is therefore no demonstrable justification for the holding of a royal commission into the media environment in this country unless or until all of the recommendations of all of the previous enquiries have been reviewed and acted upon

30 as deemed appropriate, and following such implementation, it is determined that there remain issues not addressed by any previous enquiry, which a new royal commission would be expected to resolve. Both major parties must then commit themselves to implementing all of the recommendations of any such further enquiry, unconditionally; to show itemised cause should they not adopt any recommendations; and to implement alternative solutions to the problems identified, all within a reasonable, workable time frame. The same should apply to every other enquiry. 2.4.11 It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Australia hold a royal commission into the holding of royal commissions and other enquiries, in order to identify why they are so ineffective, and to propose reform of governance and politics in this country so that all future enquiries achieve what they are expected to achieve. 2.4.12 The fact that the general public now demands a royal commission into every egregious abuse and failure is testament not to the efficacy of such enquiries but rather to the failure of any other instrument in our democratic system capable of achieving the kind of protections and changes that the public expects and demands. There are arguably a number of causes of this dysfunction: • An inherent constitutional conflict and overlap of jurisdiction and responsibility between the states and territories, and the commonwealth. • The lack of a constitutional and legal rights framework that establishes democratic rights and principles for every citizen and resident that can be enforced not by negotiations with uncertain outcomes but with sanctions, and to which all political parties can be held. This is in contrast, for example, to the United States’ foundation documents; in that case, independent America’s first politicians ensured that they and their successors were regulated and could be held to account, whereas in Australia, politicians have consistently refused to legislate on many matters, including a Bill of Rights which our Constitution lacks, when, by doing so, they would also be held to a higher standard and obliged to act on behalf of the electorate independent of ideologies and vested interests. • A willingness to spend endless sums of money on enquiries, as if this alone lends the appearance of government action, but a similar refusal to spend money on effective implementation of recommendations to achieve quantitative and qualitative change. • An at times intentional lack of necessary powers (and funding) granted to any body to enforce recommendations, legislation, and general regulation, where governments

31 have little intention of acting. It is revealing that government willingly extends its powers over the population in some areas, but does not grant equivalent powers to other bodies, government or otherwise, and also willingly abdicates some powers; the effect of this is to achieve very unequal exercise of powers, and none to the benefit of the entire community. • A failure by government to engage with the community to make a cogent case for change and the implementation of recommendations, based upon the achievement of consensus and public education and acceptance, combined with attitudinal indifference and resistance within sections of the community. • Most fundamentally, the absence of any commitment to the equal well-being of every individual Australian and of society as a whole that overrides political or business interest and prejudice. 2.4.13 Hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of Australians would not have died or been harmed had government acted more decisively and effectively in their, not its own, interests. The fact that no Australian government or any of its branches has ever displayed an equal regard for every individual’s life, and the consequences of its actions or negligence on every life, or at least ensured that sufficient measures are established to minimise possible harm to all, and that in many cases countless lives have been intentionally harmed and lost, demonstrates a fundamental moral bankruptcy in Australian government. All human life does not have the same value in this country. The basic principle of democracy is precisely the opposite: Every life, without exception, without any ‘acceptable’ percentage of collateral damage, is of equal worth, and as such should enjoy equal protection and assistance.

3. Democracy and the Media

3.1 This enquiry is concerned with the purported erosion of or threat to democracy by some media platforms and magnates. The posing of such a question assumes that we agree on what democracy is, that Australia is a democracy, and that in the absence of such undesirable media influence our democracy would be healthier. This submission disputes all of those assumptions. This section begins with a brief survey of the evolution of democracy, and then considers the condition of democracy in Australia. The second half of this section then considers the role of the media as a ‘fourth estate’ within democracy.

32 3.2 It has been argued in Section 2 above, and it will be argued further below, that there are many areas of government conduct, failure and corruption, that are not due to any alleged influence of Murdoch or any other media figure. Any attempt to limit his media reach amongst the population will therefore not appreciably improve the quality of our democracy or government per se. If problems within our democracy are to be addressed, then they must be so by other means, and their causes be sought elsewhere. At the same time, it cannot be assumed that the condition and practice of government as we now have it, is something that should be defended or maintained in that condition.

3.1 A Brief Survey of the History of Democracy

3.1.1 The word ‘democracy’ derives from the Greek demos (people) and krateō/kratos (to govern/power) meaning, government by the people. In ancient Athens, that government occurred in public assemblies of all eligible male citizens, who listened to presentations of arguments about issues upon which decisions were to be made, including laws, after which all voted on those decisions. This represented a high degree of direct citizen participation in everyday decision-making of the city-state by the entire male citizen body. Public office holders were limited in numbers and in the short-duration of their terms of office. 3.1.2 There was certainly not universal agreement among Greeks about the virtues of democracy. It was accompanied by political violence, opportunism and corruption, the manipulation of voters – all problems that still plague democracy today – and neither Plato nor Aristotle favoured democracy. They recognised its weaknesses, and preferred an authoritarian monarchy or oligarchy whose leaders have first undergone an appropriate education and among whom there was agreement about the ends to be achieved and not merely on the means by which they were to be achieved. Those ends should be the good, the well-being, the prosperity and happiness of the people. These questions are explored from various perspectives throughout Plato’s dialogues, most extensively in the Republic and the Laws; Aristotle critiques democracy in his Politics (notably, Book VI). Both authors significantly attach considerable importance to the education of both politicians and the people, specifically so they are qualified to make democracy or government work.

33 Criticism of democracy therefore did not always mean a preference for inequality, suppression of individual freedoms, denial of common goods, and the power of some over others: it was here a belief that democracy was not the best means of achieving those positive ends. 3.1.3 Athenian democracy is the ancient form most familiar to us, though there were other ancient cases of democratic government. Following the Persian War ending in 479 BCE, Athenian democracy transformed itself gradually into an economic and political tyranny (not unlike the economic imperialism of post-war democratic America) over the Delian League, which led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), after which Athens was profoundly weakened. Following further political vicissitudes, Athens fell first under Macedonian monarchy and eventually to Rome; its democracy did not survive. 3.1.4 There is no historical continuity between ancient Greek democracy and any modern form, nor any influence. For almost two millennia, there was virtually no democratic society in Europe, with the exception of the emergence of the Swiss confederacy of cantons in the 14th century; Switzerland today continues a tradition of a high degree of collective decision-making mechanisms and of consultation between the people and its government, unlike every other western democracy.17 When new democracies emerged in the United States and France in the later 18th century, in both cases following revolution and the overthrow of tyrannical monarchies, they drew upon elements of Roman republicanism rather than upon Athenian democracy.18

17 See e.g. Volker Reinhardt, Die Geschichte der Schweiz: Von den Anfängen bis heute (Munich: C.H. Beck, 22013); Ulrich Im Hof, Geschichte der Schweiz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 82007); Handbook of Swiss Politics, ed. Ulrich Klöti et al. (Zurich: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22007). 18 This is recognized by Cornelius Castoriadis, but he sees an important corrective in Athenian democracy over modern forms, namely, that it – unlike modern democracy – embodied a strong degree of citizen autonomy. As this submission also does, he considers democracy to be a combination of the normative and theoretical and of the historical. He also critiques the conventional polarisations between individualism and collectivism, and freedom versus equality, the identification of democracy with capitalism, and he dismisses modern democracies as ‘liberal oligarchies’. In effect, his view does not accept the dominant western discourse on democracy and requires a fundamental re-definition of what democracy is. Cf. Cornelius Castoriadis, Ce qui fait la Grèce, ed. Enrique Escobar, Myrto Gondicas, and Pascal Vernay, 3 vols (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2004-2011); ‘Quelle démocratie?’, in idem, Écrits politiques, 1945-1997, ed. Enrique Escobar et al., 6 vols, IV (Paris: Éditions du Sandre, 2013), pp. 395- 452; ‘L’avenir du projet d’autonomie’, ibid, pp. 453-468; useful summary by Ingerid S. Straume, ‘Democracy’, in Cornelius Castoriadis: Key Concepts, ed. Suzi Adams (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), pp. 191-204; further, Françoise Dosse, Castoriadis: Une vie (Paris: La Découverte, 2014). Castoriadis is one of many European, British and American social and political philosophers who have engaged in debate around democracy through the later 20th century. Cf. also e.g. Raymond Aron, Essai sur les libertés (Paris: [1965] Pluriel, 2014).

34 There have historically been what we might call proto-democratic elements in societies not considered ‘democratic’, for example, the election of kings, assemblies for counsel and decision making usually of all adult males, and the earlier history of parliaments. Under written law codes dating from ancient Rome through the Middle Ages and into the early modern periods, as well as in coronation oaths and ‘mirrors for princes’, there have been formal concepts of the rights of citizenship and other rights that monarchs and their governments were – at least in theory – committed to upholding and respecting, such that government should not be arbitrary or to the harm of citizens, or absolute in its pretensions. Such ideals are reasonably consistent, while an ambition to power has equally consistently been recognised as a vice, and hence a disqualification for office. It was usually the failure of kings to adhere to those principles and commitments that eventually provoked popular uprisings, revolution, and other forms of protest.19 3.1.5 It is possible to trace a long history of popular dissent, protest and uprisings against what were perceived to be unjust and tyrannical governments from ancient Greece and Rome through especially the later Middle Ages and into the modern period; in other words, throughout history, populations have believed that they have rights that their rulers have not respected or been prepared to concede, and that the only recourse that populations have had has been to act against their governments. This remains a global problem today. As the saying goes, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”;20 and, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”.21

19 It should be noted that the purpose of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”) was to make possible the overthrow of a tyrannical government should an elected American government prove to be tyrannical in the manner in which the British colonial government had been; by implication, a democratic constitution does not prevent tyranny. The right to do this as a last resort is also asserted in the Declaration of Independence. The possibility of the forceful overthrow of an elected government by the people is here, as elsewhere, recognized to be integral, not antithetical, and necessary to the preservation of democracy. No elected government has an absolute right to exercise its delegated power unchecked by virtue of its being elected or for any other reason, and unlike the theory of the divine right of kings, for example, democracy does not recognize that elected office has any power or authority innate to that office, that is not rather located in the people who have delegated that power and on whose behalf it is exercised. This possibility is also foreseen, for example, in the Preamble to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, etc.” 20 John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902): “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” 21 This saying is generally ascribed to Thomas Jefferson, but it has been reported that John Philpot Curran expressed this same sentiment in a speech upon the Right of Election in 1790: “It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which

35 These words are born of bitter experience. Governments cannot be trusted to act unconditionally in the best interests of their peoples. 3.1.6 Western democracies have evolved and been established in several ways, for example, as constitutional monarchies in which hereditary monarchies have gradually ceded powers or been forced to do so to parliaments and a democratic constitution, whether or not those monarchies remained formally in existence – in some cases, they have, but in other cases, not; as the result of revolutions; a peaceful transition from colonial status to de facto independent nation-statehood – as in the case of Australia; or as democracies constituted after the failure, collapse or defeat of dictatorships or one-party governments. 3.1.7 Modern democracy is a combination of both the aspirations of peoples to rule themselves rather than being ruled by tyrannical government, that is, practical experience, and the theoretical reflection and principles that have arisen from that experience. Regardless of the various organisational forms and political practices of what are supposed to be democratic governments, the underlying values and principles they should embody are identical, whether in Australia or in the United States or in any European country. 3.1.8 These principles have evolved in Europe in the first instance over approximately the past five centuries, beginning with the Protestant Reformations and the religious wars, proceeding through the Enlightenment, the ‘Age of Revolution’ (Eric Hobsbawm), into and through the 20th century. 22

God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” 22 See e.g. John Keane, The Life and Death of Democracy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009); Alan Ryan, On Politics (London: Penguin, 2012); also James T. Kloppenberg, Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); idem, Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). For a somewhat different perspective, e.g. Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (London: Penguin, 1967); George Rudé, Ideology and Popular Protest ([1980] Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). On the legacy of the Protestant Reformations, e.g. e.g. Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); Peter H. Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War (London: Penguin, 2009); Herfried Münkler, Der Dreißigjährige Krieg: Europäische Katastrophe, Deutsches Trauma, 1618-1648 (Berlin: Rowohlt, 2017). On the significance of the Enlightenment(s), e.g. Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); idem, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670-1752 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); idem, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); idem, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). On the American Revolution, e.g. Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016). On the French Revolution, e.g. Simon Shama,

36 Those ideals concern the well-being, prosperity, equality, dignity, autonomy and freedom of the people, and their self-government as the only means of ensuring these. They have been forged in direct opposition against their opposite, namely tyranny and oppression, the curtailing and corruption of due legal process, the legislation of unjust laws, the poverty and material hardship and exploitation of populations, suppression of dissenting and different beliefs and ideas, the denial of people’s participation in their own governance or of any control over their own lives and fates, the silencing of their voices. All of those tyrannical measures have been intended to maintain a hierarchical society of privilege and power while denying entire populations any real and equitable share in that privilege and power. Democracy is therefore supposed to ensure that that never happens again and it is supposed to enshrine principles in direct opposition to that historical experience. 3.1.9 In tandem with the struggle for democracy and what it is supposed to ensure, there has also evolved the concept of human rights.23 I include civil rights here as human rights, and those rights fought for, for example, by the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ‘60s, are all defined as human rights. Today, human rights are defined by the United Nations in its human rights declarations, covenants, and protocols, but human rights are integral to what people have always struggled for, and there is a much longer history from Antiquity of the concept of rights and of human values that all peoples should be entitled to enjoy. That entire history is as relevant as anything that the UN declares now, in the same way that the entire

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (London: Penguin, 1989); François Furet, La Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard Quarto, 2007); Eli Sagan, Citizens and Cannibals: The French Revolution, the Struggle for Modernity, and the Origins of Ideological Terror (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001). 23 e.g. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008); Micheline R. Ishay, The History of Human Rights from Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 22008); Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); idem, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2018); A.C. Grayling, Towards the Light: The Story of the Struggles for Liberty and Rights that Made the Modern West (London: Bloomsbury, 2007); Seyla Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity: Human Rights in Turbulent Times (Cambridge: Polity, 2011); K. Peter Fritzsche, Menschenrechte: Eine Einführung mit Dokumenten (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 22009); Christoph Menke and Arnd Pollmann, Philosophie der Menschenrechte zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 2007); Philosophie der Menschenrechte, ed. Georg Lohmann and Stefan Gosepath (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1998); Recht auf Menschenrechte: Menschenrechte, Demokratie und internationale Politik, ed. Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, Hauke Brunkhorst and Wolfgang Köhler (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1999); Die Revolution der Menschenrechte: Grundlegende Texte zu einem neuen Begriff des Politischen, ed. Christoph Menke and Francesca Raimondi (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2011); Realizing Human Rights: Moving from Inspiration to Impact, ed. Samantha Power and Graham Allison (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000); The Philosophy of Human Rights, ed. Patrick Hayden (St Paul MN: Paragon House, 2001).

37 evolution of democracy in theory and practice is relevant to the present. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was formulated and proclaimed in 1948 in order to ensure that the suffering of the peoples following the Wall Street Crash in 1929 resulting in the Great Depression, and the horror and devastation of two world wars and the Holocaust, should not be repeated. Those events occurred in and as a result of actions by ostensibly or erstwhile democratic and semi-democratic societies. 3.1.10 Human rights are, in effect, what democracy should be; no dictatorship or monarchy or theocracy will protect human rights, but those rights are identical with what struggles for democracy in all their forms have been and still are around the world.24 As formulated, they embrace every area of our lives.25 3.1.11 Australia played a pivotal role in the drafting of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in getting it accepted and subscribed to by other nation states at the time. That document, which is expanded and clarified by the two 1966 international covenants, on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, itemise what are defined as inalienable, universal rights for all human beings, without exception. I list here from the two 1966 documents those points which I consider to be breached or problematic in their observance in Australia, because I am not confident that politicians or anybody else in this country are fully cognizant with these documents and the responsibilities entailed by them. Australia has ratified those two international covenants, on civil and political rights in 1980, and on economic, social and cultural rights in 1975. Ratification of such documents imposes responsibilities upon signatory governments to act in compliance with these rights and freedoms, and in relation to the UN in its oversight of compliance. These points include: • these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person, and are the inalienable rights of all members of the human family; • all peoples have the right of self-determination; • each State Party to the Covenant undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals the rights recognized in the Covenant, without distinction of any kind; and,

24 Consider e.g. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Writings, ed. ark Philp (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); cf. John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life (New York: Grove Press, 2003). 25 One may be reminded of H.G. Wells’ The Rights of Man or, What Are We Fighting For? (London: Penguin, 1940, 22015), the 1942 Atlantic Charter, and of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 Four Freedoms declaration: freedom of speech and worship, and freedom from want and fear. Roosevelt’s freedoms are included in UN agreements.

38 where not already provided for by existing legislative or other measures, each State Party undertakes to take the necessary steps to adopt such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights here recognized; • nothing in the present Covenant may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms recognized; • every human being has an inherent right to life; • no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; • all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person; and, the penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation; • no one shall be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks; • everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference; everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice; the exercise of these rights carries with it special duties and responsibilities, and may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, and for the protection of national security or of public order; • the right of peaceful assembly shall be recognised; • everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his interests; • every child shall have, without any discrimination, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society, and the State; every child has the right to acquire a nationality; • every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any distinctions or unreasonable restrictions, to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or

39 indirectly through chosen representatives; to vote and be elected; and to have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in his country; • all persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status; • members of ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language. • The States Parties undertake to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights; • the States Parties recognise the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts; to achieve the full realization of this right, States Parties include steps taken to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive employment under conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual; • the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work which ensure in particular, remuneration which provides all workers, as a minimum, with fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value without distinction of any kind, in particular women being guaranteed conditions of work not inferior to those enjoyed by men, with equal pay for equal work; and a decent living for themselves and their families; safe and healthy working conditions; equal opportunity for everyone to be promoted in his employment to an appropriate higher level, subject to no consideration other than those of seniority and competence; rest, leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays; • the right of trade unions to establish national federations or confederations and their right to form or join international trade union organisations; the right of trade unions to function freely; the right to strike; • the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance;

40 • special protection should be accorded to mothers during a reasonable period before and after childbirth, and during such a period, working mothers should be accorded paid leave or leave with adequate social security benefits; • the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties shall take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right; • the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health […] improvement of all aspects of environmental and industrial hygiene, and the creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service and medical attention in the case of sickness; • the right of everyone to education, recognising that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity; that education shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship; that primary, secondary and tertiary and other education shall be free to all; • the right of everyone to take part in cultural life, and to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications; • that States Parties respect the freedom indispensable for scientific research and creative activity. Climate change is now also a human rights issue, affecting many different areas of rights already defined.26 3.1.12 Other documents specify (sometimes repeatedly) the rights of women and children, the disabled, refugees and asylum seekers, Indigenous populations, migrant workers, members of minority population groups, civilians affected by conflict, those affected by enforced disappearance, against genocide, against the death penalty, against torture and degrading, inhumane or cruel treatment and punishment, against

26 e.g. "Australia needs a national approach to combat the health effects of climate change" — https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-a-national-approach-to-combat-the-health-effects-of- climate-change-151380 , "An ocean like no other: the Southern Ocean's ecological richness and significance for global climate" — https://theconversation.com/an-ocean-like-no-other-the-southern- oceans-ecological-richness-and-significance-for-global-climate-151084, "The world's ocean is bearing the brunt of a changing climate. Explore its past and future in our new series" — https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-ocean-is-bearing-the-brunt-of-a-changing-climate-explore-its- past-and-future-in-our-new-series-151548, "It might be the world's biggest ocean, but the mighty Pacific is in peril" — https://theconversation.com/it-might-be-the-worlds-biggest-ocean-but-the- mighty-pacific-is-in-peril-150745

41 all discrimination based on religious belief, the right to development, and against slavery. Australia appears not to have ratified all UN human rights agreements.27 3.1.13 Slavery does not mean any particular historical form of slavery: slavery means the condition of being enslaved, which is a deprivation of personal freedom, dignity and autonomy, financial or sexual exploitation, and employment under inhumane conditions; this includes wage theft and underpayment, excessive working hours, and denial of rights to demand improvements or to organise to that end. A decade ago, it was reported that an estimated 1,000,000 women and children disappear every year, and are trafficked primarily for purposes of sexual and labour exploitation. In addition to that, there is still widespread slavery in many countries, both western and non- western, particularly of women and children (in food and clothing production, in mining, in other types of factories, and in companies such as Amazon), and it now extends de facto to the conditions under which growing numbers of people are forced to work in the gig economy, including in Australia.28

27 For a sample of works on human rights in Australia, in addition to Geoffrey Robertson, The Statute of Liberty: How Australians Can Take Back Their Rights (North Sydney: Random House, 2009), see e.g. Human Rights in Australian Law, ed. David Kinley (Sydney: Federation Press, 1998); Peter Bailey, The Human Rights Enterprise in Australia and Internationally (Chatswood NSW: LexisNexis Publishing, 2008); Andrew Byrnes, H. Charlesworth, and Gabrielle McKinnnon, Bills of Rights in Australia: History, Politics, and Law (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2008); Louise Chappell, John Chesterman, and Lisa Hill, The Politics of Human Rights in Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Anthony Gray, Human Rights in Australia: Looking Forward, Looking Back (Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag 2009); George Williams and David Hume, Human Rights under the Australian Constitution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 22013); Jeffrey Goldsworthy, Protecting Rights without a Bill of Rights: Institutional Performance and Reform in Australia (London: Routledge, 2017); Human Rights in Australia, ed. Justin Healey (Thirrout NSW: The Spinney Press, 2018); Adam Fletcher, Australia’s Human Rights Scrutiny Regime: Democratic Masterstroke or Mere Window Dressing? (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2018); Janina Boughey, Human Rights and Judicial Review in Australia and Canada: The Newest Despotism? (London: Hart Publishing, 2019); The Legal Protection of Rights in Australia, ed. Matthew Groves, Janina Boughey, and Dan Meagher (London: Hart Publishing, 2019); Jon Piccini, Human Rights in Twentieth-Century Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Damien Freeman and Catherine Renshaw, Nonsense on Stilts: Rescuing Human Rights in Australia (Brisbane: Connor Court Publishing, 2019); Contemporary Perspectives on Human Rights Law in Australia (forthcoming, 2021); also e.g. John Murphy et al., Half a Citizen: Life on Welfare in Australia (London: Routledge, 2011); The Right to Work: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Virginia Mantouvalou (London: Hart Publishing, 2014); Clive Hamilton, What Do We Want? The Story of Protest in Australia (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2016); Climate Change and Human Rights: An International and Comparative Law Perspective, ed. Ottavio Quirico and Mouloud Boumghar (London: Routledge, 2017); Jane McAdam and Fiona Chong, Refugee Rights and Policy Wrongs: A Frank, Up-to-Date Guide by Experts (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 22019); Sarah Moulds, Committees of Influence: Parliamentary Rights Scrutiny and Counter-Terrorism Law-Making in Australia (New York: Springer, 2020); and further works on individual areas of rights. 28 Cf. e.g. Kevin Bales, Blood And Earth: Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World (New York: Random House, 2016); Martijn Boersma and Justine Nolan, Addressing Modern Slavery (Sydney: NewSouth Press, 2019). "Think slavery in Australia was all in the past? Think again" — https://theconversation.com/think-slavery-in-australia-was-all-in-the-past-think-again-140543, "Forced labour, sexual exploitation and forced marriage: modern slavery in Australia hides in plain sight" —

42 3.1.14 Australia is the only OECD country that still does not have a Bill of Rights or any enforceable, credible protection of most of our human rights.29 That fact alone is incomprehensible, and the arguments of those politicians who consider such protections unnecessary are indefensible. The fact that every other western democracy does have enforceable protections and positive definitions of rights; that such legislative protections are envisaged by the UN human rights documents that Australia has also ratified as part of necessary implementation; that many Australians and organisations have demanded such legislated protections; and that numerous human rights have been breached at every level of society over decades without effective protection, redress or recourse, both by governments and by other individuals and groups within the community, should be sufficient argument for our government to act positively and disinterestedly to correct this failure. It is acknowledged that some rights are embedded in our laws and can be said, broadly, to be observed, for example, universal suffrage, habeas corpus and rights under criminal law, and the abolition of the death penalty, or the right to welfare support. However, even in such cases, implementation is often not to the standard intended by UN documents, is not universally and equally practised, there are exceptions allowed that ought not to be, there are flagrant breaches and areas of neglect and such rights are attacked even by government, while many rights are not even generally observed or legislated. In view of the argument advanced here that democracy is effectively supposed to be the embodiment of precisely those rights defined as human, Australia’s refusal to legislate a Bill of Rights and to ensure any alternative comprehensive recognition and protection of them, is anti-democratic. Australian governments in practice have no fundamental commitment to the protection of human rights, and it is doubtful that they even have an adequate understanding of them that would pass a pub test. All legislation presented in this country should first have been vetted by a human rights committee in parliament, whether state and territory or federal, members of which are properly qualified to

https://theconversation.com/forced-labour-sexual-exploitation-and-forced-marriage-modern-slavery-in- australia-hides-in-plain-sight-140838, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/12/07/farm-workers- exploitation/ 29 Australia’s compliance with its obligations under the two 1966 international covenants has been poor, and we have attracted a high percentage of formal complaints. Cf. e.g. the 2017 report at https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/AUS/INT CCPR NGO AUS 2892 5 E.pdf.

43 fulfil that task, who evaluate legislation in its full implications relative to UN agreements, and who are independent of any political party or ideological commitment. Australia has been and continues to be in breach of most human rights, both those of its own citizens and those of the global population, and in many areas accepts no responsibility for the human rights of others where they could be improved by our intervention or where they are affected by our national behaviour. Such breaches vary in type, degree, and in the population groups affected; this is not to suggest that Australia is a lawless country, or that no citizens enjoy many of these rights at all. Mechanisms do exist by which, assuming efficient and uncorrupted procedures, their purpose is served or could be so more justly and efficiently. However, there are areas in which governments clearly do not support the full protection and recognition of rights as envisaged for some groups, and where discrimination and prejudice are clearly in evidence, or where there is entrenched and systemic failure. Specific areas have been intentionally eroded or attacked; areas of discrimination have been tolerated without redress; extended police powers have been used, with prejudice and force (including beatings), against what ought to be legitimate protest and other democratic activism, which breach a range of human rights areas; consistently poor economic management has ensured that millions of Australians are unable to find and retain appropriate employment of their choice and commensurate with their experience, aspirations, and qualifications, with sufficient earnings to be able to properly support themselves and their families to maintain their dignity and autonomy, to enjoy a reasonable standard of living, and with their earnings to also enable them to properly access services such as needed medical care. Our welfare system, particularly for the unemployed, is one of the worst in the developed world, and in no way consistent with the principles enunciated in these documents. A range of other areas mentioned here leave considerable room for desirable improvement. Just as politicians’ understanding of human rights appears to be poor, so, obviously is that of the media and of the general public. Recognition and protection of human rights are incompatible with our current state of democracy, with neoliberal economic and political ideology, and will only be generally guaranteed under a form of social democracy, with enforceable legislation. The enjoyment of rights also entails responsibilities, towards others. Rights are never absolute in their prerogative; my

44 rights end when they infringe upon yours; and real or potential conflict between different rights requires clarification, negotiation and compromise. It is not unreasonable to conclude that no Australian political party, with the possible exception of the Greens, has any intention of respecting human rights; as such, they also have no intention of practising real democracy. The Australian Human Rights Commission is effectively toothless, and largely invisible; insofar as numerous breaches of human rights persist in this country unresolved, it must be concluded that the AHRC is prevented from doing what it should exist to do across the entire spectrum of human rights, or does not properly understand its role. The implementation of neoliberal economics in Australia involves lies and misrepresentation, the attacking, criminalising, and weakening of mechanisms intended to protect the well-being of citizens by unilateral, hence unrepresentative, legislation and other means, and the tangible social and economic harming of millions of Australians through under-employment, a high national dependence on un- and under-paid work, reduction of quality of life and living standards, the active harassment and discrimination against the unemployed and others dependent on welfare, and poor service delivery, often excessively profit-motivated, overly expensive, sub-standard in quality, badly regulated, poor or unaffordable access. None of this occurs in a functional social democracy. The trickle-down economic theory continues to be alleged in support of current government policy but no longer works; there is only a trickle-up effect. In order for trickle-down economics to work, there must be liveable wages paid for work, there must be a taxation system that is proportionately applied and which ensures that some of the money earned by those in higher income brackets is collected and redistributed to those in lower income brackets through adequate welfare support, service delivery, and efficient governance. All of those mechanisms have been weakened with the intended outcome that there is no effective or sufficient trickle-down effect. It is therefore misleading to claim that there is still such an effect and benefit in Australia. If this model were to benefit all Australians, then it should involve a reasonable degree of choice for all affected – it doesn’t, it is imposed without choice – it should maintain a high and affordable standard of living for all, it should be based upon respect for the basic civil and human rights for all, it should involve no lies, misrepresentation or discrimination, it should recognise that most people’s economic hardship is caused not by themselves but by those manipulating the conditions under

45 which people are forced to work or are deprived of work and those factors should be addressed, it should be entirely reasonable for individuals, unions, and other organisations to demand better wages and working conditions and to be granted them, and it should be causing no harm such as reduced life expectancy, high levels of mental health problems and other social problems. None of the socio-economic reality in Australia can be described as genuinely democratic. All of this is likewise in direct contravention of human rights. It is freely acknowledged that every State, including Australia, should determine the most effective means by which these rights are to be enforceable and protected; and that questions of interpretation, notably in cases of exceptional circumstances in which it may be necessary to impose limitations upon these rights (conceded in some cases in these Covenants) or where they may conflict with others’ rights. However, it is the contention of this submission that such interpretation and limitations in Australia in a number of areas are such as to result in harm and in the denial of these rights, which exceed and are not consistent with the provisions envisaged in these Covenants, and that this is motivated by political ideology and not by a genuine commitment to the respect of these rights for every individual Australian without exception – which is the explicit intention of these documents. These UN documents allow constraints to be imposed when those are determined by the laws of a State, but that assumes that the laws of any given State, including Australia, are consistent with the principles established in these documents. That is not necessarily the case, and the mere fact that laws exist that restrict or forbid the exercise of these rights is not a justification for such restrictions. Laws are not by definition ‘good’ merely because they are laws; totalitarian states also pass laws restricting rights and freedoms, but that does not make them legitimate in these terms. The usual qualification for any laws restricting these rights and freedoms is laws and conditions necessary in a democratic society; this is not further clarified in these documents, but it is assumed that all signatories agree on what a democratic society is. The fact that a country such as Australia considers itself to be a democracy does not mean that it acts in a consistently democratic manner or that it cannot behave in the same way as a totalitarian state. The determining factor here ought to be the rights and freedoms of every individual, not a raison d’état that is at odds with those rights and freedoms.

46 3.1.15 Democracy is supposed to achieve two essential things: 1. to allow the people to effectively govern themselves rather than being ruled by an elite; and 2. to ensure the material and physical well-being and prosperity, the autonomy and dignity, and freedom of the entire people, without exception – there is no ‘acceptable’ level of collateral damage to anybody in any sense for any reason whatsoever. The basis of these values is the equality of every human being by virtue of their being human, and for no other reason. The first goal requires that the people are able to participate directly in legislation and decision making, and that no exercise of power privileges any one group over the interests of the remainder of the population. The second requires that forces within society that act against the well-being and prosperity of the entirety of the population are effectively constrained and regulated, and that mechanisms exist that ensure a reasonable distribution of wealth, opportunity and their benefits to everybody. This means that what is called social democracy, or what the right-wing in Australia calls ‘the Left’, embodies democracy and human rights, whereas the Right increasingly does not. European social democracies are the closest we have in this respect to genuine democracy. Australia is not a social democracy. 3.1.16 This model assumes the conception of a social contract, most familiar from Rousseau’s eponymous treatise30 or from John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice,31 but western societies from Antiquity to at least the period of industrialisation have all assumed the essential coherence of a society, as reflected in the medieval paradigm of ‘the three orders’32 or in 18th- and 19th-century economic theories or in earlier ‘liberal’ political thought;33 and that different population cohorts interact with and are

30 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, 5 vols, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1959-1995); Robert Wokler, Rousseau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Wolfgang Kersting, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus ›Gesellschaftsvertrag‹ (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002); Iring Fetscher, Rousseaus politische Philosophie: Zur Geschichte des demokratischen Freiheitsbegriffs (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1975). 31 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 21999); idem, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. Erin Kelly (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); idem, The Law of Peoples: with ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’ (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); idem, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 22005); Johannes J. Frühbauer, John Rawls ›Theorie der Gerechtigkeit‹ (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007). In this context, mention may also be made of Amartya Sen, e.g. The Idea of Justice (London: Penguin, 2009); idem, Collective Choice and Social Welfare (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 22019); and John Keane, Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions (Cambridge: Polity, 1998); idem, Global Civil Society? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 32 e.g. Georges Duby, Les trois orders, ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris: Gallimard, 1978). 33 e.g. Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (London: Penguin, 2014); Edmund Fawcett, Liberalism: The Life of an Idea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014);

47 interdependent upon one another, and that this imposes mutual responsibilities upon both individuals and groups. It is only since industrialisation, and particularly with the emergence of neoliberalism around the early 1980s (although its evolution can be traced back to the inter-war years), that this concept of society has become increasingly fractured.34 In other terms, the conflict between individualism and collective society has assumed new and unresolved dimensions, which, unless addressed, will lead to a new period of social conflict. The effect has been to recreate precisely the kind of tyranny and inequality against which historical democracy fought and was defined. 3.1.17 Neoliberalism should be understood in part as a conservative backlash against the progressive values and concerns of the 1960s and ‘70s, notably the Civil Rights movement (which benefitted other groups in addition to African Americans),35 in the same way that the post-Napoleonic period of increased persecution of political dissent and reform demands was a reaction against the ideals of the French Revolution and monarchs’ and aristocrats’ fears that those ideals could continue to threaten them. Again, it is striking that this repressive aspect of neoliberalism is most pronounced in Britain and the United States, but not in Europe, despite even the experience, for example, of the domestic terrorism of the Rot Armee Faktion in Germany and the Brigate rosse in Italy.36

Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du libéralisme ([1987] Paris: Librairie Athème Fayard/Pluriel, 2012); but also e.g. Domenico Losurdo, Controstoria del liberalismo (Rome: Laterza, 2006). 34 e.g. Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999); David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Thomas Biebricher, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2019); Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism (London: Verso, 2019); The Handbook of Neoliberalism, ed. Simon Springer, Kean Birch, and Julie MacLeavy (London: Routledge, 2020); The SAGE Handbook of Neoliberalism, ed. Damien Cahill, Melinda Cooper, and Martijn Konings (Newbury Park CA: SAGE, 2018); Richard Denniss, Dead Right: How Neoliberalism ate Itself and What Comes Next, Quarterly Essay 70 (2018); Clive Hamilton, What’s Left? The Death of Social Democracy, Quarterly Essay 21 (2006). 35 e.g. Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change (New York: Free Press, 1984); Bruce J. Dierenfield, The Civil Rights Movement (New York: Routledge, 22013); Danielle L. McGuire, At the End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York; Vintage, 2010); Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (New York: Penguin, 22013); Eyes on the Prize: Civil Rights Reader, ed. Clayborne Carson et al. (New York: Penguin, 21991). 36 The 1960s, particularly in America as an ostensibly democratic society but also in other countries, not all of which were, also witnessed other demands for greater democracy and direct participation of the people in their own government, for example, with the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) movement and the 1962 Port Huron Statement; e.g. The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade, ed. Judith Clavir Albert and Stewart Edward Albert (Westport, Connecticut, 1984), pp. 173- 270. While such movements reflected concerns also pursued by other groups such as the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements, behind this was also the critique of American capitalist society and the

48 3.1.18 Not all opportunities to establish democracies have succeeded: most of colonial Africa has been subjected to long-running civil wars and dictatorships (often aided by western democracies); many other nations once under colonial control have likewise not succeeded in establishing stable and genuine democracies but have become dictatorships or theocracies; both Asia and Latin America have long and traumatic histories with un-democratic American (or Chinese) interference and few stable, credible democracies; democracy in Hong Kong is currently being exterminated by China; and Russia itself has never had real democracy, but at best the illusion of it. A majority of the world’s population does not live and never has lived under a credible democratic constitutional government. 3.1.19 There is nothing inevitable or necessary about democracy, and it should not be viewed as the apogee of human achievement or the end of an historical progression. Not only have opportunities to establish democracies been commandeered by dictators, but historically and in the present, erstwhile democracies have lapsed into dictatorships or reverted to monarchies. The potential for democracies to revert to more absolutist government exists innately within democracies themselves.37 That reversal occurred in both Athens and Rome; it occurred in England in 1660 following the decline of Cromwell’s interregnum or commonwealth; it occurred in France following the decline of the revolution into a reign of terror (which also occurred following the Russian Revolutions), and which was followed under restored monarchies by more than half a century of popular uprisings until the restored monarchy was permanently deposed; it occurred in Italy, Spain, Germany, and other central-eastern European states in the first decades of the 20th century, in the case of Germany notably with the support of much of the population; it occurred as a result of

work of sociologists such as Daniel Bell, David Riesman, Talcott Parsons, C. Wright Mills, Seymour Martin Lipset, William H. Whyte and others; also e.g. Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964). Against that background, the emergence of neoliberalism from the 1968 election campaign onward as a process of reaction ought to be intelligible. One might also note e.g. Henry Adams’ satirical 1880 novel on American democracy, and Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here. 37 See e.g. Ryszard Legutko, The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies (New York: Encounter, 2016). Particularly in revolutionary democratic movements and governments that emerge from them, there is the same demand for conformity or totalitarian tendency, against so- called counter-revolutionaries. At the same time, the kind of populism from which Trump (and others, including Hitler and Erdogan) has profited, also typically lead to authoritarianism; cf. e.g. Barry Eichengreen, The Populist Temptation: Economic Grievance and Political Reaction in the Modern Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

49 American interference in Latin America and elsewhere during the Cold War;38 and it is occurring again with varying degrees of rapidity around the world now. It is happening in Hong Kong, in Turkey, in Hungary, and in Poland, but it is also happening at least in some degree in the United States and in Australia. 3.1.20 There has now been a voluminous international debate around the decline of western democracy.39 The reasons for this concern in the United States should be

38 e.g. Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History (London: Penguin, 2017); Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Doubleday, 2007); Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: Free Press, 2013). 39 e.g. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (London: Profile, 2012); After Piketty: The Agenda for Economics and Inequality, ed. Heather Boushey, J. Bradford Delong, and Marshall Steinbaum (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2017); Anti-Piketty: Capital for the 21st Century, ed. Jean-Philippe Delsol, Nicolas Lecaussin, and Emmanuel Martin (Washington DC: Cato Institute, 2017); Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (London: Penguin, 2009); Klaus Bringmann, Das Volk regiert sich selbst: Eine Geschichte der Demokratie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2019); Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019); idem, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution (New York: Zone, 2015); Niheer Dasandi, Is Democracy Failing? A Primer for the 21st Century (London: Thames & Hudson, 2018); Jared Diamond, Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change (London: Penguin, 2019); Bill Emmott, The Fate of the West: The Battle to Save the World’s Most Successful Political Idea (London: Profile, 2017); Niall Ferguson, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die (New York: Penguin, 2013); Jacob Field, Is Capitalism Working? A Primer for the 21st Century (London: Thames & Hudson, 2018); Erica Frantz, Authoritarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); A.C. Grayling, Democracy and Its Crisis (London: Oneworld, 2017); David Harvey, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism (London: Profile, 2014); Susan Jacoby, The Age of Unreason in a Culture of Lies (New York: Penguin, 22018); Peter Joseph, The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression (Texas: BenBella, 2017); Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land: A Treatise on our Present Discontents (London: Penguin, 2010); John Keane, Power and Humility: The Future of Monitory Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); idem, Violence and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Naomi Klein, No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics (London: Penguin, 2017); idem, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (London: Penguin, 2007); Pierre Larrouturou, Le Livre noir du liberalisme (Paris: Éditions du Rocher, 2007); Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Crown, 2018); Michael Lind, The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Metropolitan Elite (New York: Penguin, 2020); Edward Luce, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (London: Little, Brown, 2017); Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (New York: Penguin, 2017); Paul Mason, Postcapitalism: A Guide to our Future (London: Penguin, 2015); David McKnight, Populism Now! The Case for Progressive Populism (Sydney: NewSouth, 2018); Branko Milanović, Haben und Nichthaben. Eine kurze Geschichte der Ungleichheit (Darmstadt: Wissenschafliche Buchgesellschaft, 2017); Dominique Moïsi, La géopolitique de l’émotion. Comment les cultures de peur, d’humiliation et d’espoir façonnent le monde (Paris: Flammarion, 22015); Yascha Mounk, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom is in Danger and How to Save It (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2018); Dambisa Moyo, Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth – and How to Fix It (London: Little, Brown, 2018); Martha Nussbaum, The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018); Josiah Ober, Demopolis: Democracy before Liberalism in Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Thomas Piketty, Le capital au XXIe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 2013); idem, Capital et Idéologie (Paris: Seuil, 2019); John Pilger, ‘The War on Democracy’, documentary DVD, 2007; Michel Rocard, Suicide de l’Occident, suicide de l’humanité (Paris: Flammarion, 2015); Andrew Sayer, Why We Can’t Afford the Rich (Bristol: Policy, 2016); Ruchir Sharma, The Rise and Fall of Nations: The Rules of Change in the Post-Crisis World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016); Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Penguin, 2017); idem, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia – Europe – America ((New York: Penguin, 2018); Guy

50 obvious, and they parallel the issues of concern in Australia. They include an increasingly dysfunctional two-party system in which the conservative party is dominated by an extreme reactionary faction that tacitly denies the legitimacy of any other party or political view, that is divisive rather than inclusive, and which deploys strategies to suppress dissent, criminalise minorities, strengthen its own position, enforce conservative pseudo-religious moral positions, and worsens economic and social hardship.40

Standing, The Corruption of Capitalism: Why Rentiers Thrive and Work Does Not Pay (London: Biteback, 2017); Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and its Discontents (London: Penguin, 2002); idem, People, Power and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent (London: Penguin, 2019); idem, The Price of Inequality (London: Penguin, 2012); Wolfgang Streeck, Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (Cambridge: Verso, 22017); idem, How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System (London: Verso, 2016); Ece Temelkuran, How to Lose a Country: The Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship (London: 4th Estate 2019); Alain Touraine, La fin des sociétés (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2013); Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban, The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind: How Self-Interest Shapes Our Opinions and Why We Won’t Admit It (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016); Heinrich August Winkler, Zerbricht der Westen? Über die gegenwärtige Krise in Europa und Amerika (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2017); Volker Weiß, Die autoritäre Revolte: Die Neue Rechte und der Untergang des Abendlandes (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2017); Wrong Way: How Privatisation and Economic Reform Backfired, ed. Damien Cahill and Phillip Toner (Melbourne: La Trobe University Press, 2018); The Zeitgeist Movement Defined: Realizing a New Train of Thought (print on demand, 2014); Raimond Gaita, Breach of Trust: Truth, Morality and Politics, Quarterly Essay 16 (2004); Laura Tingle, Follow the Leader: Democracy and the Rise of the Strongman, Quarterly Essay 71 (2018); Rebecca Huntley, Australia Fair: Listening to the Nation, Quarterly Essay 73 (2019). This is only a selection of relevant books on these issues, which illustrate international concern; it is incomprehensible that neither politicians nor journalists nor the general public in Australia appear to be sufficiently aware of this debate or prepared to address the issues, as if we are still living in a fool’s paradise. A responsible, well-educated media would be studying at least some of these books and ideas, analysing how they also apply to Australia, and engaging with them on behalf of the public. The implications of these arguments should shape how journalists think and interpret and report on the current political, economic and social situation in this country, and this should be front and centre in the media so that it becomes inescapable for both politicians and the public. We study history, but we neither understand it nor learn anything useful from it. 40 The significance of religion as a legitimation of conservative political ideologies (as previously in absolutist monarchies) should not be under-estimated. It should have no place in any secular democracy. It is significant in Muslim societies as the basis for a nationalistic cultural identity that emerged there in the 18th century in reaction to European colonialism; that produced Wahhabi fundamentalism, which remains a basis of Islamic terrorism today. It has likewise been embedded in American Republican Party politics (particularly sex and family values, gender identity, elements of racism and nationalism, but also previously in the Temperance movement and prohibition), resurfaces periodically in Australian politics (the implications of Catholicism and now Pentecostalism in the Coalition government should therefore be of considerable concern), it is now evident in reactionary conservative, nationalistic politics particularly in Russia and central-eastern Europe, and has seeped back into Turkey, which was established in 1923 as an emphatically secular state. Religion was a factor in the Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990s, Catholicism was particularly important in Franco’s Spain, and its residual influence affords fertile ground for reactionary politics in erstwhile Catholic Europe today; Buddhism has also been significant in Myanmar in the majority persecution of the Rohingya. It is entirely irrelevant which version of religion is used: religion (even as it can also be a source of strength) as an ideology in any form is inextricably intertwined with opposition to progressive social democracy and nationalism, and attempts to impose a specific moral concept and behavioral expectations upon an entire society. On religion in American politics, see e.g. Frances Fitzgerald, The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017); George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism in American Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 22006); Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Cambridge MA: Harvard

51 3.1.21 Russia is a particular case, but also sees profound inequality, the suppression of political opposition, and interference in the governance of other sovereign states and extension of its influence in conflict zones. China is similarly a particular case, with many of the same traits as Russia, is eliminating the two-system agreement in Hong Kong, and is extending its global reach notably through economic influence and development assistance (‘soft power’), as well as its contentious presence in the South China Sea and its pressure on South-East Asian countries, its refusal to recognise the independence of Taiwan and its occupation of Tibet. Eastern European States such as Poland and Hungary are in the process of reverting to increasingly reactionary, nationalistic, conservative governments; Greece has seen the emergence of the neo- fascist movement Golden Dawn. Turkey has been moving in that direction for longer and is de facto almost a one-party dictatorship with a religious flavour. 3.1.22 The situation in western Europe is more complex. This submission argues that as a generalisation, unlike Anglophone countries, the European Union has more effectively regulated neoliberalism and not embraced its political and social agenda, and has thereby ensured a higher standard of living and equitable wealth redistribution with excellent public service delivery; these have, however, tended to be stronger in countries north of the Pyrenees and the Alps.41 Given the changing economic conditions and the fact that consumer capitalism is not indefinitely sustainable, those states have also been encountering financial and employment difficulties; the EU is seen by the public as authoritarian, and domestic politicians are also unresponsive to some public concerns. This situation has been exacerbated by the migration crisis, which European states have generally refused to respond to in the manner of Australia but which is placing enormous strains on societies and economies and provoking the emergence of more right-wing nationalist politics. It has also been

University Press, 2014); R. Marie Griffith, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (New York: Basic Books, 2017); Joan Wallach Scott, Sex and Secularism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018); Melinda Cooper, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (New York: Zone Books, 2017); Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015); Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition (New York: Scribner, 2010); George F. Will, The Conservative Sensibility (New York: Hachette, 2019); The Radical Right, ed. Daniel Bell ((New York: Doubleday, 21963). 41 See e.g. the 1950 European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; the 1961 European Social Charter (Revised 1996); and the 2000 Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Blackstone’s International Human Rights Documents, ed. Sandy Ghandi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 62008).

52 exacerbated by climate change and by attempts to reverse progressive social policies notably with American money and Russian interference.42 3.1.23 The fact that many countries seem to experience the same problems does not mean that the causes and circumstances of such problems are identical in all of those countries. There are national characteristics and contingent variables, but the enormous pressures mounting without perceptible amelioration over more than a decade on once prosperous and stable societies, which established political parties appear to be unable to resolve, and in varying degrees to have indeed caused, are provoking considerable public discontent, reactions, and opportunism. These are predictable historical patterns, and there are many recognisable parallels between the global situation today, including in Australia, and the predicament of the Weimar Republic that gave rise to Hitler. 43 It is the underlying causes that need to be understood and addressed, and not merely the symptoms. The right-wing press is not one of those causes. 3.1.24 The issue now is, whether our supposedly democratic governments protect the rights of the people any more effectively than a hereditary monarchy or a dictatorship does. If they had done so, then there would be much less public alienation, mistrust in mainstream government, popular discontent, conspiracy theories and fake news, as well as worsening standards of living and hardship affecting growing percentages of populations and creating knock-on consequences, even years before COVID-19. The direct causal relationship between socio-economic hardship, stress and insecurity, on the one hand, and increased mental health problems, suicide, workplace and social media bullying, domestic violence and other social problems on the other, is also recognised overseas, but not in Australia.44 European nations, Canada and New

42 e.g. https://27esimaora.corriere.it/19 febbraio 09/aborto-sotto-scacco-mezza-europa-donne-non- sanno-2525c092-2bb5-11e9-8efb-2677649d01c7.shtml?intcmp=googleamp, Sabina Pignataro in Corriere della Sera, 09.02.2019; Se il mondo torna uomo. Le donne e la regressione in Europa, ed. Lidia Cirillo (Rome: Edizioni Alegre, 2018). See also the Netflix 2019 5-part documentary ‘The Family’, about ‘the Fellowship’ associated with the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, whose agenda includes reversing Church-State separation and advocating ‘Christian values’ internationally. 43 See e.g. Madeleine Albright, Fascism: A Warning (New York: Harper-Collins, 2018). It is not by accident that Albright, who as a Czech Jewish girl fled to London in 1939, who experienced Soviet Communism in her homeland in 1948 and who then fled to New York, to become an influential figure in American foreign policy in the Democratic Party, including as American Ambassador to the UN (1993-1997) and as Secretary of State (1997-2001), should be among those drawing this comparison. Her Columbia PhD was on the Prague Spring. 44 e.g. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020). This connection was already visible in the wake of the GFC, but it was also visible in the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries in the context of industrialization and extreme

53 Zealand, have all begun considering and implementing forms of a universal minimum income, that needs to be above national poverty levels and to preserve individuals’ dignity and autonomy, without criminalising and marginalising them, whether as an independent measure or as an integral element of the Green New Deal;45 Australia – again – has still not seriously considered such a response to worsening employment conditions and wealth disparities, although neither major party has a better idea. The current government continues to lie about the real state of our economy. There is significant public support here for a so-called Scandinavian model of higher taxes if that would deliver better and more accessible public services, including in health, but the political establishment prefers to ignore this. These tendencies alone ought to be sufficient to persuade our political establishments that they have failed and that business as usual is not an option. The writing was on the wall more than a decade before COVID-19; that has only exacerbated already existing problems. Democracy is therefore not functioning as it ought to, and as the people believe it should, and that failure is directly causing an environment that Murdoch, among many others, are exploiting. 3.1.25 Most Australian politicians, journalists and the general public appear to be largely ignorant of these international debates. That ignorance permits the erosion of our democracy. There is considerable recognition in this country that our democratic systems are neither properly democratic nor fit for purpose, and that if we are to preserve any vestige of democracy in Australia, then major reform of our entire political system is urgent.46 Certainly, there is public awareness of and anger over specific examples of corruption, neglect, and of the pursuit of policies in opposition to public expectations and attitudes, but that is for many counter-balanced by favourable approval ratings to date over the effective response to COVID-19, so that public attitudes can be fickle; and there appears to be limited ability to reflect upon either the more basic structural failings in our systems of governance, instead of scapegoating

social displacement and poverty; e.g. Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, Der Selbstmord als sociale Massenerscheinung der modernen Civilisation (Vienna: Carl Konegen, 1881). The WHO has forecast that mental health problems will become the global No. 1 health issue in the foreseeable future, but one of the most effective ways of addressing this would be to end the gig economy and neoliberalism, and restore viable social democracy. Merely recommending that people call Lifeline or Beyond Blue, and are prescribed Prozac, are not appropriate responses to this problem. 45 e.g. Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists and How We Can Get There (London: Bloomsbury, 2017). 46 e.g. Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House and its projects Democracy 2025 and Democracy: Are You In?; see also their Truth, Power, and a Free Press exhibition.

54 unpopular individuals, or to perceive and analyse what is happening in Australia as part of global tendencies. Public concerns appear to be having no impact upon the mainstream political establishment. The recent rise of Independent political candidates and challenges to the mainstream parties are also evidence of growing public discontent with established political behaviour and failure here, although in the short-term this is unlikely to have much effect unless or until they have sufficient numbers, are able to form a bloc and to challenge the de facto hegemony of the dominant parties; and Independent MPs have limited influence in parliament. It therefore needs to be asked what we think democracy is? What democracy do we think we are protecting by questioning the alleged political interference by some media personalities and outlets, when none of them have been particularly responsible for this corruption of our democracy in the first place? Is Australia even really democratic at all?

3.2 What Democracy?

3.2.1 Australians will usually claim that we have a constitution that determines the composition of our governments and the regular holding of elections, and assume that this defines our democracy. They will claim that, with the exception of the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975, we have had no constitutional crisis and have had a regular succession of elected governments, which have been formed roughly equally by Liberal or Liberal-National Party Coalitions and by the Labor Party, and that we have had no conflict or civil war on our territory; and that Australia is hence among the most stable and one of the older democracies in the western world. They will also claim that Australians enjoy a degree of freedom, prosperity and happiness that non-western countries do not. All of this is broadly true, but these are all relative assessments. They do not mean that Australia is a functional democracy. Admittedly, not all Australians experience particular dissatisfaction or concern, and those who do may not do so all for the same reasons. Many Australians continue to enjoy a degree of prosperity and security, may perceive no fundamental flaws in our democratic institutions, and are not affected by breaches of human rights. Nonetheless, the fact that any Australians do and are, should be sufficient reason to address their concerns and circumstances.

55 3.2.2 Elections may be essential to democracy, but they do not alone define democracy. Democracy is defined by its substance, not by its form. There has been a steady erosion and corruption of democratic institutions and mechanisms in Australia, 47 a chronic failure to effectively resolve systemic problems, as well as a marked decline in the equitable distribution of wealth and standards of living, particularly over the past thirty years, which has led many Australians to be extremely concerned about the future of democracy in this country and to consider ways in which our government and society need reform. And Australia does not have the same historical, cultural and political traditions that define democracy in Europe or the United States; this is arguably an important deficit. Kings and dictators have been elected; election is therefore not distinctive to democracy, and cannot be considered as a determining definition of it. It is not merely the fact of elections, but the purpose of elections and of the representation that they should ensure that is of central importance here. We may have regular elections, but do they achieve what they are supposed to achieve? Do our elected representatives actually ‘represent’ us, voice and address our concerns, and make decisions that we want and that genuinely benefit us all, on the basis of genuine consensus and only after properly consulting the people? Governments do not see themselves as illegitimate; they define their legitimacy in terms of having won an election, rather than in terms of their fulfilment of public expectations and embodiment of the principles of democracy. 3.2.3 Democracy has historically evolved in opposition to tyranny, and has been a means of removing the tyrant and attempting to prevent the people from again being subject to tyranny; democracy is therefore a means of freedom for the people. Tyrants have caused the suppression of dissent, criticism, and free speech; they have enacted and enforced unjust laws; they have acted to strengthen their own positions, benefit their supporters, and weakened the capacity of the people to resist them; they have caused socio-economic inequality; they have restricted the personal autonomy of the people; they have imposed passivity, compliance and conformity by force or the threat of force, which may be physical or non-physical; and for a majority of populations they have often caused profound poverty and hardship through an

47 Cf. e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/30/australians-trust-government-to- handle-covid-but-not-corruption-report-finds

56 inequitable consumption of wealth. Democracy is supposed to be the opposite of this state, and its mechanisms are intended to ensure that the well-being, autonomy, equality, and freedom of every individual are maintained and protected. It is not enough that this applies to some: it must apply to all. 3.2.4 Democratic elections should then mean that any citizen can be and potentially will be elected to represent their fellow citizens in the parliament. Candidates should not adhere to a party line or be part of a faction capable of exercising disproportionate control of a parliament. (How can a media monopoly be bad, while a political monopoly is good?) Their responsibility is to voice their own grievances and those of their fellow citizens in the parliament, to debate the best possible means of resolving those grievances by informed, reasonable discussion leading to consensus, and then to implement measures, including legislation and other mechanisms of governance, which will ensure the resolution of those grievances. The dominant purpose of free elections is therefore to protect the rights and the well-being of the entire population. Consensus assumes an agreement on the goals and their achievement of government decision making, that is, the good of the entire community and equal respect for and protection of every individual without exception - the prosperity, dignity, autonomy, and equality of all - as the basis of democracy. All such decision making should be an embodiment of this principle. That will inevitably mean the constraint of the wishes of some in the community, which if acted upon would not assure the essential well- being of some, and who cannot demonstrate that their past actions have ensured that well-being of all. This is a continuing, unresolved problem, in our economy and employment particularly. Consensus does not mean, however, the complete identity and conformity of the thought and belief of all. Granted that no two constitutional democracies have identical forms of government, but that each nation’s government is a product of its own historical evolution; that one can and should reasonably debate how any society can best ensure the people’s well- being, prosperity and freedoms in a manner that allows some capacity to adapt to changing circumstances without mechanisms being corrupted; and granted that Australia does have a constitution that prescribes the institutions and mechanisms of its democracy; it may nonetheless be asked whether our system adequately fulfils the purpose of elected representation and the protection of every Australian’s basic rights. The purpose of elections is to send individuals from amongst the people to speak on the people’s behalf in the parliament in order that the core values of democracy are

57 achieved. This means that those elected must represent fairly all of the people in their diversity, not merely those who voted for them or those who agree with pre- determined policies; our elected representatives should proportionately reflect our ethnic and cultural and regional diversity and other population variables, including by gender; it means that all of those elected representatives must have as their priority the interests, the concerns and the grievances of the people; and it means that they must make decisions that resolve those concerns based upon continuing dialogue with those whom they represent and upon consensus between the representatives. Elections return politicians of a number of parties to sit in parliament, and as such, all of those MPs are equally elected representatives of the people, not merely those of the party that forms government. No government has any entitlement to power that excludes or denigrates or tacitly denies the legitimacy of all of those other equally elected representatives. All such MPs should have a direct role in government, which is not limited to voicing opposition, questioning government, and voting on legislation, but which should contribute directly to the development of that legislation, to all decision making and policy, and their views should influence all action of government. It should therefore be irrelevant which party forms government, because any government should be properly and equally representative and inclusive of all – it should in this manner be genuine government by consensus. 3.2.5 All western democracies have broadly similar political systems, but they are not all similar in being deeply polarised between two political blocs in the way that Australia and the United States are, nor are they similar in having in principle abandoned their priority of protecting the basic rights of the people in the way that these two states have. It can be argued that for all of their own challenges and differences, the European Union remains committed to a considerably higher degree of socio-economic equality than Australia does, and that that priority and the means of achieving it continue to be accepted across political spectrums. That is not the case in either the United States or in Australia. It is therefore not the formal constitutional structure but rather the principled commitment to its core values that defines democracy. 3.2.6 I recognise that the principle of elected representatives from all population groups and the necessity of a competent and efficient apparatus of government pose questions. It is not the purpose of this submission to discuss what is in need of reform and how that should be achieved in Australian democracy and governance, though in

58 my opinion, virtually nothing is now functioning at any level as well as it could and should. Suffice to note here, primarily in relation to elections, that: • there is an essential polarisation of the major party blocs that now constitute an entrenched political establishment; • they are not genuinely representative of the population; • their commitment is not to the well-being equally of all of the people of this country; • none of their internal workings are either transparent or genuinely accountable; • long-term membership of and activities within any of those parties, or a Law degree, do not qualify candidates to represent the general population; • genuine representation is not achieved by voting according to party lines or pre- determined policy positions or ideology; • limited range of viable alternative candidates standing for election and preference dealing ensure the continued dominance of the major parties rather than a more diverse representation, particularly in the lower house; • no government can reasonably claim to have a mandate to implement all of its policies based upon one single vote, which may have been corrupted (e.g. by pork- barrelling, misleading voting information, fear-mongering and false claims during campaigns) and to which there may not have been realistic alternatives, without voters being able to vote separately on every individual policy and without parties declaring all of their policies and intentions during the election campaign. In reality, such government has a mandate to do nothing more than actually form government based on the vote count; • any legislation or other decision making that is determined in parliament not by the achievement of genuine consensus following adequate discussion, canvassing of all possible options and public consultation, and which does not properly address the concerns and well-being of the entire population, is not democratic; • in a genuinely representative system, it should be the electorate, not the parties, that sets any election agenda, and it should not be for any party to tell the electorate what it will or will not do on their behalf; • any government that intentionally discriminates against or misrepresents any population group, including political opposition, which seeks to discredit and suppress dissent, to avoid public scrutiny and accountability of its actions, which corrupts democratic processes, and which fails to respect and protect the basic rights of all citizens, shows contempt for foundations of democracy.

59 The Australian Electoral Commission seemingly has no powers to force political parties to conduct a factual, balanced and truthful election campaign or to sanction those who do not, or who perpetrate other acts of corruption; this means that the Australian public is not effectively protected against the corruption of our election system, despite clear evidence of it being corrupted; the current government, even if it does agree to establish a federal ICAC, will attempt to ensure that that body cannot properly investigate government, which is to make its very purpose virtually redundant. The fact that we have a more or less workable Constitution, but that that document includes no legal protections or means of recourse for our human rights, and that no Australian government has ensured that every Australian has effective protections of those rights, is similarly a major deficit in our democracy. That deficit is unique among all western democracies.48 3.2.7 It was recognised forty years ago that our two-party political system is a corruption of democracy, not an embodiment of it.49

“I have a deep conviction that the two-party system in politics is destroying democracy. Politicians, in State and Federal Parliaments, pursue their calling as did the soldiers at Waterloo. They are arrayed in opposing ranks, firing broadsides at one another, and trooping obediently into the division rooms at the commands of their leaders. Their insults are hurled back and forth, like a clash between two ‘bikie’ gangs of larrikins, neither ever admitting that the proposals of the other could have any merit whatsoever. Since it is every politician’s ambition to become a member of a government, he or she must obey without question. ONCE ELECTED TO PARLIAMENT, THE MEMBER NO LONGER REPRESENTS HIS CONSTITUENCY. He becomes an automaton, representing only his party, often in blatant opposition to the wishes of the people who put him there. And the party leaders are, in turn, manipulated by the

48 See e.g. Robertson, The Statute Of Liberty. Section 51 of our Constitution includes marriage, divorce, child custody, and various forms of welfare support under those matters upon which the Commonwealth parliament may pass legislation, in the interests of “good government” – whatever that means - and Section 116 effectively guarantees freedom of and from religion, but there is nothing else in this document that clearly provides either any fundamental conception of democracy or any guarantee of people’s civil and human rights. 49 Sir Mark Oliphant, Speech to the First National Conference of Australian Democrats, 16 February 1980, quoted in Dean Jaensch, An Introduction to Australian Politics (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 21984), p. 133.

60 well off and powerful, on the one hand, and by the even more powerful trade unions on the other. There are still kingmakers among us.”

3.2.8 Our elected representatives do not perform the function for which we have elections. Democracy has become a repetition of tyranny, in that elected governments have replicated the essential opposition between the people and their governments, instead of those governments being a genuine extension of the people by means of which the people govern themselves. They have become a self-perpetuating, privileged elite at the people’s expense in exactly the same manner that the tyrants were, whom democracy supposedly removed. 50 This is one way, but not the only way, in which the seeds of tyranny exist innately within democracy itself. This pattern is admittedly almost universal among western democracies; however, the difference is in whether or not such governments remain in principle committed not [only] to their own interests but [also] to the well-being of the people. In Australia, our governments no longer do. 3.2.9 No government in power, be it a king or a dictator or an elected government, willingly and voluntarily reduces its own power and institutes real structural and practical reforms which may be demanded by the people (any more than capitalism corrects or regulates itself). They do, however, take measures in order to cement their own power and to weaken that of the people and of dissent; their pursuit of power is impervious to the worsening circumstances of their peoples and even to the threat of civil war – as the on-going example of Syria, and those of the evolution of democracy from the 18th to the 20th centuries, have illustrated. Within a democracy, either political establishments will implement reforms only under public pressure, and then typically only a bare minimum or cosmetic change, or desirable change will only be achieved by their complete removal. It will not occur of its own accord. 3.2.10 In the wake of the Great Depression beginning in 1929 and of the two world wars, governments across the West implemented forms of the New Deal, that is, they introduced welfare support for the unemployed, a raft of industrial relations and employment regulations that protected the rights of workers and constrained the self-

50 The work of Ingeborg Maus is pertinent on this issue, e.g. Zur Aufklärung der Demokratietheorie: Rechts- und demokratietheoretische Überlegungen im Anschluß an Kant (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1994); idem, Über Volkssouveränität: Elemente einer Demokratietheorie (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2011); idem, Menschenrechte, Demokratie und Frieden: Perspektiven globaler Organisation (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2015).

61 interest of employers, they acknowledged that government needed to invest massively and continuously in order to maintain quality service delivery and to support the economy, and that this needed to be funded by equitable taxation of those who could afford it, as well as by government borrowing. To this day, the European Union maintains these principles and mechanisms, however much they may have been modified in recent decades. Australia, the United States, and Britain have since undone as much of these instruments as possible, so that the situation in Australia today is but a shadow both of what had previously been implemented and of what European countries still in principle preserve. 3.2.11 Margaret Thatcher famously proclaimed that there is no such thing as society.51 If that had been true, then there would have been nothing for her to have been prime minister of, and it would not explain why all human societies for millennia have had concepts of society at odds with this claim. It is fallacious and unsustainable to assume that the actions of no individual have any effect upon any other individual, and that nobody has any duty or responsibility towards anybody else even in the performance of their paid employment – which includes any government. It should therefore be a responsibility of government to so regulate those responsibilities and their actual or potential effects towards an agreed end that they cause no harm and maximise the opportunities of all. Such an end would be, namely, the equal advantage of all. The notion that an absence of regulation and assistance will achieve the same outcome is absurd. Deregulation is an act, in the same way that regulation is an act, and each such act has a purpose. If deregulation purports to have the same end as that of regulation (not unlike the fact that both fascism and Communism were attempts to solve the same

51 “They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.” (Interview in Women’s Own, 1987). This comment has been variously interpreted, and admittedly contains a grain of truth. However, it represents a significant overturning of inherited conceptions of a social contract and of traditional liberal economics (e.g. Adam Smith, J.S. Mill and Jeremy Bentham), according to which the economy and to some extent government are expected to ensure that conditions favour every individual being so that they are able to look after themselves. The consequences of this element of neoliberalism have been that governments, including today in Australia, blame individuals for not looking after themselves, irrespective of whether sufficiently favourable economic and employment conditions actually exist to enable them to do so, and that governments no longer accept responsibility either for regulating those circumstances or for providing the assistance that people may need. What happens when ‘the market’ combined with government deregulation leave increasing numbers of people in poverty and unable to help themselves? One might consider e.g. Dennis Glover, An Economy is not a Society: Winners and Losers in the New Australia (Melbourne: Black Inc, 2015).

62 problems),52 that is, the well-being of the people, then that outcome should be as much of a reality under any neoliberal economic system as it is in a social democracy that imposes constraints upon capitalism. But both acts, or models, do not in fact achieve the same outcome. Unregulated neoliberalism has invariably created socio- economic inequality and massive wealth displacement from the general population into highly concentrated possession by the 1% (or the 10%), whereas social democracy has largely maintained relative socio-economic equality. Paradoxically, neoliberalism also includes forms of regulation, primarily directed against its victims. What Thatcher meant is that the traditional mutual obligations of society should no longer operate, that a political conception of society should be replaced by a purely laissez-faire economic model, and that tax systems, minimum government, and law should ensure the unrestricted operation of ‘the market’, even against the people; under Thatcher, it also meant the brutal and legislated suppression of dissent and protest, curtailing of civil liberties and academic freedom of speech, without satisfying efforts to resolve public grievances. It is one thing to argue that, if allowed to operate according to its own, innate and unregulated forces, an economy will ensure prosperity for all, but if it fails to do so, it is not either consistent with that model or, indeed, democratic, to suppress discontent and protest; a genuinely free market should be able to accommodate contrary forces, not need protection from them. All economic forces are the actions of human beings, not disembodied forces as of nature that have no relation to human beings and which operate independently of them. Regulation is, therefore, the constraint of the actions of some human beings against others, in exactly the same way as any criminal justice system is or as democracy itself is supposed to be. Deregulation in neoliberalism is also an act, and an act of constraint, not one of unmitigated liberation, insofar as it requires the constraint of anything its advocates deem to be antithetical to it. It is an illusion to speak of ‘market forces’ in any other way. The assumption that an unregulated, profit-driven ‘market’ would ever ensure full- employment on liveable incomes for the entire population and without creating grounds for grievance and protest is inherently contradictory and unjustified by any

52 e.g. Raymond Aron, ‘États démocratiques et états totalitaires’ (1939/1946), L’Homme contre les tyrans (1946), Démocratie et totalitarisme (1965), and Les désillusions du progress. Essai sur la dialectique de la modernité (1969), repr. in idem, Penser la liberté, penser la démocratie (Paris: Gallimard Quarto, 2005); Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Schocken Books, 2004 edn). Neoliberalism, however, does not have an agenda in this sense and does not aim to address a major socio-economic challenge.

63 historical experience. Those who control wealth, its means of generation, and who are thereby able to exercise political influence to their own advantage, do not create level playing fields that enable every individual to enjoy the same opportunities; on the contrary, they seek to accrue as much wealth as possible, which is finite, and which means taking it away from others – including through unfavourable employment conditions. The achievement of an American Dream for everybody, and that capitalism in any form would facilitate that, is a delusion. It is the adoption of this ideology that has directly led to dissatisfaction with government, with globalisation and neoliberalism. Rather than governments protecting the people against the ravages of ‘the market’, they have been complicit in, and benefitted from, them. This is especially true in Australia, and in the United States. It is generally much less true in European social democracies, in which even conservative parties are in agreement on maintaining progressive social policies, quality service delivery, and adequate redistribution of wealth and welfare support.53 Neoliberal positions are in direct contravention of human rights, which affirm people’s entitlement to assistance when needed and governments’ responsibility to provide such adequate assistance, and which make it the responsibility of government to manage their economies in ways that benefit all. That is only possible with effective regulation of economic – that is, human - behaviour. 3.2.12 Neoliberal economics and its pendant political ideology, principally in the Anglophone world, is not merely a phase in the history of globalised capitalism. It draws upon elements of traditional liberalism but applies them in more radical forms; it includes inherent contradictions; it interprets the principles of the American Revolution in particular and somewhat questionable ways; it effectively demands political measures to remove constraints and regulation originally intended to protect the general population from its consequences; and it draws upon a conservative moral and conformist support base that is intolerant of difference and dissent. It is a complex phenomenon that should be understood as a specific product of contingent historical processes.

53 Two recent examples of collective European discussions of their shared social values as being integral to their value systems, cultural identity and government are: Europa, notre histoire, ed. Étienne François and Thomas Serrier (Paris: Les Arènes, 2017), and Grundwerte Europas: Toleranz, Gerechtigkeit, Freiheit, Gleichheit, Menschenwürde, Frieden, Solidarität, ed. Clemens Sedmak, 7 vols (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010-2017). The latter title translates as Fundamental Values of Europe: Tolerance, Justice, Freedom, Equality, Human Dignity, Peace, Solidarity. This kind of tradition is lacking in Australia.

64 3.2.13 Neoliberal economics was in principle accepted across the western world, but not everywhere in the same degree. European states and some others accepted it as the latest phase of globalised capitalism, while retaining principles of social welfare and economic regulation. In this sense they have sought to maintain the functions of democracy. In the United States and in Australia, however, the embrace of neoliberalism has been far more extreme, with a range of measures that have continued to erode protections of the well-being and autonomy of the population. In Australia, this practice has been accompanied by a political agenda, whether underpinning or intended to reinforce the shifting balance of power that is inevitable with an unregulated neoliberalism. That agenda has seen the real erosion of people’s human rights, the enforcement or attempted enforcement of conservative pseudo- religious values, conformism, extension of police powers and other ‘law and order measures’, criminalising of dissent and public protest (e.g. Eric Abetz’ repeated attempts to outlaw GetUp!, restrictions on legal strike action and public marches), criminalising and harassment of other minority groups such as the unemployed, single mothers and other welfare recipients, denial of known majority public support for policies, worsening of public service delivery and accessibility, attempts to evade public accountability and transparency and where possible its hindrance, support for the Murdoch media and similar platforms and individuals combined with attacks on the ABC, the weakening of public regulators, failure to address diverse problems of public concern, to implement recommendations of public enquiries, and flagrant corruption, deregulation of industrial relations and employment conditions, attacks on unions, worsening of the gig economy, un- and under-employment, a high national economic dependence upon under- and unpaid work, and increasing poverty and hardship – among other problems. This is the legacy of developments set in motion under the Hawke Labor government, significantly worsened under Howard, sometimes with the complicity of Labor, failure under the Rudd-Gillard government to reverse these developments or to effectively address many public concerns, and a continuation of the Howard agenda under the current Coalition government.

Since 1996, Howard has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced non-government organisations, neutered Canberra’s mandarins, curtailed parliamentary scrutiny, censored the arts, banned books, criminalised protest and prosecuted whistle-blowers. […] He

65 leads a government notably uncomfortable with freewheeling debate. Uncomfortable is too kind a description: the dislike is profound.54

None of this should ever even have been possible in a functioning democracy. That it all happened, and that it continues to happen, ought to be unmistakable evidence that Australia’s democracy is fundamentally, perhaps irreversibly, flawed and dysfunctional. This is not a democracy that Murdoch has corrupted, or could have corrupted, nor is it one that the public should now be asked to defend. 3.2.14 Critics of democracy object that the general population is susceptible to manipulation and to making impulsive, short-term choices that have undesirable long- term consequences, and which do not in fact benefit their fellow citizens or the community.55 The implication is then that an elite would not be so susceptible and would instead make better, more informed and considered decisions. However, we are seeing that elites are corrupt and do not in fact make any better decisions than the masses are assumed to be capable of making. The underlying issue here, however, is not the quality and rationality of decisions, but that greater public participation in such decision making would erode the power position of the elites. The fact that Anglophone societies combined with but not merely influenced by neoliberalism tend towards stronger ‘law and order’ policies also reflects a distinctive attitude towards society and the individuals who constitute it. On the one hand, it implies a fundamental mistrust of ‘the people’, and feeds into the pursuit of power. On the other hand, it is in effect an abdication of any responsibility for the social causes of criminality, real and alleged, as well as for any rehabilitation and social re- integration, and the increased criminalisation of groups not in fact ‘criminal’. Such policies are primarily punitive and directed against any non-conformity – which paradoxically assumes a specific conception of a society. This is also an aberration of

54 David Marr, His Master’s Voice: The Corruption of Public Debate under Howard, Quarterly Essay 26 (2007), p. 4. See also e.g. Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison, Silencing Dissent: How the Australian Government is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2007). 55 See e.g. Elias Canetti, Masse und Macht ([1960] Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1980); Gustave Le Bon, Les Lois psychologiques de l’évolution des peuples. Essai ([1894] Amazon repr.); idem, Psychologie des foules ([1895] Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963); idem, La Révolution française et la psychologie des révolutions. Essai ([21913] Amazon repr.); George Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford University Press, 21967); Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Eine kritische Edition, ed. Christian Hartmann et al., 2 vols (Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin, 2016). For exactly the same reason, the Founding Fathers created a constitutional system in America that was intended to prevent the general electorate from having decisive influence on or control of American government; hence the importance of electoral college votes over the popular vote.

66 the principles of democracy. Social democracies do not tend to pursue such policies. Australia’s obsession with this attitude perpetuates the settlement convict experience. 3.2.15 We recognise that people can be manipulated by fear, but we do not recognise that people also react with fear to the circumstances of their lives, to the perceived behaviour of government and economic forces over which they have no control, more often sub-consciously than fully consciously, and that such fear produces a wide range of undesirable reactions by the people against government and against themselves. This is a seedbed of conspiracy theories and opposition to policies, whether or not those policies are reasonable. The logic of this way of thinking is perfectly normal: a human desire to explain the unexplainable; it is only its consequences that are harmful.56 Fear is cultivated, exaggerated, and exploited for political ends, but it is also a real and unpredictable phenomenon that can capture majorities of populations and/or their ruling elites, and it can persist over multiple generations. It is evident through various periods of western history. Fear was a central element in the persecution of medieval heresy, particularly between the 12th-15th centuries (primarily but not only the Cathars and Waldensians), in the European witch craze (15th-18th centuries), in the aristocratic reaction to the ideals of the French Revolution between 1815-1848, in the international response following the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the perceived threats of Communism that persisted until the end of the Cold War in the mid-1980s, a pervasive attitude among Germans from the later 19th century to the rise of Hitler in relation to their eastern European neighbours in particular, and it is obviously a factor in the role of conspiracy theories in the United States. It is equally a factor in reactions to the global migration crisis and in the persistence of racism. Fear is manifest in many areas of our attitudes and behaviour in Australia amongst many different population groups, and while it is not the only cause of the issues raised throughout this submission, it is unquestionably one such cause. Heightened nationalism (and forms of aggression, which are often instinctive defence reactions to often unacknowledged threats) and increased social intolerance and expectations of conformity to a single set of norms, are typical fear reactions. These behaviours characterise American society, but they are also manifest in Australia. They are not

56 Cf. e.g. Dominique Moïsi, La géopolitique de l’émotion. Comment les cultures de peur, d’humiliation et d’espoir façonnent le monde (Paris: Flammarion, 22015). I have also conducted historical research on fear as a driving force in particular epochs.

67 usually recognised as being driven by fear. Fear and power, whether by removing rightful power from others and extending it for one’s self or in the use of force or the threat of force against others, are often intertwined. All of these elements can be and are manipulated and encouraged by irresponsible media platforms, including both social media and News Corp. 3.2.16 This submission is not the place to examine questions of popular participation in their own government, beyond establishing that this is a central tenet of democracy. Suffice to say that such criticisms of democracy do not justify an oligarchical alternative, or ensure that it would avoid the weaknesses of democracy. Clearly, we do need some form of elected representation, as it is not possible for many millions of citizens to all convene to discuss anything. Public debate, however, should then be regarded as a legitimate and integral component of the democratic process, which is necessarily accepted as a contribution to parliamentary discussion and to decision making. There is certainly a case to be made for an efficient, well-educated and specifically qualified bureaucracy in government capable of exercising any initiative and powers necessary to perform its duties, and to act in the best interests of all, which at present Australia does not have, and for an expectation that whoever is elected to represent the people is possessed of the qualifications to be able to perform that task. A well- informed and proactive bureaucracy will recognise matters that need to be addressed of which the general public may not be aware or concerned about; it may also consider that the will of the people cannot be acted upon in the manner demanded, but if so, it should then show cause and commit itself to addressing public concerns by other measures. All legitimate public needs and concerns ought to be addressed effectively and expeditiously. Our current political establishment is in most cases not so qualified and does not so act. 3.2.17 Democracy should be based upon informed, respectful and equitable public debate and parliamentary discussion of matters of concern. No decision making should be dominated by one party and its backers or one agenda or one lobby or interest group or one ideology; unilateral executive and ministerial decisions should in principle be excluded. Decision making should be based upon consensus, which will typically require some compromises by some of those represented, if not the basic denial of their claims. It should be based upon all relevant, available evidence, and upon continued public consultation whose input is taken seriously; there are no

68 effective permanent channels of consultation between government and the public that would ensure that government is an extension of and not an enemy of the people. There are also no permanent effective channels of consultation between government and many areas of expertise within the community. Insofar as those areas of expertise are also part of the community that ought to be represented by and participating in its own government, this deficit is a further weakening of democracy. The guiding principle of consensus ought to be whatever is in the best interests of public well- being, autonomy and dignity, equality and freedom for all. Lobby groups should be heard as representatives of sections of the community, but they should not exercise disproportionate influence on government, and their concerns should be balanced by the equally legitimate concerns of advocacy groups and other community groups, population cohorts, and individuals. Decision making should be based upon a balance of interests between everybody, and not to the detriment of any. 3.2.18 It is not genuine democracy for one man or woman to be able to determine, without any possible opposition by the public, and without consideration of the known will of the people, what an entire country can and can’t do, will and won’t do. It is irrelevant that that person won an election. The exercise of such unilateral power, whether by an individual or by an individual in combination with an executive of their party, is fundamentally no different from the tyranny which populations believed they had liberated themselves from by rejecting monarchy in favour of representative parliaments. When the sitting government is able to pass legislation unfettered by other elected representatives because it controls both houses of government, then there is no effective restraint that can be imposed upon tyranny. When even other parties and individuals support such conduct, rather than voicing public opposition, they are also cooperating in the exercise of tyranny. This situation, which we now have in Australia, is a caricature of the principles of any people governing itself. Laws that place decision making powers in executive decisions by ministers contribute to a concentration of power in the hands of a small number of individuals, removing such power from the parliament, potentially, from the jurisdiction of the courts, and from any challenge by the people. They are de facto dictatorial powers, not democratic powers. There has been a noticeable tendency under the present government to concentrate such powers in some cases. This trend should be considered as part of a larger programme, including the extension of counter-

69 terrorism powers to individuals unrelated to the purposes for which that legislation was justified, to the criminalisation of diverse population cohorts and activities, attacks on journalism, failure to provide enforceable protections of rights, and other tendencies particularly of Coalition governments and their allies. Considered as a whole, this constitutes an insidious and systematic destruction of democracy in this country. 3.2.19 Such government should be secular. The removal of all religion from any influence upon governance, as a force of oppression rather than of liberty, is also fundamental to democracy. The influence of religion on modern societies is sometimes overt, as when it is combined with nationalism, but it can also be covert, as when it is in the interests of conservatives to conceal their religious orientation in order to advance their agenda within an ostensibly secular society. The use of religion to legitimise political ideologies or nationalism has nothing to do with the teaching and histories of those religions; neoliberalism has nothing to do with the teaching and history of Judeo-Christianity, which is essentially ‘socialist’, and overtly critical of elements of the driving elements of what is now neoliberalism. In order to properly understand the role of religion in these contexts, it is necessary to use a psycho-sociological, cultural anthropological, and historical paradigm, not a focus on any given religion itself. Freedom of religion reduces the religious to the private sphere, but does not permit the influence of any religious values upon government, and certainly not the imposition of minority attitudes upon an entire population. Any issues upon which religious values might be significant should exclude religion as a factor and confine discussion to independent evidence; for example, on questions of abortion rights, single parenthood, sexual morality, the LGBTIQ community, and assisted dying. Freedom of religious belief should also not be a basis of discrimination in any public activity or the restriction of others’ rights. As a matter that ought to be limited to the private sphere, religion should cede to the priority of others’ human and civil rights. This question continues to be contentious in Australia today. These areas are generally matters of choice or concern individuals. They have no practical bearing upon the life of an entire society – unlike matters such as the economy or national defence and security. There is therefore no obvious reason why one individual’s or one group’s attitudes on any of these questions should then

70 determine what is permissible for everybody within a community. Tolerance of difference should apply here, not an often religious-motivated conformity. 3.2.20 If the purpose of elections and representation do not serve the well-being and liberty of all Australians, but only the power ambitions of an elite, then what is the necessity of our Constitution? Our political establishment is now behaving in precisely the same ways that tyrants have acted and in which those states witnessing the transition of their democracies back into more dictatorial states are acting, the processes now provoking international concern and debate. Why don’t we think this is a problem? Whether we are fully aware of it or not, our inactivity is facilitating exactly the same process in this country, and has done for at least the past twenty-five years already. We have watched as power has corrupted and been corrupted, and we have not been vigilant. In Australia today, these democratic values have long been betrayed, the character of governance has fundamentally worsened, the public is increasingly concerned, and these developments need to be confronted and reversed. Silencing Murdoch will not achieve that.

3.3 An Information Society?

3.3.1 Meaningful public or political debate cannot be achieved by what has been called ‘the death of expertise’,57 or the selective and manipulated use of evidence or false and unfounded claims, or the silencing of argument. 3.3.2 The different manner in which the Coalition government has treated climate change science compared with medical science as a basis for its response to COVID- 19 demonstrates that all knowledge, even acquired by the same methodology and of the same type, is not treated as if is equally true, or as if it should be equally the driver of responsible government. Government picks and chooses which knowledge or data it will use and which it won’t, not on the basis of any recognisable evaluation of its facticity but according to its own needs and priorities. It has been prepared to discredit such knowledge as a means of justifying its rejection or ignoring or rewriting of it. By behaving in this way, it effectively devalues all knowledge. Responsible government should mean that policy is determined by such evidence and that responsible action

57 e.g. Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

71 follows from it, but that is not the situation in Australia. Government is permitted to arbitrarily sit in judgement on such knowledge. 3.3.3 In his well-known and still fundamental study of the ‘post-modern condition’ from 1979, Jean-Françoise Lyotard described the world in which we now live as it was beginning to become this world. He discussed the commodification and compartmentalisation of knowledge.58 When knowledge ceases to serve the freedom of the people, the fulfilment of the human spirit, a classless and equal society, it loses its legitimacy, it is no longer unquestioningly accepted as a public good, it becomes a means of profit and power, and that has now all become the reality with which we live. Knowledge has no inherent legitimacy, but is accorded legitimacy only according to the purpose for which it is used – or, accordingly, denied its legitimacy. This means that knowledge is now misused, exploited, used for undesirable purposes, and hence is no longer to be trusted. It is also not used. It is in this environment that fake news, conspiracy theories, and one-sided views find fertile ground. 3.3.4 Government has an enormous reservoir of knowledge that it collects itself, and which it could use to the benefit of society, but it doesn’t. It should be possible for public servants, including MPs’ staff and government departments, to achieve an overview of available data and knowledge on specific subjects, to be capable of critically evaluating it, and of formulating policy and recommendations using that material, which government then acts upon. Our government departments are obviously not capable of doing this, even while being suffocated by more information than we actually need, and government is not then using the knowledge available to it in order to effectively act on behalf of the people. Why should the public trust knowledge – or government - under these circumstances? 3.3.5 Our society also generates an incalculable quantity of knowledge through university research, including the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Law, which could be exploited in the interests of good governance and the well-being of society, but once again, we don’t. There are no permanent mechanisms of consultation between those sectors of the community and government by means of which anybody in government ever necessarily becomes aware of that knowledge or routinely

58 Jean-Françoise Lyotard, La condition postmoderne. Rapport sur le savoir (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1979). This text was commissioned by the government of Québec.

72 consults that resource. We simply do not use much of the knowledge that is readily available to us. This is one area in which the media could play a more extensive role, by providing platforms from which academics and others present their knowledge to the public and, potentially, to government, in ways that are easily intelligible but which also demonstrate the relevance of that knowledge to our lives. Academic research often appears too far removed from quotidian life, and its ‘relevance’ therefore needs to be made more obvious. Even within the paradigm of knowledge as a commodity, Australia does not use R&D and innovation to its own best advantage, as when it is not provided with necessary venture capital investment that would keep it and research outcomes on-shore as the basis of local manufacture, job creation and revenue generation; when, instead, individuals and businesses are forced to seek investment off-shore and to take the potential benefits of jobs and revenue with them to other countries such as the United States, China, or Europe, and when innovation and research outcomes are sold off for development and marketing in other countries for short-term, limited gain rather than investing in them ourselves and ensuring longer-term economic growth in this country. None of this benefits Australia, which is also the only OECD country to have had an uninterrupted ‘brain drain’ for over 60 years, because of this chronic lack of investment. Similarly, the expectation that Australians should continuously invest in further education and training throughout their working lives, continuously changing careers and areas of employment, when in many cases this would not be necessary if there were sufficient long-term investment to keep them and their expertise within the same jobs or sectors. This is another incalculable and unwarranted waste of knowledge, and all of it is inherently inconsistent with any notion of knowledge as a profitable commodity. These patterns represent systemic failure of responsible economic management. 3.3.6 Government also attacks knowledge. Successive Australian governments have suppressed information that should be publicly available; they have censored and silenced individuals who present facts and ideas they do not support; they present false and misleading information to serve their own ends rather than the interests of the people. They have attacked the universities and defunded them so that the public is misled into believing that universities – despite now being responsible for all

73 professional education in this country – cannot be trusted, and as they are consistently underfunded, and use their funding for non-teaching and non-research purposes (this is due to neoliberal management, not to academics, who now have no effective influence on university governance), they are unable to provide the knowledge they once could. This strategy is identical with that used in particular against the ABC. The ability of our universities to educate their students to best possible standards or to provide all of the research that the country does need, is now being further impaired by massive academic job cuts and the downsizing and closure of more departments in the wake of COVID-19. Universities were once one of the most important sources of knowledge in the country, and potentially a social resource of enormous importance that extended far beyond their teaching and research roles, but they no longer are. Government also undermines legitimate public debate that should be based upon facts and evidence, instead directing what public debate we still have under aggressive ideology. The threats posed by government to our academic freedoms in Australia are not sufficiently reported on and explained by our mainstream media, but the threats are real. They are also increasingly part of a global trend to suppress academic freedom of speech and independent research.59 The fact that neoliberal, unregulated, unaccountable, unqualified management controls the careers and futures of academics in our universities provides them with an additional means by which to exert such control. 3.3.7 This kind of attack on academic freedom is closely associated with the culture war allegation that our Arts & Humanities departments continue to be hotbeds of Marxism, despite there being no justification for such allegations, and despite the fact that Marxism, like neoliberalism, should be critically taught in our Arts, Humanities and Social Science departments. This kind of attack comes from the political Right. It is also a manifestation of anti-intellectualism,60 which is a form of fear, and universities are an obvious target for that fear. It has a longer history, and it is paralleled by attacks against unions and other groups not beloved of the Right. The

59 See e.g. ‘Free to Think’, Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project 2020 Report, and "Kylie Moore-Gilbert is one of hundreds of victims of state attacks on academic freedom" — https://theconversation.com/kylie-moore-gilbert-is-one-of-hundreds-of-victims-of-state-attacks-on- academic-freedom-151088 60 Cf. e.g. Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Vintage, 1963).

74 same type of attack on freedoms occurs against the ABC and against legitimate democratic activism, protest and dissent. In 1950, the Communist Party Dissolution Act was passed under the then new Menzies Liberal Party government. This was immediately challenged in the High Court, which in 1951 found the Act to be invalid. In response to that finding, Menzies then called a referendum to decide on a change to the Constitution that would allow governments to identify and ban alleged threats to national security. The referendum was denied, by a very narrow margin: 49.44% to 50.56%, though several states had slightly higher percentages against. There was evidently considerable support for the banning of the CPA, including, with some reservations, within the Labor Party. However, the consequences of the Constitutional change would have been far greater and longer-lasting. It would not only have allowed the banning of the CPA, but also any government to define and punish any other individual deemed to be in any way a threat to the community. That would potentially have turned Australia into a totalitarian state, subject only to the will of any given government. We do not have sufficient independent enforceable protections of our freedoms and civil rights to prevent that. This attempt by Menzies was part of Australia’s version of McCarthyism; it admittedly had a particular political and economic context, including being an attack on the Labor Party, but its effects would have transcended that immediate context and left this country with a dangerous precedent and legacy. Menzies, at least, made no further attempt to ban the Communist Party of Australia, although they and others continued to be spied upon by ASIO.61 It is one thing to protect a nation against Soviet espionage and possible, but very improbable, Soviet attempts to overthrow a western government (while the CIA helped to overthrow governments repeatedly with impunity), but that does not justify continued attacks on those who hold different viewpoints merely on the grounds that they do so, but who pose no demonstrable threat to democracy properly conceived – unlike those who attack them – or for the extent to which many Australians were in that period subjected to often incompetent surveillance. There was some, but not much, compelling evidence that Communism posed a threat to the security of the

61 e.g. David Horner, The Spy Catchers: The Official History of ASIO, 1949-1963 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2014); John Blaxland, The Protest Years: The Official History of ASIO, 1963-1975 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2016).

75 country, but Menzies’ was a primarily ideologically motivated attack; the absence of any military threat was the reason for the High Court’s decision. Regrettably, we have not learned our lessons from this history; the present Coalition government is now repeating it.

3.4 The Australian Culture War

3.4.1 Why do we call a difference of views among Australians, which would be a normal state of affairs in any complex modern society, a ‘war’? Why is our society seemingly incapable of tolerating and respecting difference, and instead, some groups among us prefer to destroy by any means possible the validity and credibility of those they disagree with – the right of each of us to exercise a basic freedom of belief and speech? Why is such a difference of views perceived by some as a life-threatening situation, when it isn’t in almost any other western society? The mere fact that this circumstance exists in this country is pathological. It isn’t normal. The Culture War is a long-running phenomenon that is evident in many contexts in our society. This phenomenon is unparalleled in any European society, but only arguably in the United States. We should then ask ourselves why this is so. Why is anti-intellectualism, an inability to conduct informed, civil public debate, a high degree of intolerance, and opposition towards many aspects of culture so entrenched in this country, including in politics, but not in almost any other? 3.4.2 This attitude is a cause of the corruption of government and of public discourse. It is plausibly one reason why our education systems are mediocre in quality in international comparison, and why they continue to be oriented overwhelmingly towards employment and the economy, and not equally towards the Arts and Humanities. Some beneficiaries of tertiary education share this anti-intellectualism. It is also a reason why the Murdoch media and other similar media platforms are able to enjoy the traction they apparently do. However, this attitude is not caused or created by any media outlet. It is a national character trait of a dominant portion of the population, and it must, logically have an historical cause that derives from our settlement history and/or from other decisive collective experiences, the effects of which are perpetuated through generations. The fact that both British and European emigrants all came originally from societies in which such an attitude did not prevail and which on the contrary have much older,

76 established, cultural and intellectual traditions – which were formative for the evolution of democracy – which Australia does not display, suggests that those traditions have been lost amongst those immigrants in the process of settling in this country. At the same time, Australia never attracted the same European cultural elites who went to America and established themselves there, notably in New York and California, and who have made a substantially greater contribution to that country. 3.4.3 Much of our history and behaviour have been and still are atypical of other OECD countries and democracies, even when such attitudes and behaviour are self- defeating. When Australia has • one of the most extreme and least regulated forms of neoliberalism; • a chronically under-developed and uncompetitive economy; • poor investment in, forward planning and completion of diverse infrastructure needs and projects; • a 60-year long and still continuing ‘brain drain’; • other service delivery not fit for purpose, including privatisation and out-sourcing; • incompetence and inefficiency in governance by agencies and departments; • a chronic inability to resolve social, economic and other problems over decades, to learn from our own mistakes, and from more successful models in other countries and to implement them; • a consistent failure to implement enquiry recommendations; • one of the worst and most punitive and discriminatory welfare regimes; • a refusal to consider a universal minimum income above the national poverty level; • among the worst responses to climate change; • a very mediocre secondary and tertiary education system, and no international standard elite university; • a refusal to mandate learning of foreign languages in schools; • no Bill of Rights or enforceable protections of most of our human rights, and most Australians, including politicians, have neither any adequate understanding of human rights or in-principle commitment to them; • the most extreme, unwarranted and disproportionate legislative response to terrorism, now being used for other purposes against Australian citizens; • [had] one of the most extreme censorship regimes; • a profoundly entrenched and divisive culture war;

77 • unparalleled mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers; • a continued tendency to oppose and seek to reverse or under-fund progressive social policies; • persistent systemic and institutionalised racism against the Indigenous population; • a harsh and recidivism-encouraging criminal justice system; • when Howard and Morrison, and sometimes the ALP, are more disposed to behave like Viktor Orbán or Mateusz Morawiecki than like Emmanuel Macron or Angela Merkel or Mette Frederiksen or Erna Solberg or Stefan Löfven or Sanna Marin or Katrin Jakobsdóttir; • not to mention numerous other objectionable and useless aberrations; then we should finally ask ourselves why we, and only we, are like this as a nation. 3.4.4 All of these matters are either unique to Australia and unparalleled in any other OECD country, or they are more extreme and aberrant here than in other OECD countries. Many of these areas have been criticised by the UN and other international agencies, they are opposed by a majority, sometimes a substantial majority of the electorate, they bring this country no longer-term advantage, and they even contradict our own professed values or commitments. None of this – not any single one of these issues – is evidence of functional democracy. In the first instance, this has nothing to do with the ‘tyranny of distance’ (Geoffrey Blainey) or with asserting our own sovereignty: this is who and what we are as Australians, these are our cultural attitudes. We have choices: we could behave very differently and it would in all of these cases be rational or more beneficial if we did. But we don’t. 3.4.5 It is evident that most Australians do not have sufficient understanding and knowledge of the world or of history, or even of themselves, to be able to critically assess this phenomenon with detachment. That deficiency undermines our democracy. Insofar as the United States, alone of other western countries, display a number of similarities to the situation in Australia, it is useful to understand the history and society of the United States as a means of better understanding ourselves (hence, the many comparisons with and references to American history). Unfortunately, our education system does not teach subjects in such a manner that facilitates better understanding. Making such observations has nothing to do with patriotism; it has to do with rational, constructive self-criticism.

78 3.4.6 The dominant attitude towards the Sydney Opera House at the time, and the despicable mistreatment of Jørg Utzon, and Eugene Goossens;62the peculiar nature of censorship in this country; the considerable multi-generational expat community of artists and intellectuals, and the expressed views of many of Australian philistinism and cultural backwardness;63 the fact that despite having many world-class members of the creative community, many who have established themselves overseas, and wider public interest in the Arts, that sector of the community remains permanently under-funded and under-valued by government; and the chronically mediocre standard of our secondary and tertiary education systems, are all examples of an entrenched anti-culture mentality in this country. That attitude stifles public debate. 3.4.7 We have shown ourselves as a society to be unable to conduct respectful, informed debate on matters of urgency and importance, and to find workable and generally acceptable solutions to them. We routinely allow simmering problems to become so toxic and polarised that any resolution becomes impossible, while the longer those problems remain unresolved, the more peoples’ lives are lost or harmed, often permanently, and those problems become worse and ever more difficult to address. 3.4.8 Australia has never had to fight for its democracy with revolution, it has not undergone other traumatic histories out of which ideas have been articulated, we have simply been handed a democracy on a platter. Plato and Aristotle, Kant, the other political philosophy texts cited in this submission, the ‘Rights of Man and Citizen’ (Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (1789)), the American debates around their Constitution,64 the legacy of Fascist and Communist totalitarianisms, are all considered integral to how other societies reflect upon their democracy, society, values and principles.65 That inheritance is real and living, and citizens are educated

62 e.g. Helen Pitt, The House: The Dramatic Story of the Sydney Opera House and the People Who Made It (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2018); Daryl Dellora, Utzon and the Sydney Opera House (Melbourne: Penguin, 2013). 63 e.g. David Marr, Patrick White: A Life (North Sydney: Vintage, 1991); Robert Hughes, Things I Didn’t Know: A Memoir (North Sydney: Vintage, 2007); Robin Boyd, The Australian Ugliness ([1960, 31980] Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2010); Madeleine St John, The Women in Black ([1993] Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2012). 64 The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification [1787-1788], ed. Bernard Bailyn, 2 vols (New York: The Library of America, 1993). 65 I have also used The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, ed. Christopher Rowe, Malcolm Schofield, Simon Harrison, and Melissa Lane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought, c. 350-c. 1450, ed. J.H. Burns (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450– 1700, ed. J.H. Burns and Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); The

79 in it, but Australians do not use that cultural and intellectual paradigm to reflect upon our democracy and society. We don’t use any other comparable prism, and we have not produced comparable debates of our own, either. There is nothing useful in this way in our Constitution, we have no Bill of Rights, and we don’t use UN documents. So how do we think about what democracy is and what it should be? Insofar as Australia was founded as a British colony, and its settler population was predominantly British, it would have been reasonable for us not only to have adopted the so-called Westminster parliamentary system (with all its faults) and other British institutions, as we did, but also to have regarded the British history of political thought, including its record of dissent, as a foundation for our own political culture. But we clearly have not. That would have included Magna Carta, the ideas of the Civil War period including the Putney Debates, the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, the history of British parliament, and the tradition of British political liberalism. These sources, along with a rich political literature throughout British history, could have provided Australia with a much more solid foundation upon which to have evolved our own cultural and intellectual traditions, but we have not done so., outside the sphere of law. Of course this is not to suggest that we have no history of political thought at all, merely that we have not developed one comparable with the traditions of other western democracies, and we do not use well what we have. If an individual or newspaper were to discuss politics and society in terms of our European intellectual heritage, they would not be understood by a majority of Australians, and would probably be attacked by some as being cultural snobs. 3.4.9 All of this represents a major impoverishment of our social and political capacity to define democratic ideals that we wish to embody, and to effectively oppose anti-democratic tendencies within our midst. None of our myths and history and purported values are effective or adequate in this context. I am arguing on the basis of the international historical evolution and theorising of democracy that our own democracy is not genuine democracy, less because of its form than because of its absence of content; but this argument is not necessarily generally understood or accepted. The stability and success of our democracy depends to an exceptional, and

Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Gareth Stedman Jones and Gregory Claeys (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought, ed. Terence Ball and Richard Bellamy, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Henning Ottmann, Geschichte des politischen Denkens, 4 vols in 9 part-volumes (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2001-2012).

80 precarious, degree upon the good will or otherwise of our elected leaders, and when they are or are not willing to bow to public pressure and the adverse consequences of their conduct. Our current government is steadily undermining our democracy and our social foundation, as have several previous governments. 3.4.10 This attitude makes the extremism of neoliberal politics in Australia possible. Only by investing adequately and permanently in, and by regulating and ensuring, that this country provides a significant higher standard of education across all discipline areas in both secondary schools and universities, by respecting the social value of the Arts and Humanities, and by educating the public for a more tolerant, respectful, and intellectually rigorous level of public discourse, including in politics and in our journalism, can this culture war be stopped. And only when it is stopped will the traction of right-wing media platforms be weakened. 3.4.11 The culture war, as does neoliberalism, implies a narrow conception of what it means to be a human person. It implies that only views consistent with its own ideology are tolerable within a society; that creativity and other expressions of human experience are valueless; that education should serve no other purpose than to qualify people for employment; that only Arbeit macht frei; and that the only acceptable sexual orientation is married heterosexuality capable of producing children. A humanistic tradition of education and society means that Man is not made to serve an economy, but that an economy should serve Man, that other activities apart from work are of equal or greater value than that supporting an economy, and that children and young adults are educated to be responsible, tolerant, informed, citizens. This latter conception of humanity is clearly threatened by neoliberal ideology - and by the Coalition government. 3.4.12 The culture war is not perpetrated by the Left or by the Labor Party or by the creative community or by academics: it is perpetrated primarily by the political Right as a one-sided attack. The fact that it is perpetrated by anybody at all is anti- democratic. The false characterisation of those on the Left as Communists or as other classes of public enemies is obviously intended to instil fear and hence provoke mistrust of and opposition to them. This is McCarthyism. Yet it is the so-called Left - the more progressive Left, not necessarily the ALP - not the Right, that represents democratic and human rights values. By discrediting the Left, the Right is demonstrating that it is itself anti-democratic and anti-human rights, and that its conception of society is inhumane, not based upon equality, and monochrome. A

81 respectful, tolerant, democratic society is inclusive, whereas the culture war is deeply polarising and divisive.66 It is not a coincidence that modern socialism emerged as a reaction to the abuses and exploitation of capitalism and industrialisation, which itself caused profound social upheaval and transformation, including the structured society of inherited wealth and power. 3.4.13 One eloquent example of the culture war is the sustained attack by the Coalition and its supporters against the Arts and Humanities, particularly within the universities, not only with the latest defunding and policy bias against the Humanities (which is unprecedented in the entire history of the funding of our universities),67 but also in the regularly reiterated accusation – without any evidence68 – that Arts and Humanities departments are hotbeds of Marxism. On one level, this is a flagrant and indiscriminate misrepresentation of all Australians who are assumed to disagree with neoliberal views; that also occurs in News Corp publications. Any argument should be judged by its merits, on evidence and truth content, not according to whether it can be categorised by opponents as belonging to a demonised category intended to discredit it. Such attacks could be construed as an evasion of reasonable debate.

66 Cf. e.g. Dominic Kelly, Political Troglodytes and Economic Lunatics: The Hard Right in Australia (Melbourne: La Trobe University Press, 2019); Elizabeth Humphrys, How Labor Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019). 67 The Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Act, 2020. 68 The Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Report on Allegations of Academic Bias in Universities and Schools (2008), for example, found no justification for claims by some right-wing commentators that there was any ‘Communism’ in our education system. That finding has not stopped such allegations being made, and they continue to be made to the present day. One single, rather controversial instance in the Philosophy Department at Sydney University in the late 1960s has been used as if it ‘proves’ a national threat, but that was an isolated episode occurring half a century ago, and proves nothing about our education system today. This is also known as Cultural Marxism, and is analogous to the Fascist theory of Jewish Bolshevism; cf. e.g. Anti! Kommunismus. Struktur einer Ideologie (Berlin: jour fixe, 2017); Paul Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism (Cambridge MA; Harvard University Press, 2018). The Report of the Independent Review of Freedom of Speech in Higher Education Providers, 2019 (Robert French) also found no evidence of any systematic limitations upon freedom of speech in our higher education institutions, though it noted that even isolated incidences of whatever kind may have a damaging and disproportionate influence upon public perception, and it did propose a code of conduct. Matthew Sharpe, ‘Is ‘Cultural Marxism’ Really Taking Over Universities?’, The Conversation, 8 September 2020, also found no preponderance of Cultural Marxism in academia. The persistence of this attitude in some right-wing contexts in Australia over many decades and without any substantive proof to warrant it can only be explained, in my opinion, by a subconscious exaggerated fear, analogous to Australia’s over-reaction to a virtually non-existent terrorism threat, and/or by an ideologically motivated attack on real or potential challenges to one’s own pursuit of power. Whatever the explanation, this should be a cause for concern.

82 On a second level, it is a perfectly consistent application of neoliberalism, according to which education has no other useful purpose than to serve the economy as regulated by a privileged elite; any other education that does not directly serve that machine is redundant and unnecessary. By implication, it also suggests that that elite does not wish people to be educated so that they are able to mount any cogent opposition to them. In contradistinction to the anti-intellectualism of the United States and Australia, social democracies and former eastern European societies attached great importance to culture and education and the Arts. By no means merely for that reason, socially and Marxist-leaning intellectuals in Britain (e.g. the Fabian Society) and Europe in the later 19th and earlier 20th centuries were particularly involved in education reform movements and in workers’ education programmes, partly so that workers would better understand their own oppression by entrepreneurs and the capitalist system; elements of this social critique were evident in the 1960s. It is also parallel with, but not necessarily associated with, the so-called ‘Enlightenment’ project, that is, that reason and education are the guarantors of democracy. If current education policies in Australia include any legacy of these attitudes, then this would mean that the Coalition government – unlike Labor, at least notionally – only wants Australians to be educated for employment but not for any other purpose. Such a suspicion is not beyond the realms of possibility. On yet another level, it is a fundamental dehumanisation and process of alienation,69 insofar as the Arts and Humanities represent a positive valuation of the human person that is here being denied, the human experience and our diversity, of individual dignity and autonomy, of elements of existence that are trammelled by the reduction of people to exploited worker drones generating profits for others to enjoy. At issue here are two fundamentally different, diametrically opposed conceptions of humanity and society: one is embedded in democracy, indeed, it is the historical driving force and raison d’être of democracy itself, the other is antithetical to it.

69 e.g Christoph Henning, Theorien der Entfremdung zur Einführung (Hamburg: Junius, 2015); Rahel Jaeggi, Entfremdung: Zur Aktualität eines sozialphilosophischen Problems (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 22016); Peter V. Zima, Entfremdung: Pathologien der postmodernen Gesellschaft (Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 2014). The condition of being alienated implies that it is an abnormal condition, and that our normal, healthy condition is its opposite, namely, an embodiment of humanism rather than its denial, the full manifestation and realization of our human nature and potential. Marx identified the dehumanizing nature of capitalism, from which we have still learned nothing, and survivors of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps also described their dehumanization, most famously, Primo Levi.

83 Obviously, education is necessary for employment, but if education is also to ensure the full development of the individual person, as a defined human right, and if it is to serve the protection and functioning of genuine democracy, then it cannot be viewed merely as a qualification of employment. It should then not be provided solely for that single purpose, nor should its content be so restricted. The situation of the Arts and Humanities in Australian universities was comparatively poor many years before the latest challenges. Concerns were raised by academics and the wider community at the time of John Dawkins’ green and white education discussion papers in 1987/8 that the implementation of that policy would harm the Humanities; those concerns were dismissed by the Hawke government, but have since proven to have been fully justified. Humanities departments have been eviscerated, down-sized, amalgamated, or closed. What used to be considered mandatory core course content has been scrapped, and degree programmes watered down. Humanities and Social Science research receives an estimated 5-10% of ARC funding, which is grossly inadequate and does not reflect international levels of funding for those discipline areas, which are closer to 50% of academic research funding. Discipline areas considered standard and self-evident in virtually every other OECD country are poorly represented in Australian universities, or not taught or researched here at all. There are numerous problems in our tertiary education sector that have not been recognised and addressed over the past thirty years, and in some degree those problems affect all discipline areas, and not merely the Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences. Nonetheless, the broad attitude that education is only for employment qualifications (which has arguably been the dominant attitude towards all education in Australia since white settlement), that HASS disciplines make little or no contribution to the economy and therefore do not need to be proportionately well- funded, except for the training of school teachers, obviously plays a decisive role in university management and funding allocation. As such, this constitutes a fundamental under-valuing of the Humanities and of what they represent, as well as for their larger but less quantifiable importance within the general community. It is the Humanities, not STEM subjects, that are most essential for the quality of public debate and the preservation of democracy. It is possible that this utilitarian attitude towards education helps to explain the continued failure to improve our education standards in high schools and to treat teachers as professionals who enjoy a high degree of public status.

84 3.4.14 It is questionable to what extent this is a clearly constructed and consciously adopted ideology that is being purposefully pursued by the Coalition government. Nonetheless, this is the obvious effect of their policies, which are consistent, and there must be some foundation for them. If we wish to preserve any vestige of democracy in this country, then this culture war must be stopped, and the anti-democratic behaviour of the government and its supporters challenged. To date, this has not occurred with any discernible effect. It cannot be said that the Coalition government is overtly dictatorial, but its behaviour is consistent with transitions away from democracy towards totalitarianism; all of these developments are what is also happening in other countries tending in the same direction; and all of them serve an increasingly unequal, intolerant, and potentially polarised society. One pattern under the present government has been for forays into unchartered territory to be made, and then for proposals to be denied and shelved when there has been public backlash, while other policies have successfully been pushed into force without significant opposition, without people even noticing, with the support of Labor and/or the crossbench. To what extent sufficient numbers of Australians would support this tendency and for how long, is unclear. Nonetheless, the conditions for a dictatorship have already been created here, and as the situation in the United States under Donald Trump has illustrated, disenfranchised and frustrated populations tend to support a right-wing strong man, not socialist politics (which have been undermined or which are not already established and working), even when it is predominantly right-wing policies and economics that have caused their alienation. Dictators need popular support, and they win it by exploiting nationalist identity politics and anger against the perceived establishment and those then defined as enemies. 3.4.15 The entrenched national characteristics itemised above are not due primarily to neoliberalism, but rather to our collective historical experience and evolution. They exacerbate the deleterious effects of neoliberal policy, but are not alone responsible for it. Australian society has often been considered, for example by sociologists, to be majority conservative in its attitudes and resistant to change or more progressive ideas;70 it is arguably that attitude that makes aspects of neoliberalism possible and

70 There are no doubt more recent data from many more sources on this question, and while the growing immigrant population does not seem to have significantly influenced political attitudes or policy, its potential (not necessarily progressive) influence on the range of public opinion and possibly on more tolerant values, would also need to be considered. I have consulted e.g. Ronald Conway, The

85 disposes sections of the general public to support them without being able to recognise the harm they do or their inherent contradictions. Neoliberalism therefore dovetails with already existing attitudes embedded within at least part of the population, and it must be remembered that politicians are also a product of the same society as the rest of the electorate, and hence at least in some measure reflect the same attitudes. Australian society remains profoundly divided, and different groups do not appreciate the necessary contribution that other groups make to our society, including indirectly to themselves, while others with more or less justification feel that they are the object of prejudice, that they are being attacked and under-valued. Societies, like individuals, are not made more civil by laws. They are made civil – or ‘civilised’ – more respectful, considerate and tolerant of others, primarily by education in the broadest, humanistic sense, and by removing the conditions that contribute to division.

3.5 The Principle of Tolerance

3.5.1 Self-government by the people is predicated upon a principle of tolerance and mutual respect that recognises the views and concerns of others as equally legitimate with one’s own. This is incompatible with our two-party political system, which is unresponsive to many people’s concerns and difficulties, which makes decisions entirely removed from any effective mechanism of consultation, which does not seek to achieve consensus based upon acknowledgement of the equal legitimacy of others’ views, which seeks to undermine, discredit and even criminalise others’ views and actions, and which rather than allowing conscience votes as a matter of routine demands that all elected members of parliament vote according to party lines, based

Great Australian Stupor: An Interpretation of the Australian Way of Life (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1971); idem, Land of the Long Weekend (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1978); The New Conservatism in Australia, ed. Robert Manne (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982); Australia: The Dædalus Symposium, ed. Stephen R. Graubard (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1985); Australian Attitudes: Social and Political Analyses from the National Social Science Survey, ed. Jonathan Kelley and Clive Bean (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988); Donald Horne, The Lucky Country ([1964] London: Penguin, 52005); idem, Death of the Lucky Country (London: Penguin, 1976); idem, The Lucky Country Revisited (Melbourne: Dent, 1987); idem, 10 Steps to a More Tolerant Australia (Camberwell VIC: Penguin, 2003); and the Quarterly Essay series. I acknowledge that much of Australia has and will continue to become more tolerant and progressive, but that fact does not mean that there is no inherent conservatism remaining, which is not supporting the Coalition and its acolytes. Evidence of that is presented throughout this submission.

86 upon ideological positions and concern about their backers, rather than on the basis of the views of those whom they supposedly represent. In other words, government in Australia does not practise toleration. 3.5.2 There are antecedents to the post-Reformation struggle for toleration; for example, the Roman Empire was religiously tolerant and pluralistic, there were medieval debates around the question of tolerance, and also struggles of minority groups against persecution. For our purposes, the principle of tolerance emerged first in the wake of the Protestant Reformations in the 16th century, when the religious homogeneity of European societies was shattered by the rejection of Roman Catholicism universalism and the emergence of national and sectarian Protestantism primarily across central-northern Europe. Their demand was for their freedom of belief to be respected by governments, with the implication that it should no longer be the role of any national government to determine which religious belief, if any, was legal and which was not, or to demand religious belief rather than atheism. This marked the beginning of the process that led to complete secularisation of democracies in the 19th and 20th centuries.71 3.5.3 That demand for religious toleration was then extended to include political toleration, that is, the right to be free to publicly discuss and espouse views critical of government, and to publish them. Understandably, that right was not freely given, political dissent continued to be suppressed, publications continued to be censored, and periods of greater toleration were followed by periods of harsher repression. This occurred across Europe, for example, following the defeat of Napoleon as monarchies feared the dissemination and influence of the ideals of the French Revolution; that repression in turn provoked the pan-European uprisings of 1848,72 which resulted first in compromises and then in gradual concession of freedoms.

71 e.g. Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967). Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651), John Locke’s An Essay on Toleration (1667), A Letter on Toleration (1686), and On the Difference between the Ecclesiastical Power and the Civil Power (1674), and Voltaire’s Traité sur la Tolérance (1762), may be mentioned as examples in this context. 72 e.g. Adam Zamoyski, Phantome des Terrors: Die Angst vor der Revolution und die Unterdruckung der Freiheit, 1789-1848 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2016); Alexandra Bleyer, Das System Metternich: Die Neuordnung Europas nach Napoleon (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2014); Mike Rapport, 1848, Year of Revolution (London: Little, Brown, 2008).

87 3.5.4 This is the historical evolution upon which our principle of freedom of speech and belief is based.73 It means that anybody is free to say, publish, and believe anything they wish to, without in-principle restraint or punishment or censorship. This means that all views, irrespective of who espouses them, have equal right and legitimacy, insofar as others are prepared to accord them credibility, but it lies with the public, not with government, to decide this. Government’s role is limited to protecting this equality and universal right. 3.5.5 Admittedly, we do now recognise that nobody should have the right to express views which may offend others, although this is not and should not be an absolute and unassailable restriction upon freedom of speech; it must be a negotiated restriction based at the same time upon respect for other rights and principles. As noted above, the right of freedom of religion does not give adherents of any religious tradition the right to impose their beliefs, or the values ostensibly embodied in those beliefs, upon anybody else, nor does it give anybody an unconditional right to discriminate in speech or word against others on such grounds. This principle cuts both ways. We also increasingly recognise the danger that fake news poses to legitimate and informed public debate, and that – also within the purview of this enquiry – will become a matter that needs to be confronted. However, it is not a simple or a black & white matter to impose restrictions upon this freedom while ensuring that such restrictions are limited to purpose and do not infringe upon other freedoms. 3.5.6 Australia has had one of the most extreme regimes of censorship in the area of supposed public morals and political views of any western democracy, and that regime persisted for longer than it did in any other country; this is now paralleled by our unprecedented scale of supposedly counter-terrorism legislation, which can now be deployed against citizens.74 There is no question that some published materials should be censored, in particular child pornography and so-called hard-core non-

73 e.g. Robert Hargeaves, The First Freedom: A History of Free Speech (Phoenix Mill, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 2002). 74 e.g. Intellectual Suppression: Australian Case Histories, Analysis and Responses, ed. Brian Martin et al. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1986); Michael Pollak, Sense and Censorship: Commentaries on Censorship Violence in Australia (Sydney: Reed Books, 1990); Nicole Moore, The Censor’s Library: Uncovering the Lost History of Australia’s Banned Books (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2012). Whereas the 1961 British trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover resulted in the general relaxation of censorship in Britain, that did not immediately extend to Australia, as one might have expected it to have done, and it took the local trial of Portnoy’s Complaint a decade later to begin to relax the censorship regime in this country; on which, see Patrick Mullins, The Trials of Portnoy: How Penguin Brought down Australia’s Censorship System (Melbourne: Scribe, 2020); Australia’s Censorship Crisis, ed. Geoffrey Dutton and Max Harris (Melbourne: Sun Books 1970).

88 consensual pornography. Even in the recent case of Bill Henson’s photographic exhibition in 2008, however, it is clear that Australia remains divided over what constitutes art and what doesn’t, and that we are as likely as not to lean towards censorship rather than tolerance. It should be clearly recognised that Australian society, or some elements within it, remain extremely intolerant in their views and inclined to apply censorship as a means of social control. The implications of this tendency extend far beyond the question of art and literature. 3.5.7 The principle of toleration, or free speech, should mean that a media platform such as Murdoch’s, or any other, is at liberty to publish whatever views it wishes, however, obnoxious or unfounded. As we do not have effective regulations either on the truth content of media reporting or against discriminatory, misogynistic and other views, or an agreed standard for the conduct of public debate in this country, it is virtually impossible to impose any constraint upon such a media outlet that would not unfairly affect other public debate or which would not set a precedent for further censorship. The principle of freedom of speech traditionally leaves it at the discretion of the individual to decide for themselves what they believe or do not believe, not the State. The Australian Press Council has voluntary codes of conduct, but there as in every other sector of the community, voluntary codes of conduct are ineffective except for groups and individuals who don’t need them anyway; they are not effective against intentional abuse. 3.5.8 It could be argued that our libel laws, the possibility of individuals mounting such cases, and the cost and typically protracted nature of so much of our legal procedures, could all be improved to provide more effective, expedited, and sufficient protections to those who need them. On the other hand, were any attempt made to impose greater constraints upon such media outlets, then those same restraints should apply everywhere, including in politics. 3.5.9 As has been reiterated through this submission, Coalition governments and some other politicians aligned with them seek to undermine freedom of speech in many and various ways, instead of respecting it and strengthening necessary protections of it. They do this because they refuse to accept the fundamental principle of democracy, which is that all government is and should be continuously accountable to the people, and that democracy is predicated upon the equality of differing political and other views and behaviours, not on the intolerance and suppression of difference.

89 3.5.10 What democracy do we have in Australia? What democracy do we not have in Australia? What democracy do we want? What democracy do we think would be protected by new regulation of the media? Is the society depicted here the society that we wish to preserve in its status quo? 3.5.11 Australia does have a Constitution that determines the formal structures of government, universal suffrage, regular and comparatively uncontested elections, a generally independent judiciary, and many other instruments of governance. We therefore do have the potential for functional democracy. 3.5.12 Australia has witnessed the increasing corruption of elections; the toxicity and polarisation of politics, and obvious pursuit of power at the expense of the community; the dominance of government legislation and policy by right-wing ideology that does not properly represent the will and well-being of the people; pervasive neglect, incompetence, and corruption of and other forms of misconduct in numerous areas of governance; consistent failure to use available information and to effectively redress problems that have been the subject of pubic investigations; often multiple investigations, combined with the erosion of or refusal to grant effective protection and enforcement powers to regulatory agencies; no Bill of Rights or enforceable protections of many human rights as defined by UN documents that Australia has ratified, and persistent failure to protect, and attacks and erosion against, many specific areas of rights; the consistent attack particularly by the Howard and the present Coalition government against sections of the population and against other instruments and institutions; the worsening of service delivery in every sector; declining educational standards, and numerous unacknowledged and unaddressed problems within our university sector; the worsening employment and socio- economic circumstances of growing numbers of Australians and the unregulated pursuit of neoliberal economic models to the detriment of the community, protected by government; and the fundamental failure of elected representation to serve the purpose for which it was fought and established. From these perspectives, Australian democracy is in urgent need of far-reaching and comprehensive reforms at every level. This is not acceptable or credible democracy. Any democracy that arguably most Australians would now want to see is not that which we currently have, but rather some form that would resolve all of the multiple causes of discontent and anger with government.

90 The situation we now have may have been supported and profited from by Murdoch, but it has not been caused by him. If our democracy and the harm that has been done to millions of Australians were to be genuinely addressed and reformed, then News Corp would arguably lose considerable traction amongst its readership.

91 3.6 The Role of ‘The Fourth Estate’ in Democracy

3.6.1 The designation of the media as the ‘Fourth Estate’ assumes the traditional political establishment of the first three estates as the clergy, nobility, and commoners (e.g. Edmund Burke 1787, and Thomas Carlyle 1837), or in European usage, it joins the division of executive, legislative, and judicial powers. In European usage, it has also denoted the people in general. As such, the media do not have a formal, constitutional role in government. However, to the extent that sovereignty in democracy lies with the people, not with the government alone or above the people but only as a delegated power, it is appropriate that the media, as a tribune of the people (tribunus plebis), should be so conceived. Government in a democracy is not confined to formal institutions and mechanisms, but necessarily includes the people, who are not properly included in those institutions and mechanisms. The historical evolution of the role of the media within modern democracy implies that they should be recognised, respected and protected, as a branch of governance, if not of government. 3.6.2 The historical evolution of the press, if we include the period of the Protestant Reformations and their aftermath and the Enlightenments, is one of the dissemination and discussion of ideas, with the purpose of challenging the status quo and achieving greater public participation in self-government. The role of the press from the 19th century began to involve investigative journalism and the holding of governments to account by the people for their actions, although such a role is implicit already in the preceding century. This role therefore evolved parallel with the development of democracy. 3.6.3 This role, however, assumes a particular conception of the nature of government itself, of democracy, of the relationship of the people to their government, and the function of the press as a tribune of the people. While that conception remains, and is arguably as important now as it ever was, that same conception is clearly opposed by government in various ways in practice. In other words, government is not a willing partner in democracy: it is uncomfortable with the notion that it does not have carte blanche to exercise power as it wishes; it is uncomfortable with being exposed by the press or being held to account by journalists and, by extension, the general public; and it is uncomfortable with the people demanding any influence upon or participation in government.

92 In the view of this submission, those government attitudes have no place within any genuine democracy, they are not an acceptable version of democracy: they are anti- democratic, and it should be the role of the media to challenge them and to continue in its traditional role. In order for it to be able to do so, however, it requires legal protections which no government with such attitudes is likely to provide. 3.6.4 It could be suggested that the media have three responsibilities: • To provide news reporting of events. • To hold government in all of its branches accountable to the people whose taxes pay for it, which is elected to represent the people, not to act as a sovereign power over and independent of the people, which has obligations and duties towards the people, and to compel further investigation and remedial action. • To provide a forum for informed public debate around current affairs and topical issues, which should then inform government. As such, the media are a channel of communication between the people and their government. 3.6.5 These responsibilities are not compatible with news as entertainment or scandal mongering; they are not compatible with one—sided reporting that precludes equal voicing of alternative views with the aim of achieving the best possible public understanding of issues relevant to them; it is not compatible with news reporting as a biased, profit-making undertaking; and it is not compatible with the cultivation of conspiracy theories, intentional misleading of the public, exposure of issues arguably not in the public interest, with the intentional misrepresentation of those about whom it reports, or with bullying or the support of a dictatorial or authoritarian government. 3.6.6 The process of presenting news ought to have a mechanism of validation or verification, which is normally practised by investigative journalists and, presumably, ordinary reporters, but that process is clearly absent in some online sources of news. The responsibility then falls on the individual accessing that source to exercise critical analysis, but that is obviously not always occurring. These sources then conceivably contribute to the dissemination of fake or biased news and its contribution to the formation of public opinion in undesirable ways. The bias of Murdoch publications (also expressed in other ways) apparently does not deter those who prefer to read them; on the other hand, the alleged bias of other news sources such as the ABC or The Guardian likewise does not deter those who prefer those as news sources. 3.6.7 Nonetheless, responsible reporting that is to do equal justice to all parties concerned by any news story should present a balanced and comprehensive account,

93 and not intentionally omit relevant information or differing perspectives, nor should it over-simplify issues. There should indeed be little discernible and no crucial difference in accounts by different media outlets. If such differences do occur and are frequent, then the public is not being as well served as it ought to be by the media. Unfortunately, there are a range of systemic, embedded biases in our media, even beyond essentially ideological biases. Certainly, it is in the nature of regular news reporting to only record the immediate event and any consequences of and responses to it; that could at best only include some brief analysis and context. Current affairs broadcasts and publications, however, should be the occasion for more extended analysis and discussion. Better educational programming by the ABC and SBS (and, no doubt, commercial stations) would also be able to provide better background explanations of current affairs. 3.6.8 The media have a responsibility to report on all matters of public interest, not to be selective or to pre-determine which matters will receive attention, and how much attention, and which matters will be ignored. There are many matters of considerable public interest that have been not reported upon or investigated over many years, to the detriment of the public. This is a form of bias. It is common for issues to only attract public attention when a high profile or spectacular instance of a problem becomes visible, while the underlying problem and frequency of that same issue have been ignored. This has been particularly evident during Covid, when a range of issues have become more acute and hence have attracted more media attention in recent months, even though the causes and extent of those same problems have existed for many years in this country without being the focus of any particular media attention; examples of this include the problems in our aged care system, in university academic employment and management, unemployment and the gig economy more broadly. If the media are to be a responsible and credible voice of the people, then they cannot pick and choose which issues they consider to be newsworthy or which will improve their sales or which they deem to be in the public interest. The problems in our aged care system have existed unresolved for more than forty years, and every single individual who has ever been mistreated, exploited, or deprived of dignity and autonomy within that system should have been deemed worthy of public attention and outrage. The academic employment and workload problems, declining academic standards, and the questionable conduct of university management, as well as the chronic issue of funding, have been persistent, unabated problems in that sector for

94 thirty years, without the media for the most part ever noticing. How many millions of ordinary Australians depend on people who have been poorly educated within that system, and how many hundreds of thousands of academics have been exploited, underpaid or not paid at all for their work, subjected to toxic and insecure employment and working conditions, an estimated 50% incidence of mental health problems, and how many aspiring Australians have been deprived of any career future within that system to the detriment of both themselves and the community? And yet none of that has been considered by the media, including the ABC, deserving of due diligence. And so on. The media could do much better in this respect. This shortcoming is no doubt in part due to some need to prioritise and also to funding limitations. Nonetheless, there have also clearly been editorial decisions made over years that could reasonably be questioned. If the media are to report on every matter of importance as argued here, then they require better funding and to be able to employ considerably larger numbers of journalists. 3.6.9 It would be useful in the interests of public participation in democracy if the public were routinely informed about all current government enquiries, with emphasis on those open to public submissions, and if the final reports and other outcomes of such enquiries were always reported on. The media should follow up on government failure to act on the recommendations of such enquiries. Equally important would be for the media to report on all legislation before parliament. It is difficult for the people to participate in actions of government, as they should be able to do, when they don’t know what government is doing. Not all legislation is equally important or has significant implications for most of us, but there should be a regular report. We should not need to learn about any of this because of activist groups; this should be a self-evident mechanism of democracy. 3.6.10 Equally useful would be for all journalists to be conscious of the nature of democracy, of human rights, and to frame their reporting and investigations explicitly in such terms. This is clearly a serious deficit in Australian journalism, where numerous issues that are explicitly human rights issues are neither understood nor presented as such, and where journalists have no coherent, articulate understanding of democracy with which to challenge either politicians or other members of the community. They cannot defend democracy if they don’t know what it is, and if they do not explicitly hold government and the community to that principle.

95 This also involves a pedagogical role: If the public sees journalists demonstrating and applying basic principles of democracy and human rights in the way they report and analyse events and circumstances – which government does not – then the public are hopefully more likely both to do the same and to respect those principles. 3.6.11 It is central to the conception of democracy in its historical evolution, and to the evolution of the conception of the function of a free press within a democracy, that it should function as a tribune of the people against government, not in support of government. That conception is born out of the experience that government will establish itself against rather than as an accountable extension of the people, or that it may do so, even within constitutional democracies, and that there must therefore be effective checks upon any potential or actual extensions and abuse of power. If the media are to perform their role effectively, then they must engage in the investigation of matters that governments may prefer to keep secret, and where government is not forthcoming and transparent, and it does not accept that it ought to be able to be held accountable to the people, such investigation may also entail activities that government defines as criminal. 3.6.12 If governments functioned in the manner that they are intended to function within a democracy, there would be limited necessity for investigative journalism. The fact that governments do not so function, that they often deny that they even have an obligation to do so, and will actively attempt to hinder and obstruct accountability and exposure, means that the importance of investigative journalism cannot be over- estimated. It is not journalists in this context who are corrupting democracy, but the ostensible guardians and representatives of democracy itself: politicians and public officials and agencies. There are unquestionably circumstances in which government and its agencies do need to be able to operate in secrecy, for example, in the investigation of criminal activity and terrorism. There are also circumstances in which it is conventional that secrets should be protected, as in the case of national security and diplomacy. However, in all of these circumstances, there should still be credible internal regulation, governments should be able to be trusted by the public to act responsibly, and such powers and secrecy as are needed for those purposes should be circumscribed and not applied in other situations extraneous to those circumstances and for other purposes, or beyond what those circumstances require.

96 3.6.13 In order to ensure that such use of executive powers is circumscribed and accountable, there should be clear, legal and enforceable definitions and protections of those, including for journalists, whom government might be tempted to prosecute or threaten. Australia does not have any credible protections of journalists or of private citizens against unwarranted and excessive use, or abuse, of such powers, nor seemingly any legal precedents that establish the limits of government and its agencies. This is a matter that urgently needs to be addressed; the fact that it has not been speaks against government, and implies that government wishes to reserve the right to act as it wishes, arbitrarily, and without culpability. Once again, the situation of Australia in this respect is anomalous in comparison with the remainder of western democracy. There are several broad areas in which this problem is especially egregious, and in which specific cases are brought to public attention without the underlying issues being resolved. These include the excessive generation and potential or actual abuse of counter-terrorism legislation; the lack of adequate whistle-blower protections; criminalisation of journalists and their sources for acting consistent with democratic principles and in the public interest; and government attacks on and AFP raids against journalists and, in particular, the ABC. 3.6.14 Ordinarily, investigative journalism does not breach some forms of secrecy. It has little interest in professional secrecy between a lawyer or a doctor and their client or patient, for example. The fact that such investigations are not arbitrary and indiscriminate but rather largely confined to specific areas demonstrates purposefulness and that investigative journalism fulfils a reasonably specific purpose only. Investigative journalism is not comparable with, for example, the protections accorded a copyrighted item, or with ‘hard core’ pornography and child pornography, which would rightly be censored, suppressed, and subject to criminal proceedings. The nature of what is in question, the objects of it, and what is gained or lost by its exposure or suppression (or the question of purported threat and harm posed), are not comparable. The act of suppressing or limiting publication of such materials is therefore not identical, and the issue of the freedom of the press must then be considered on its own merits and not by such analogies. Exposure of alleged criminal behaviour, malfeasance, or breaches of conduct codes in the case of government and business reveals what would not otherwise have been

97 revealed. If government and business never engaged in such conduct but were always transparent and kept no unnecessary secrets (diplomatic secrets may generally be an accepted object of secrecy), there would be little investigative journalism. The cause of this issue is not journalism but the behaviour it seeks to investigate. If the paramount importance here is the right of the people to know, then attempts by government or other actors to silence journalism are anti-democratic and potentially themselves illegal, whether or not that is enshrined in existing law; they would be breaches of public expectations and of the principles upon which democracy is by common consent founded. Secrecy is a de facto claim that the public does not have a right to know, although such a claim cannot obviously be reconciled with the principles of democracy unless under clearly delineated conditions. It is therefore incumbent upon government to legislate clearly to protect the activities of investigative journalism, to judge them by the standard of their public interest and consistency with democratic principles and the historical right of the freedom of the press, to legislate equally to protect and respect journalists’ sources, and to place the burden of proof in such cases clearly upon those who seek to prevent or hinder those activities, not upon the journalists. Failure so to legislate is tantamount to complicity in the activities kept secret by reason of criminality, anti-democratic motivations, and self-interest. The fact, for example, that Public Interest Advocates (PIA) are provided for under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act of 1979, and yet that forty years later, their sphere and importance can still be considered insufficiently regulated and respected, such that this is still an issue under consideration in the Inquiry into the Impact of the Exercise of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Powers on the Freedom of the Press (August 2020) as a necessary means of protecting journalists, is an extraordinary – but by no means unprecedented, on the contrary, it is an entirely typical – failure of government; further, that this should still be an unresolved matter after almost twenty years of endless counter-terrorism legislation, beggars belief. 3.6.15 The general calibre of what passes for public debate in Australia is very poor, and inferior to the best platforms for public debate in both the United States and in Europe. This has a variety of causes, including the comparatively mediocre quality of education of all Australians, whether politicians, journalists, or the wider public; the entrenched culture war; the impoverished and ill-defined understanding of democracy

98 and human rights, and the effective lack of any cultural and intellectual tradition of public debate specifically in the context of democracy. 3.6.16 I acknowledge that we do have a variety of forums in which some public debate is conducted, including a number of ABC programmes, some comparable programmes on other media outlets, online discussion platforms in conjunction with media publications, and some serious journalism. Nonetheless, I would argue that even these examples demonstrate a deficient understanding of democracy in history and theory, the inability of both journalists and the public to frame issues in terms of principles or any cultural and intellectual tradition, and limited understanding of international affairs as a general principle. 3.6.17 Democracy is predicated upon the equality, that is, the equal rights and dignity of all citizens, regardless of their political, religious or other views or identities, and that public policy and decision making should be based upon the open, respectful and informed discussion of all of those pertinent views, with the aim of achieving consensus. Consensus does not mean imposing or assuming the superiority of your own view over others’. It does not mean distorting or misrepresenting either your own view or anybody else’s, or resorting to insult and slander. It does not mean asserting one’s own rights at the expense of others’. Participation in public debate requires the capacity to question and critiques one’s own positions and assumptions, and where necessary, to change them or at least to acknowledge qualifications and limitations. Credible public debate cannot occur when people remain uncritically entrenched in their own foxholes. 3.6.18 Democratic consensus means putting the well-being of the whole above the self-interest or the ideology of any one group within that whole. This means that no individual should be harmed in fact by any consensus and its implementation. The definition of harm here, for example, does not mean the retention of unnecessary wealth when others do not have sufficient means to maintain a quality of life and their own dignity and autonomy, that is, that by not being required to pay tax on excessive wealth, or avoiding or resisting the payment of such tax, or the acquisition of wealth precisely by denying others a liveable income. It also does not mean refusing to acknowledge when such harm is caused when discussing politics and the economy. 3.6.19 The historical role of the media was to present sustained discussion of different views. Where any given publication only presented one perspective, reasonable consideration of an issue entailed the reading of multiple publications that represented

99 different views, and critically evaluating those different presentations. Critical evaluation means not adhering to one particular view or position but forming one’s own view, based on a questioning of others’ views, of their legitimacy, of their evidence or the lack of it, according to general principles that are agreed to guide the issue and reasoned debate. On the one hand, this requires that one can trust the presentation of issues by journalists; on the other hand, it requires some time and effort on the part of the individual, and reasonable intelligence and education. Where any of this is lacking – and it is arguably lacking to a catastrophic degree in Australia – then we do not have effective public participation in democracy, and we may not have a responsible media, either. The greater problem here, however, is not the journalists and media platforms, but rather the public. Reading or listening to news programmes should not be so that we are told what to believe, but so that we can determine for ourselves what we believe. It is possible for any responsible citizen to obtain sufficient reliable information upon which to form reasonable opinions on the issues of the day if they so wish, including via the internet. Therefore, however corrosive some media platforms may be in Australia, they alone will not destroy whatever democracy we still have. The public will destroy it themselves. Governments of both major parties over decades have themselves contributed to this problem by, among other things, failing to ensure that the entire population is properly educated in both secondary schools and universities – both to general standards and more particularly in relation to civics. As mentioned above, public views and diverse sources of information should also flow into government decision-making processes, but they clearly do not; even government commissioned research does not flow into government policies and decision-making.

3.6.20 Possibly the most flagrant hindrance of the press by the current government has been the prohibition of any reporting on the detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru. This prohibition was extended to include anybody who had been employed at those centres, and the government has also attempted to control use of mobile phones by detainees, apparently as a means of preventing information becoming publicly available. The government has clearly lied and misrepresented the situation.

100 The government’s public criticism of Gillian Triggs who, as Human Rights Commission president, criticised the government for these actions, was unacceptable. 75 It constituted political interference in an organisation that should be independent, and a refusal of government to be held publicly accountable. She was doing her job as Commissioner, and should also have been entitled to speak out as a private citizen of this country. It is a weakness of our democracy that government cannot be compelled to act responsibly, in this as in numerous other instances, even despite public exposure of its questionable actions and culpability, and despite considerable public demand that it should. This fact demonstrates the considerable imbalance of power between government and the people whom it ostensibly represents, and the opposition of government to the people, which is certainly not the intention of democracy. The mistreatment of those detainees, and the conditions under which they have been indefinitely held, are egregious breaches of Australia’s international obligations, including basic human rights and the rights of refugees and asylum seekers,76 whether or not they have been recognised as such by the UNHCR; our behaviour has been internationally criticised, including by the UN, and the European Union’s response to an almost infinitely greater refugee problem than Australia has ever faced or will ever face has generally been much more humane and respectful, and the EU has pointedly refused to behave in the same manner as Australia. These people are not criminals, nor should they be criminalised by the government for having sought refuge and asylum in Australia. The means by which they have arrived or sought to arrive are irrelevant, and the continuing uncertainty and hardship of the thousands of other refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia and Malaysia are similarly unacceptable. While there is certainly a case for criminalising and pursuing people smugglers, not for the fact of their smuggling but for their mistreatment and

75 e.g. https://www.abc net.au/news/2015-02-24/gillian-triggs-says-brandis-wants-her-to-quit-rights- commission/6247520?nw=0, https://independentaustralia net/life/life-display/gillian-triggs-human- rights-and-ideology,10573, "Australia’s human rights debate has always been political" — https://theconversation.com/australias-human-rights-debate-has-always-been-political-68070, "Brandis censured by Senate over Triggs attacks" — https://theconversation.com/brandis-censured-by-senate- over-triggs-attacks-38231, "Why does international condemnation on human rights mean so little to Australia?" — https://theconversation.com/why-does-international-condemnation-on-human-rights- mean-so-little-to-australia-53814, "Report calls for royal commission into children in immigration detention: experts respond" — https://theconversation.com/report-calls-for-royal-commission-into- children-in-immigration-detention-experts-respond-36299 76 e.g. the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 and 1967 Protocol, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1984 and 2002 Optional Protocol, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, and others.

101 exploitation of the people they assist, there is no justification for extending the same policy to those whom they assist. Australia has to my knowledge offered no constructive alternative solutions to the global migration crisis, although it is in a position to do so – for example, by international advocacy, by diplomacy, as a member of the UN, and by contributing to a global discussion about the causes of this migration crisis that would include strengthening democracy and addressing socio-economic injustice and various forms of discrimination in countries of origin. No detention centre is a military base in a state of war, which together with intelligence installations would be the only justification for secrecy. Those detentions are being conducted in the name of the Australian people, yet a substantial percentage of the Australian people have not endorsed such actions but have demanded the closure of those centres and the humane treatment of those detainees on the Australian mainland.77 If the current government were genuinely democratic, it would have acceded to those demands, as well as to the criticism of the UN. It is not democratic. The Australian people also have every right to know what is being done in their name and allegedly on their behalf, and the secrecy imposed upon those centres by the current government is not consistent with that right. There is a legitimate right to know and public interest, which the government has hindered. The secrecy that the current government has attempted to maintain around those centres is fully comparable with the secrecy maintained by the Third Reich around its euthanasia (Aktion T4) and extermination programmes. I make this comparison intentionally. It might have been a reasonable solution had those arrivals been accorded their legitimate human rights, been treated humanely and with respect, provided full access

77 A majority of Australians were reported to have supported off-shore detention, although it is not clear that they did so under the conditions in which it was effected, or that that support has continued over the entirety of the last decade, or that that support may sometimes have been due to inappropriate influence and misrepresentation by government and some media platforms. At the same time, democracy requires due weight to be given by government not to a simple majority but to everybody in the community, and that should mean that the concerns of minorities are also considered. Democracy does not justify any government acting merely on the basis of a majority of public support for anything. In this case, considering that this policy caused considerable and continuing demonstrable harm to many human beings, that it was in flagrant breach of this country’s international obligations, and that it was criticized by the UN, these factors should have outweighed any majority support for this policy and resulted either in a considerable improvement of the conditions of that detention, or in an end to it and transfer of all detainees to the Australian mainland for care and processing. These are separate matters of principle from the equally egregious government attempt to prevent any media reporting of conditions.

102 to all necessary services including health, education and employment; if their detention had been strictly limited in time; if they had been appropriately advised of the process of their applications, which should have been expedited with all possible despatch; if they had been assured of a decision within a period of not more than two years; if they were not presumed guilty of any crime; and, if they were not to be returned to their countries of origin or allowed residency in Australia, had Australia ensured that they would all be accepted by another first-world country such as New Zealand or Canada – or had the entire processing responsibility been passed to one or more such countries. Resettlement options in PNG or South-East Asian countries were not acceptable. However, none of those provisions have been met. While the primary responsibility for this situation falls on the present Coalition government, the previous Labor government was responsible for re-opening those centres, and had no better arrangements in place or options to offer these arrivals, some of whom were returned to their countries of origin by that Labor government knowingly to probable imprisonment or death. The Australian people and the world have every right to know exactly what has occurred in these centres and to protest against them. That right has been opposed and contested by the present government. This is both a breach of democracy and human rights and, more specifically, of the freedom of the press.

3.6.21 While most Australian journalists are rarely at serious risk for their lives, except on some foreign assignments, it is worth reminding ourselves that numerous journalists regularly risk their lives for exactly the same reasons as journalists do their job in this country: so that governments are held to account and so that the rest of the world knows what is happening that should not be happening. So far in (November) 2020, 32 journalists have been killed, 64 are missing, and 248 are imprisoned.

3.6.22 The role of the press within a democracy assumes that what the press does then contributes to the practice of democracy, that is, to the government of the people, by the people, for the people. The media are ineffective where there are no effective mechanisms by means of which their reporting, investigations, and platform for public debate are able to influence government. 3.6.23 The conventional understanding of democratic process is that the media contribute to the formation of public opinion that is then expressed in elections.

103 However, the various ways in which our elections have been corrupted; the ways in which elections continue to be dominated by a political establishment that does not allow sufficient alternative candidates not merely to be elected but also to directly influence government; that most of our elected representatives do not properly ‘represent’ all the people, their known will, and their legitimate concerns, and that the purpose of elections is not achieved by our political system; that election campaigns are controlled not by the people but by the parties; and that governments need to be held continually to account, not merely once in three years, all mean that elections are not an effective means by which the people are enabled to govern themselves. 3.6.24 Governments may re-act in response to exposures by the media. However, the recent record of such re-actions has been characterised not typically by genuine accession to the will of the people, but rather by damage control or by public enquiries whose recommendations are then not properly acted upon. Government also ignores reporting it feels no challenge to act on, as it also ignores or misinterprets evidence that contradicts its ideological position or the alleged effectiveness of its policies. Government that is concerned to retain its voter base and the support of influential backers does not act in the best interests of the entire community, no matter how exposed it may be, and sometimes not even at the risk of losing an election. This has been true of Labor as well as of the Coalition. This form of response to media reporting has therefore not functioned as it should. 3.6.25 Public debate and any consensus that may emerge from it should then form a basis for government action, legislation and other decision making. On the one hand, the quality of public debate in Australia is not, in most cases, particularly high, but is frequently very divisive and characterised by prejudice rather than by balanced consideration of evidence and respect for others. On the other hand, government has frequently not acted in response to public opinion on a range of issues over the past decade. Public debate therefore does not play as effective a role as it ought to assume within a democracy. 3.6.26 In order to compel government to act when it refuses to do so, or to show cause, therefore, the public is forced to adopt other strategies, such as civil disobedience, petitions, protest marches and strikes, and other strategies. In this context, government has in some cases sought to criminalise such activities, it has deployed excessive force and employed counter-terrorism surveillance powers, as if democratic citizens were now all terrorists; it is not obliged to act on any petition or

104 other public submission; and it has deployed other means of intimidation, disinformation, placation, and suppression. These measures comprise a serious and systematic corruption of democracy, not a legitimate exercise of it, and are obviously predicated upon the assumption that government is not a representative of the people, is not accountable to the people, is entitled to act as it chooses, and that the people who elected it are not entitled to hold it to account. Public activism has often had some effect, but its success is unpredictable and limited, and it has not improved the behaviour of government, which is the ultimate desideratum. The level of public activism and of investigative journalism is a barometer of the scale of failure of democratic government in Australia, not proof that it is somehow ‘working’; and it is certainly not positive proof of anything when even this has so little effect upon government and is, where possible, opposed by it. 3.6.27 Under these circumstances, therefore, it is more urgent than ever that journalists properly understand what democracy is and what it should be, that they recall government to that standard, and that by doing so they also better educate the public and frame public expectations and demands within those parameters.

3.7 The ABC

3.7.1 Much of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act of 198378 defines the management, administration, staff appointments, and technical issues of the ABC and is of no immediate relevance to this submission. Section 6 consists of the charter of the ABC, which is very general in its terms. It requires it to provide a range of broadcasting services, including for Australians abroad and to the Asia-Pacific region, to support awareness and understanding of Australia, to inform and entertain, to reflect the country’s cultural diversity, to be independent (not otherwise defined), to support a sense of national identity, the Arts and culture, and to provide educational materials. There is nothing here that provides it with any particular justification for activities that have attracted criticism, and no protection against such criticism. The only possible exception is its responsibility to “encourage the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia”, which is one area on which commercial stations would spend less money. In view of the perceived culture war conducted by

78 Accessed 11.11.2020.

105 government and sections of the wider community precisely against the Arts, this provision is of particular interest. Section 78 provides that the Minister may direct the ABC to broadcast material in the national interest and of security. This is a positive clause, and does not provide for any restriction of broadcasting “in the interest of national security”. It would be most relevant in a case of war or other national threat. 3.7.2 In view of the fact that the ABC, unlike all other media platforms, receives no revenue from advertising or other sources (though the Act does give it powers to raise money by several means beyond its government approved budget), its activities and capacity are entirely dependent upon funding granted by parliament. The current government has, despite its own claims, in fact reduced the funding of the ABC over its entire period in office by close to $1billion;79 the ABC has been regularly subjected to funding cuts, which have reduced its capacity to provide services and resulted in the redundancies of hundreds of staff. This is widely perceived as being one strategy by which the government is able to penalise and reduce the operations of the public broadcaster. Such funding cuts are increasingly contentious, provoke considerable public outrage, and an incoming Labor government has promised to restore at least some of that funding. An additional issue with funding cuts to the ABC is that such cuts potentially reduce regional services operated by the ABC and upon which regional and remote populations are very dependent, especially in cases of emergency such as bushfires. Government appears not to be concerned about the dangers that the reduction of such services might mean for regional populations. ABC investigative reporting was conducted in collaboration with Fairfax Media, but the purchase of Fairfax by Nine Entertainment has potentially further reduced the ABC’s resources for such journalism. At the same time, Ita Buttrose has argued that the ABC also contributes to the economy and cannot be viewed as a burden on the taxpayer.

79 e.g. "Latest $84 million cuts rip the heart out of the ABC, and our democracy" — https://theconversation.com/latest-84-million-cuts-rip-the-heart-out-of-the-abc-and-our-democracy- 141355, https://www.abc net.au/news/2020-07-16/fact-check-are-there-no-cuts-to-abc- funding/12417226?utm source=abc news web&utm medium=content shared&utm content=mail&u tm campaign=abc news web, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/may/04/abc-loses-793m- funding-since-2014-when-coalition-made-its-first-cuts-report. An ‘efficiency dividend’ is one of many positive-sounding euphemisms of neoliberalism for a negative; and government has been lying on this issue.

106 As the public broadcaster, the ABC is held to a higher standard of accountability than any private media outlet. 3.7.3 The Howard and Abbott/Morrison Coalition governments have a history of attacks against the ABC, and Pauline Hanson has also attacked the broadcaster. From the perspective of the general public, this is because of critical reporting and exposure of questionable conduct that has embarrassed them. In other words, investigative reporting by the ABC has provoked criticisms by those being investigated – and who should unquestionably have been so investigated. It has also been reported that the Coalition government has attempted to interfere with the ABC Charter.80 The Labor Party has not usually reacted in this manner to similar exposés of its own criminal or questionable conduct, whether by the ABC or by any other media outlet, and it has generally publicly defended the independence of the ABC. The fact that such behaviour by the Coalition is only characteristic of it and its allies and supporters suggests that the underlying issue here is ideological.81 3.7.4 It has been reported that the government has attempted to prevent the airing of some broadcasts, most recently the Four Corners programme on ‘The Canberra Bubble’ on 09.11.2020.82 That report did not claim that such misconduct was limited to Coalition MPs, it therefore cannot be considered to have been unreasonably ‘biased’, but it did by implication question the consistency of family values and moral rectitude pretended by the government, and it exposed the continued vulnerability on many levels of staff in government employ, not least, young women. It may also be noted that it is and has for many decades been common for media, both in Australia and internationally, to expose sexual and similar moral misconduct of politicians as a means of questioning government when government is unresponsive to other public concerns. This is therefore – whether or not it was Louise Milligan’s particular intention – a symptom of a larger problem of government failure and lack of genuine democracy. One need only think, for example, of the Profumo Affair in Britain in 1963, the later reporting on Silvio Berlusconi’s sex parties, or last week the

80 e.g. "The Coalition government is (again) trying to put the squeeze on the ABC" — https://theconversation.com/the-coalition-government-is-again-trying-to-put-the-squeeze-on-the-abc- 122037 81 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/nov/23/ita-buttrose-says-intensifying-campaign- against-abc-is-malicious-garbse 82 The fallout continues. "Government puts 15 questions to ABC chair Ita Buttrose over 'Canberra Bubble' program" — https://theconversation.com/government-puts-15-questions-to-abc-chair-ita- buttrose-over-canberra-bubble-program-151197, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/11/16/michael- pascoe-hypocrisy-smokescreens-canberra-bubble/. This is not the only such instance.

107 case of the anti-LGBTIQ Hungarian minister outed as homosexual and attending a gay party in Brussels.83 3.7.5 The 5th June 2019 AFP raids on the ABC’s Sydney offices, combined with the raid on the home of Annika Smethurst and the planned raid on News Corp offices provoked considerable public backlash and protest by the Australian media. These cases are outlined below, and raise larger questions about political interference with the media, the real level of press freedom in this country, the lack of adequate legal protections of journalists and their sources, and, indeed, the entire role of investigative journalism in Australia. Government appears to have been unprepared for the public reaction to these actions, which have the appearance of – and were so interpreted as – being an exercise in the intimidation of journalists who investigate, hold government to account, and who are perceived by it to pose any threat. Such a message would apply to all journalists and not merely those immediately affected by these raids. This is consistent anti-democratic behaviour by an ostensibly democratic government. 3.7.6 The ABC has been threatened from another direction, namely, the proposal that it should be privatised. In 2018, the Liberal Party Council in a non-binding vote voted 2:1 that the ABC should be privatised.84 A book by Chris Berg, formerly of the Gina Rinehart sponsored Institute of Public Affairs argues for the same.85 While the

83 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/hungary-rightwing-rulers-downplay-mep- jozsef-szajer-gay-orgy-scandal-amid-hypocrisy-accusations 84 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/17/never-senior-liberals-in-damage-control- after-party-votes-to-privatise-abc?CMP=share btn link, https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/privatising-the-abc-the-liberals-secret- agenda,12639 85 Chris Berg and Sinclair Davidson, Against Public Broadcasting: Why and how we should privatise the ABC (Brisbane: Connor Court Publishing, 2018). Another book by Chris Berg, In Defence of Freedom of Speech: From Ancient Greece to Andrew Bolt (Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2012), develops an historical argument for free speech from Socrates (whose death has always been considered as an example of the denial of the freedom of speech) to Andrew Bolt. While one would not quibble with the essential argument of the book, as in many cases (e.g. freedom of religion), so also the debate around freedom of speech can be used to serve differing political agendas, not all of which are equally beneficial to a society; and as with other debates around rights, so also here, the correlate of responsibility and the limitation of rights requires consideration; the issue here is one of defending untruths. Freedom of speech is defended for a particular purpose, and not as an end in itself or as an unconditional right. It does seem slightly anomalous to pair Socrates with Andrew Bolt, Alan Jones and others. Socrates represented three things that are not always found in people on the political Right: 1. a commitment to truth, pursued by rigorous independent thought; 2. a commitment to responsible moral action that should follow from the pursuit of truth, and moral action implies responsibility towards others and not the pursuit of self-interest; and 3. an acceptance of democracy that led him to drink the hemlock rather than taking the opportunity to escape, which he was encouraged to do and which the Athenian authorities perhaps even expected him to do. In other words, Socrates subordinated precisely a claim to freedom of speech to what he considered to be a higher principle: democracy. Would Andrew Bolt or his friends die for a principle they tend to undermine precisely by the exercise of a freedom that that principle accords them? It is ironic that the charge made against Socrates, the paradigmatic example of the denial of freedom of speech, that he “corrupted the youth”, should also be

108 government has not publicly supported this proposal or indicated that it is considering such privatisation, this suggestion appears to be consistent with government tendencies, both its discomfiture with embarrassing exposés and its ideological commitment to small government and privatisation generally. If it believed it was able to proceed without substantial public or political opposition, it is at least conceivable that it would do so. An analogous situation arose with the rumour that the same government might consider the privatisation of Medicare. That also provoked considerable public backlash, forcing the government to deny that it was considering the possibility.86 3.7.7 It seems clear that a considerable percentage of the Australian public is opposed to further privatisation. Privatisation in this country has assumed various forms, from the wholesale selling off of erstwhile public entities, to the retention of government possession but restructuring with private sector management, to joint public-private agreements, to the out-sourcing of services to the private sector while administrative control remains with government. Not all privatisation is fully ‘for profit’. It can be argued that NO privatisation of any services in this country has achieved the ostensible justification of it, namely, that private sector practices and ‘expertise’ would ensure a more efficient, competitive and affordable service delivery while saving taxpayer money. Privatisation has not resulted in either more affordable or more reliable or better standards of services or in demonstrable government savings. The Australian public would conceivably have been far better served had no such used in modern Australia in our culture war against the freedom to discuss ideas by the political Right, in the sense that Marxism supposedly “corrupts the youth”, e.g. James Franklin, Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia (Sydney: Macleay Press, 22012). Freedom of speech as integrity must mean the balanced consideration of all views, the freedom for all views to express themselves equally without being maligned or misrepresented, the exercise of self-criticism, and the willingness to change one’s view. The issue of hate speech and political correctness is similarly fraught and complex. While it may be reasonable to defend a principle of freedom to say what one wishes, the gratuitous insulting or provocation of others with intent is no more defensible than exercising that freedom as a means of discrediting or suppressing others’ exercise of that same right. Further, expressions of prejudice result from genuinely held attitudes, which manifest themselves in real harm to others (e.g. racism, misogyny, pseudo-religious morality, anti-LGBTIQ), have historically done so and still do, and that harm is not under any circumstances defensible, certainly not on the same terms of the rights by which the freedom of speech itself is defended. The principle of rights and freedoms is predicated upon a freedom from all forms of harm; it therefore cannot be a ‘right’ to cause harm to others. Even unintended ‘offence’ may cause real harm to individuals, if e.g. it causes them to relive experienced trauma or if it causes trauma. If one practises the same respect towards others that one claims for one’s self, one would as far as possible consciously avoid any such situation. 86 "Is Medicare under threat? Making sense of the privatisation debate" — https://theconversation.com/is-medicare-under-threat-making-sense-of-the-privatisation-debate-61308, https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/jul/27/the-proposal-to-privatise-medicare-is- bizarre-we-should-treasure-our-public-health-system

109 privatisation occurred of any service delivery, which in the event might also have been cheaper for governments. Recent findings in relation to standards in government run and for-profit aged care indicate that government managed and not-for-profit homes are generally better than for profit homes.87 This is not to suggest that when properly regulated, with constraints on the percentage of reasonable profit to be made and on non-service spending, cessation of mechanisms such as incentivising, and with appropriately trained and educated private sector employees, and effective government or independent regulation, privatisation per se is necessarily an undesirable option. It is, however, to suggest that in Australia, this practice has not benefitted the Australian people or the country as a whole. 3.7.8 There is a larger problem in this context, although it may not be a priority in the case of the ABC. This problem lies with consistent government failure by both major parties in office to properly and adequately guarantee funding for anything. Our schools and universities and TAFE are not properly funded; our health system is not properly funded; our infrastructure projects are not properly funded; no government regulatory agency is properly funded; innovation and other economic sectors that would provide jobs and revenue are not properly funded; foreign aid is not properly funded; charities and community organisations are not properly funded; the Arts are not properly funded. And so on, ad nauseam. The Australian public is not as well served as our national wealth should make possible by adequate long-term assured investment in anything. And from that perspective, continually cutting ABC funding is merely of a piece with a national, bipartisan pattern. 3.7.9 Any privatisation of the ABC would almost certainly reduce it to an enterprise of limited benefit to the public, primarily a purveyor of second-rate, potentially biased and unreliable news and entertainment, curtail its independence and further reduce its capacity for high quality, especially investigative, journalism. It would no longer be what generations of Australians have trusted and been familiar with. It is not unreasonable to suspect that that is precisely what some on the political Right intend. The ABC should not under any circumstances be privatised in any form. 3.7.10 Any allegation of bias in ABC coverage and investigation of government would need to demonstrate that the ABC has not exposed similar misconduct and 87 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/16/aged-care-residents-found-to-be-at- greater-risk-in-for-profit-homes-than-government-run-ones

110 contentious issues in the case of Labor. But it would also need to demonstrate that Labor in government and its individual MPs have acted in the same manner with the same frequency as what has been exposed in the case of the Coalition. The ABC also exposes misconduct by Labor, but problematic and anti-democratic conduct by the Coalition is considerably greater than with Labor. The Coalition arguably simply provides the ABC, and sometimes other journalists, with more to investigate. If those reports are factual, if they are based upon evidence that is presented and which can be tested, including often government data, and if there is no similarly convincing counter-explanation, then it is difficult to argue that there is any bias. At the same time, can it be claimed that News Corp is not biased in its reporting, and that that reporting does not support the Coalition? If the Coalition itself benefits from biased reporting by other media platforms and individuals, then is it not hypocritical to accuse the ABC of such bias? To the extent that the ABC provides a platform both in its news reporting and in its various current affairs programmes to representatives of all political views, and not merely to those critical of government, and affords them the same opportunity to present their case as it does to others, as any responsible media platform should – does News Corp do this? – this cannot credibly be considered evidence of bias; quite the contrary. 3.7.11 Beyond this question of bias, however, is the more entrenched attitude that the Coalition assumes an implicit entitlement to act as it wishes, in contravention of the well-being and best interests of the country as a whole, in contravention of the known will of the people, that nobody should have any right to question it, and the public has no right to know.88 This attitude, even if not openly expressed and not consistently pursued, is incompatible with the most fundamental principles and values of democracy; it demonstrates precisely the need for independent journalism, and the reasons for it, that are enshrined in the American Constitution; and if Australian democracy is to be protected, then the ABC – in the absence of any other comparable media platform – must continue to do this job, unfettered and appropriately protected. It is not appropriate that MPs should publicly attack and question the ABC in the manner in which they do, or that the Murdoch press should do so. 88 e.g. "Why can politicians so easily dodge accountability for their mistakes? The troubling answer: because they can" — https://theconversation.com/why-can-politicians-so-easily-dodge-accountability- for-their-mistakes-the-troubling-answer-because-they-can-150839

111 3.7.12 If it is acknowledged that the media have a role in the education of the public, then it would be appropriate for the ABC and SBS to spend less money on entertainment programmes and more on documentaries and current affairs programmes. I appreciate that it is a question of cost and budgets for domestic platforms to produce their own documentaries, but it would considerably benefit Australians to have programmes available that informed us more on the history and context of matters of public interest, including relevant to democracy. It was originally an expectation when the SBS was established that it would not only provide cultural broadcasting for our multi-cultural population, but also that it would educate white Anglo-Saxon Australians in those other cultures; it has in my opinion not fulfilled that expectation, and has to my knowledge not broadcast, for example, a documentary series on Islam, which would have considerably improved upon the level of public ignorance and raised the level of public debate around issues relating to Islam. I do not think that endless programmes about cuisine and train journeys and World War II are adequate. From this perspective, it should be considered whether both the ABC and SBS – notwithstanding the excellent programmes that they have produced and continue to run – should re-assess ways in which they can better inform the general public in sufficient detail on a range of topics.

3.8 The Education of Journalists – and of every Australian

3.8.1 If journalists are to adequately fulfil their responsibility to democracy and the Australian people, then they need to be well-educated and qualified to be able to do so. A high standard of education – which is not assured merely by the awarding of a university degree and by professional accreditation – is similarly necessary if Australia is to have journalists capable of providing reliable and well-argued views alternative to those peddled by more populist and biased, less reliable media platforms. To judge from the manner in which most reporting and current affairs discussions are conducted, there is scope for improvement in the education of journalists. It is not possible to determine to what extent prevailing exigencies of reporting imposed by media companies and editors affect the perceived limitations, although it can be argued that the general standards of secondary and tertiary education in Australia are not high in international comparison, and do not properly equip the average journalist

112 with a high level of literacy, knowledge, skills, and analysis and critical thinking – no more than they do for most Australians. 3.8.2 These remarks are not intended as any disparagement of any journalist. I believe that many of our journalists are well-intentioned, highly committed, and doing their best in every respect under very challenging conditions. The issue here is primarily with standards of education, over which journalists themselves have little control, and how that affects the quality and form of reporting and public debate, as one dimension of democratic process. It is also a question of whether prevailing conceptions of the role and priorities of the media are sufficient in a national and global context of the collapse of democracy. 3.8.3 It continues to be publicly discussed that the average standard of English literacy and expression in Australia as taught in our secondary schools is inadequate. This also applies to journalists, whose English literacy is not always satisfactory. As reporters of news, of any subject, it should be within their capacity to do so in fluent, grammatically correct English that leaves no room for a reader’s misunderstanding or confusion. They should be masters of the full range of possibilities and varieties of English expression. Journalists used to be regarded as the arbiters of correct English usage in Australia, but today, they can no longer be relied upon to use English any more correctly than the remainder of the population. As accurate use of language is directly integrated with analytic thinking, poor English usage is conceivably one factor in the limited ability to critically analyse the material they are reporting. 3.8.4 In order for the quality of Australian journalism to improve, the quality of the education that all journalists receive throughout their secondary and tertiary education needs to improve. To date, successive state and territory and Commonwealth governments have proven consistently negligent over decades in ensuring the highest possible educational standards in this country. The standard of our secondary education is at best mediocre, including in most private schools. The education available in private schools can essentially only be as good as the teachers, who are educated in the same universities as our public school teachers are. 3.8.5 In order to be able to report accurately and in depth about international affairs, and in order to be able to situate conditions and events in Australia within a global perspective and context, it is also necessary that journalists should be fluent in at least one, but preferably two or more, foreign languages. Australia is one of the few

113 countries on the entire planet that, even despite its increasingly multicultural population, still fails to require that all high school students learn foreign languages, or that does not have populations that are multilingual by necessity. Mandatory multilingualism ought to be established in Australia for the entire population in any case. In the case of journalists (or anybody else), it is not good enough to derive global information from the internet. It is important that we have a first-hand understanding and experience of the rest of the world, or at least of parts of it, and that is only possible through mastery of other languages and, if possible, by having lived in other countries long enough to begin to understand their reality, history, culture, geography, and ways of thinking. Journalists should also be able to engage with public officials and others in other countries in their own languages and to access information in those languages, including their own media. For all of these purposes, it is entirely irrelevant that English happens to be the lingua franca; it won’t always be, and the majority of the global population does not speak English as a first language. To the extent that Australia is predominantly a western society within an Asia-Pacific environment, there is justification for students learning both an Asian and a European language, although there is no reason to make this a mandatory requirement. Mastery of multiple European and/or Asian languages, or Arabic, or other languages, should all be options. Our universities should be training sufficient teachers to this end, and every school should offer the option of learning several languages. It would also be appropriate for all high school children to have the government subsidised opportunity to spend 3 months as exchange students in a non-Anglophone country, in a country of one of their languages, in Year 11. Fluency in both English and in one or several foreign languages should be achieved by the end of Year 12. This does not mean ‘sampling’: it means functional fluency in speaking, writing, and comprehension of other languages. If all European countries have now been doing this for decades, some of them to an exceptionally high standard, then there is no obvious reason why Australian cannot. Our national ignorance of other languages, and hence also of the rest of the world, is a factor in the poor standards of our journalism and of our public debate. 3.8.6 If journalists are to function as tribunes of the people within a democratic society, if they are to lead a high standard of informed public debate around current affairs, if they are to be capable of critical analysis of politics and society, then they

114 should have a solid understanding of what democracy is. This would require them to all have studied the history and political philosophy of modern western democracy, its principles and values, the intellectual and cultural tradition, as discussed above, whether as part of a general high school civics education that is then built upon at university, or whether as part of a longer undergraduate programme. But they cannot effectively hold government to account according to those values and principles in any consistent manner unless they are able to frame their reporting in terms of the relationship of events to democracy (and human rights), and they cannot lead public debate unless they are equally capable of doing this. Defending democracy means knowing what democracy is, and publicly questioning every failure of government, and other community groups, whenever they fail to respect and practise it. We assume that we know what democracy is, but in practice, our understanding of it is very deficient. 3.8.7 With occasional exceptions, such as the reporting of the 2019 AFP raids on Annika Smethurst and the ABC offices, events are rarely presented in explicit terms as challenges to democracy, and even in such cases, there is no very clear and substantiated concept of what democracy is that has been contravened in such cases. Similarly, in instances such as poverty, low welfare payment levels, unemployment, under-employment and unpaid work, the gig economy, all forms of discrimination, inadequate access to health care, sub-standard education, domestic violence, climate change, poor aged care, off-shore detention regimes, political corruption, and numerous other issues, every single one of these should not be problems within a functioning democracy in which government acts in the interests of the well-being of society; and they should not be problems in a country that has committed itself to respecting human rights, and yet in the reporting of all of these issues, journalists almost never explicitly frame their reporting in those terms. Other commentators whose profession is not journalism but who enjoy use of media platforms do not usually frame their analysis of current affairs in terms of principles of democracy, human rights, or larger historical patterns, either. They should, if the standards of our public debate are to improve, and if government is to be properly held to account for its failures and to standards which this country has committed itself to. They should be able to demand that politicians and other public officials explain their conduct specifically in terms of what those individuals do or don’t understand about

115 democracy and their responsibilities and role in government. Yet in order to be able to do this, journalists need to be properly educated to understand these concepts. 3.8.8 In order for journalists, and the general public, to be better educated to this end, our entire secondary and tertiary education system would require considerable reform and improvement. It would also require every university offering a degree in journalism to offer a standardised curriculum that requires students to study not merely the obviously journalism-relevant subjects, but also the historical, intellectual, and political science subjects in some form as indicated here. I am not suggesting here how that should be done, but merely that it should be done. If journalists are to be properly equipped with all of these skills and knowledge, then a three-year undergraduate degree followed by an internship would not be sufficient. No Australian university in its present condition is capable of providing any undergraduate degree to this level, either for journalists or for the appropriate training of high school teachers, who would then be expected to teach civics, and a higher standard of general knowledge. 3.8.9 A small number of journalists who specialise in science, medical or sports reporting, for example, may already have an additional, specialised qualification. As long as they continue to only report on such topics and do not engage with general reporting or public debate outside of those areas, they may not require such a comprehensive education, beyond what they should receive in secondary school. 3.8.10 It is frequently argued in the United States and in Europe that the preservation of a functional democratic society and government requires a solid public education in the Arts and Humanities. The study of STEM and similar subjects provides no comparable foundation. It is languages, history, philosophy, the social sciences, and the Arts, that educate people to think beyond their immediate personal interests and experienced reality, in the hope that they will then conduct themselves as responsible and rational citizens in a progressive, tolerant and diverse democratic society, and that will above all train them to think. Thinking does not only mean specific problem solving in employment: it also means being responsible citizens. This is sometimes called ‘the Enlightenment project’. 89 A better, broader, humanistic education alone is not a guarantee of stronger democracy, but it is an essential

89 e.g. John Dewey, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: Macmillan, 1916); Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students ((New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987); Frank Donoghue, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the

116 element of it. It also requires all groups within society to behave in the same manner, whatever their differences, and for politicians above all to set an example of such thinking. The persistence of the culture war in Australian society, the numerous manifestations of it, including the current government’s hostility towards the Arts and Humanities, both within and without of our universities, and the general dumbing down of the population (including by our universities), is from this perspective a direct assault against democracy and civil society.90 All politicians are educated in exactly the same way as the remainder of the population. Politicians (and other public servants and agents of government), however, are those members of the public entrusted particularly with the exercise and protection of our democracy. If politicians are not being educated in democracy, as considered here, then how can they be expected to protect it? What, exactly, will they protect? 3.8.11 Both in the history of early modern journalism that contributed to the evolution of ideas and principles of democracy, and still in leading international publications today, views are argued. This occurs at some length, not in a few brief paragraphs or sound bytes and a supposedly authoritative opinion from a randomly chosen or standard go-to specialist; they are so by critically dissecting the views one is engaging with or against, not with the express intention of demolishing an opponent but in order to separate cogent from less convincing or unfounded arguments; when differing arguments have a comparable degree of cogency or are similarly influential, or when each may be applicable in some circumstances, then all of the differing views are given equal attention; by deploying both facts – whether historical, social, economic, or scientific – and philosophical and cultural arguments. There is a high degree of persuasion by reason. This is only possible with a very high level of

Humanities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008); Martha C. Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010); Michael S. Roth, Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 22015); Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (New York: W.W. Norton, 2015); Helen Small, The Value of the Humanities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), etc. 90 The ‘Enlightenment project’ assumes the governance of reason, but as the Frankfurt School in particular argued, that same Enlightenment or Reason also leads to fascism; that same rationalism resulted in the ruin of western civilization in World War I. Rationality thus includes within it the seeds of irrationality (just as democracy contains within itself the capacity of tyranny), and in order to avoid that, we must be able to regulate Reason itself. E.g. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung ([1947] Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1987); Max Horkheimr, Eclipse of Reason ([1947] Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 1991); further, Rolf Wiggershaus, Die Frankfurter Schule: Geschichte, Theoretische Entwicklung, Politische Bedeutung (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1986). György Lukács’ somewhat different Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (1953) can also be considered in this context.

117 humanistic education. This quality of journalism is almost entirely absent in Australia, and that considerably lowers the level of all public debate, including by politicians. It is this type of public debate, and the education of the public required to be capable of engaging in it, that is the best community antidote to fake news, conspiracy theories, and biased journalism. 3.8.12 No event ever occurs in a vacuum: it always has a context, which is at once historical – historical factors still directly influencing current affairs can span centuries – which is part of an historical continuum of cause and effect and re-action, and influenced by diverse cultural, social, psychological and more narrowly political factors. These factors interact with one another, to coalesce in a complex outcome or event, and the relationship between those factors and how that process occurs likewise needs to be analysed. This is not a simple matter of knowing that a given event occurred in a particular place and time: it is a question of understanding longer historical processes and how they have caused events now unfolding. That in turn requires some larger cultural understanding beyond the strictly historical. Every one of us, and every event reported by the media, are part of such processes. We have no idea what democracy is or should be if we don’t know how and why it evolved, and what principles and values were defined by contemporaries out of that process. We do not understand Islamic terrorism if we don’t speak Arabic, have no understanding of Islam or of the history of the Middle East, if we ignore the legacy of the Holocaust and its significance for the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 and the resulting genocide and dispossession of the Palestinians, or of the historical relations between the West and the Muslim world – which extends at least from the Crusades beginning in 1095 through colonialism to current American global economic imperialism. All of that history and culture feeds into modern Islamic terrorism and is in some measure real and present to those involved. The Yugoslavian Wars of the 1990s had a causal history spanning at least 600 years, and which is still playing out in that region. Likewise, we cannot understand anything else about the world in which we live unless we have a comparable knowledge and understanding of other causes and effects and contexts. If we are to properly understand anything at all, then all of these dimensions need to be given some attention, whether in Australia or anywhere else in the world. We do not all need to be academic specialists in these subjects, but we would be well served if we had a better general education than most of us have, and journalists with

118 specialised knowledge should be able to assist us to that end. We need to learn to think and understand within these parameters. In most reporting and current affairs presentations, much of that context is frequently lacking. This leaves the audience with little understanding and only an account of an event without meaning. It is only when events are understood and analysed at that level of complexity that we are able to properly recognise larger national and international trends in the present – such as the global slide away from democracy – and to consider appropriate public responses to them. It is the simplistic viewing of events in isolation from any context that makes populism, dictatorship, and oppression possible. 3.8.13 The endless reporting of supposed medical breakthroughs, for example, is useless when one knows that many of those supposed breakthroughs are far less tested or likely to result in any new treatments for many years or even decades, than is implied; this raises the question of what is news and what isn’t, and whether we are not simply obsessed with health. It would be helpful if medical reporters were actually doctors or scientists qualified to properly assess the significance of these purported developments, and if such research were not so often reported as the latest sensational breakthrough. 3.8.14 Another issue that is relevant to the continued education and informing of Australians is that Australian scholars do not produce significant numbers of books on issues such as political philosophy or human rights or other issues of current interest for an Australian readership. It is clear that there is an enormous abundance of such books published by scholars in many other developed countries, but many of those books are not readily available in Australia or stocked in local bookshops, we do not normally read foreign languages at all and so would not read relevant books published in Europe or elsewhere, but the availability and affordability and distribution of such books from abroad into and around Australia remains a highly problematic issue that needs to be addressed in the interests of the better education of Australians and in the interests of democracy. If people become more accustomed to thinking about such issues in high school, then there is more chance that they would continue to read relevant books and to inform themselves as adults – as adults in other developed countries do. But the motivation to do so needs to be inculcated in schools. Issues of publication, affordability, and supply and distribution need to be seriously addressed by government. The recent introduction of GST on all overseas online orders has provided an opportunity for Amazon, which was almost the only major

119 distributor of many overseas products into Australia, to block access to all of its platforms in other countries, which has had the effect of a major restriction on the availability of many books previously available and affordable. This is a form of economic censorship. This problem has been brought to the attention of the Department of Trade (by myself) and of other MPs, but has not been addressed.

4. The Freedom of the Press

4.1 It is incompatible with democracy and the principle of press freedom that any specified media outlet should be censored. It is therefore not a reasonable suggestion that the Murdoch press or any other outlet should be prohibited from publishing or saying whatever it chooses. Such a prohibition would also establish a precedent that could subsequently be used to justify the suppression of other media platforms with different political tendencies. 4.2 Voluntary codes of conduct are not effective, either in the media or in any other sector. The Australian Press Council does have such a code, but unless all media outlets are members and unless the Council is able to exert credible pressure on the Murdoch press, and others, to only publish factual content and to engage in an honest and transparent debate with those of other views, or is itself willing to publish public cautions against questionable reporting, as social media platforms have recently done in the case of Donald Trump’s false election claims, then the Council is not an effective guardian even of its own code of conduct. 4.3 Existing laws, such as libel laws, are ineffective and unsatisfactory in this context. If the problem is one of factual content, that cannot be regulated by expensive and protracted court cases on issues such as climate change in the public interest. Some media platforms do on their own initiative correct mistaken reporting, but this is also not a sufficient public protection, and has no bearing on intentionally biased or misleading reporting.

4.4 The principal concerns in this section pertain to inadequate legal protections of journalists and their sources, government constraints imposed upon the media, and the excessive production of counter-terrorism legislation since 9/11 and its consequences for the freedom of the press. These issues are both evidence of the weakness and

120 corruption of democracy and the challenges confronted by a free press within it, and by extension are themselves deleterious for democracy. 4.5 The example of the Coalition government’s attempts to prevent reporting about the off-shore detention of refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru has been mentioned above. The various forms of attack against the ABC have also been considered above. 4.6 In 2020, Australia’s ranking in the international Press Freedom Index was revised downwards, from 19 out of 180 countries, to 26th position; New Zealand, by contrast, enjoys a significantly better ranking. Australia had been regarded especially within the Asia-Pacific region as a model of press freedom for other countries in which there was little or no press freedom. This revision reflects several concerns, including an exceptionally high concentration of media ownership, the continued passage of counter-terrorism legislation that does or could affect press freedom, and several instances of politically motivated interference with journalists. 4.7 On 4th June 2019, AFP officers raided the Canberra home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst, seeking evidence to identify her source for a story published the previous year in which she reported on private discussions by two public servants about how counter-terrorism legislation could be used by the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australian citizens.91 Currently, such surveillance is illegal, although there is a desire in the intelligence community and by some in government for it to be legalised. Ironically, the AFP raid itself justified precisely the need for Smethurst’s reporting, which posed no threat to national security. In 2020 the High Court found the search warrant used to be invalid, and no charges have been laid against Smethurst. She is an award-winning journalist with a record of exposure of political misconduct, and has published an account of this episode in the book, On Secrets (Sydney: Hachette, 2020). By the time of her report, it was already widely recognised in legal and media circles and beyond that Australia’s unparalleled production of poorly regulated counter- terrorism legislation posed serious threats to civil liberties and could be so misused, and this concern had been the subject of discussion and research, as it continues to be.

91 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/04/federal-police-raid-home-of-news- corp-journalist-annika-smethurst

121 While Annika’s report obviously did depend upon a breach of intentional secrecy, it did not tell Australians anything they didn’t already suspect. 4.8 The following day, 5th June, the Sydney offices of the ABC were raided by the AFP in search of evidence of the sources for a series of seven reports, ‘The Afghan Files’ published in 2017 by Dan Oakes and Sam Clarke, about alleged war crimes perpetrated by the Australian SAS on deployments in Afghanistan between 2009- 2013. The AFP seized 9,214 documents and emails.92 The High Court found the warrant in this case to be valid. This investigation is in seeming contradiction to the Brereton Report, just released, into precisely those alleged war crimes. Why would any government undertake intelligence investigations against journalists who had reported on matters that are not a national security risk and which have now been exposed and acknowledged and which are under further investigation by the government, as if the exposure of those allegations were a criminal matter? Despite the on-going Brereton enquiry, however it was only in the course of this year that the DPP decided against pursuing charges against Oakes and Clarke.93 4.9 The AFP had planned a similar raid on News Corp’s offices, but faced with substantial public and media criticism of the first two raids, that operation was postponed. The responses from Christian Porter as Attorney-General and from Peter Dutton as Home Affairs minister have been inconsistent: Porter was reluctant to contemplate any legal action, whereas Dutton has both attempted to distance himself from the actions of the AFP and claimed that Oakes and Clarke were being targeted. The Sydney Morning Herald also revealed that the AFP used national security laws to access the metadata of journalists nearly 60 times in one year. 4.10 These episodes demonstrate the ease with which government can disregard any principle of the protection of their sources by journalists, claim ‘national security’ as a justification for intimidation of the media in matters that have no bearing on national security, and attempt to limit public interest journalism. This is possible in part because this country has no adequate legal protections of the rights of a free press.

92 e.g. John Lyons, ‘AFP Raid on ABC Reveals Investigative Journalism being put in same Category as Criminality’, 15 July 2019; https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/17/federal-police-raid-on- abc-over-afghan-files-ruled-valid 93 e.g. https://www.abc net.au/news/2020-10-15/dan-oakes-afghan-files-prosecution- decision/12771304?utm source=abc news web&utm medium=content shared&utm content=mail& utm campaign=abc news web

122 They also suggest the totalitarian complicity of police and intelligence services with government. 4.11 The Australian government’s abandonment of Julian Assange is another example of government refusal to respect investigative journalism.94 Granted that Wikileaks’ publication of leaked government documents concerns materials from other countries, primarily, the United States, the Australian government has been conspicuously unwilling to intervene on Assange’s behalf at any stage of his long ordeal and continued struggle to oppose extradition from the UK to the US. It is not necessary to outline here this case, or those of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, or the Anonymous group. While it cannot be claimed with certainty that none of the documents they leaked involve any genuine risk to life or to national security, it is arguable that the American government’s primary concern in all of these cases is (or in the case of Manning, was) – as with Nixon’s attempt to prevent the publication of the Pentagon Papers – with exposure of criminal conduct by that government or its agencies, including the perpetration of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and an attempt to punish the embarrassment caused by such exposure. All of the material leaked is indubitably in the public interest. The fact that governments continue to attempt to avoid exposure and scrutiny in these ways merely demonstrates how corrupted our democracy is. The Panama Papers and FinCEN exposés are likewise very much in the public interest.

4.12 Another instance of this corruption involves Witness K and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery. In 2004, ASIS clandestinely bugged an office of the Timor-Leste government in Dili in order to gain advantage in negotiations over the oil and gas reserves in the Timor Gap. In 2012, that operation became publicly known, and the Timor-Leste government requested an annulment of the treaty on the grounds that Australia had breached good faith in its negotiations. The Gillard government refused; the Timor-Leste government appealed to the International Court of Justice in The Hague; Australia was eventually forced to re-negotiate, and a new treaty was signed in 2018, under which Timor-Leste is to receive 80% of the profits and Australia 20%.

94 See recently, https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/11/28/julian-assange-wikileaks- australia/ and https://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/books/2020/11/30/secret-australia-wikileaks- unaustalian-lie/ Also e.g. A Secret Australia: Revealed by Wikileaks Exposés, ed. Jennifer Robinson and Peter Cronau (Melbourne: Monash University Press, 2020.

123 Australia’s conduct in the entire history of its involvement with East Timor/Timor- Leste has been unconscionable and heinous. 95 Witness K is a former ASIS officer who led the bugging operation; his identity remains secret. He was due to be questioned in 2014. In December 2013, ASIO and the AFP raided Witness K’s home and that of his lawyer, seizing documents including his passport, in order to prevent him from travelling to testify. The AFP thereby interfered in the course of justice, as well as in a denial of human rights. Witness K and his lawyer have both been subjected to several forms of harassment by successive governments since 2012. In 2018, the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions filed charges against them both, and pre-trial hearings continue. While this case does not directly affected the media, it is another example of the lack of adequate whistle-blower protections, and of governments’ vindictive pursuit of those who expose its misconduct. 4.13 Australia engages in illegal actions yet criminalises those who expose those actions. This is not what can seriously be called ‘the rule of law’ in a democratic country; it is a predictable hypocrisy. It is predicated upon a fundamentally false conception of democracy. Government has also recently been found to have been extremely uncooperative with compliance with freedom of information requests.96 Poor responses to freedom of information requests means poor accountability and transparency, even assuming the request will be granted, and hinders investigative journalism. 4.14 For three decades, Australian governments also covered up the circumstances surrounding the murder of five Australian, British and New Zealand journalists at Balibo in East Timor by Indonesian troops in October 1975, and of a sixth who was killed in Dili six weeks later. 4.15 Australia does not have effective legal protections of journalists predicated on the importance of a free and independent press, of public interest journalism, and its necessary role in the protection of democracy. We also do not have adequate protections of whistle-blowers and other sources, whether from government or from

95 e.g. John Pilger, Hidden Agendas (London: Vintage, 1998), passim; Brian Toohey and Marian Wilkinson, ‘The Timor Papers’, reprinted in Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs, ed. John Pilger (London: Vintage, 2005), pp. 174-190; John Birmingham, Appeasing Jakarta: Australia’s Complicity in the East Timor Tragedy, Quarterly Essay 2 (2001); http://inside.org.au/higher-authorities 96 e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/19/scott-morrisons-office-met-freedom- of-information-deadlines-in-just-75-of-cases

124 the private sector. This is an urgent and long-overdue desideratum. If a crime has been committed and has been proven, then there is no justification for anybody involved in its exposure to be themselves tried; they have committed no crime, and the criminalisation of such exposure is unconscionable. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that Australia has no enforceable Bill of Rights. The First Amendment of the American Constitution and the manner in which it was defended in the Pentagon Papers case demonstrates robust guarantees of such freedom. In Australia, however, there do not appear to be comparable protections. Courts cannot effectively enforce what has not been legislated.

4.16 Between 9/11 and mid-2019, Australia had passed an estimated 82 pieces of counter-terrorist legislation; that flood of legislation has continued, so that the number is even higher, and bills are pending at the time of writing. 97 Some of that legislation has implications for the freedom of the press in this country. 98 4.17 At the time of 9/11, Australia had no legislation specifically intended to address the threats posed by terrorism, although it could have been addressed under existing criminal and police legislation, or by amending that legislation without producing the volume of new and amended Acts that we have seen. Australia has never been subjected to an attack anywhere approaching the magnitude of 9/11 or of the London bombings, the Madrid train bombing, or of other attacks planned and thwarted in Britain and Europe, or of other attacks that have occurred in Europe since the 1950s to the present. While it is acknowledged that there have been a small number of attacks of limited effect planned or conducted on Australian soil; that some Australians have gone abroad or attempted to do so to engage in training and conflict associated with al- Qaida and IS, or have evinced support for terrorism; that Australia was formally threatened by IS; and that 88 Australians (among 202) died in the Bali bombing in

97 Several requests to Law individuals and organisations for an itemized list of this legislation have gone unanswered. Granted that some legislation is overtly directed against terrorism, some is embedded in other categories, and its relevance is potential rather than explicit or intended. 98 Nicola McGarrity and Jessie Blackbourn, ‘Australia has enacted 82 anti-terror laws since 2001’, The Conversation, 30 September 2019. This reaction has been described as ‘hyper-legislation’, and much of it is not effective for the purpose ostensibly intended. In my opinion, such behavior is typical of a distinctive Australian ‘mentality’ (used here in an academic sense) not typical of any other western society, but it is paralleled by our excessive and harsh response to ‘boat people’ and by numerous other examples mentioned in this submission. Taken as a whole, they characterize a distinctive pattern of behavior only typical of Australia. We should then seriously ask ourselves why we consistently behave in such a manner and whether it is appropriate.

125 2002 (that bombing did not occur on Australian territory, and while regional Islamic terrorism, such as in Indonesia and the Philippines, is of concern, it also poses little direct threat to our territory), the enormous production of counter-terrorism legislation far exceeds that even of any country such as the United States that has been subjected to incomparably greater tragedy, it is unnecessary in its range, and it might be noted that countries such as Germany have reversed their own counter-terrorism legislation in the interests of protecting their citizens’ civil rights. The unparalleled Australian case has caused considerable national and international unease for some years, has been the subject of close examination by civil rights and Law groups, and demands for major reform and constraints have been loud. 99 4.18 This legislation covers a range of areas, including criminal law, financial matters, administrative issues, travel, citizenship, censorship and data collection, sunsetting, police powers, intelligence and surveillance. Only several implications of this legislation are relevant to this submission. 4.19 This legislation is highly contentious for a number of reasons. It was initially introduced with the justification that it was exceptional in order to meet exceptional conditions, namely, the threat potentially posed to Australia by Islamic terrorism, and that as such, it was temporary. However, within a decade, it had become apparent that it was anything but temporary, that those same powers were being used against other groups within the Australian community who had nothing to do with terrorism, and that they had become permanently embedded within our policing and judicial regime. State and territory governments have also passed their own legislation extending these powers for other purposes, which is unwarranted in a matter of purely national security. 4.20 It appears that the use of the powers authorised by those laws is not always subject to a court order, that when warrants are issued, they are not always issued by a

99 See e.g. the Terrorism Law Reform Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at UNSW; Andrew Lynch, Nicola McGarrity and George Williams, Inside Australia’s Anti-Terrorism Laws and Trials (Sydney: NewSouth Books, 2015); ‘Terrorism and the Law Project’ (2004-2010), 2005-2009 project entitled ‘Terrorism and Public Law after September 11’, and the ARC Laureate Project entitled ‘Anti-Terror Laws and the Democratic Challenge’ (2009 to 2014); Rebecca Ananian-Welsh and George Williams, ‘The New Terrorists: The Normalisation and Spread of Anti-Terror Laws in Australia’, Melbourne University Law Review 38 (2015), 362-408; https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/tech/2020/12/04/surveillance-bill-dutton-australia/, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/21/australian-spy-agency-asios-proposed-new- powers-overreach-legal-expert-says, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/20/chilling-attack-on- democracy-proposed-asio-powers-could-be-used-against-journalists

126 judge or following examination of concrete evidence that would warrant them, assuming that such exists, and they are not always subject to independent judicial review or oversight. This means that the scope for the abuse of these powers is considerable, that there has allegedly been such abuse, that there has been no clear protection of a presumption of innocence, and that individuals’ civil rights have been infringed. It was reported that from the end of 2018, government had received ca. 1,000 requests per day for access to metadata. It is not believable that all of those requests are even necessary or justified, and even less so that adequate independent judicial oversight is being applied to the consideration of each of those requests. Approvals and warrants should not be issued by clerks or anybody less than a full magistrate or judge. It has also been reported that police have accessed metadata thousands of times without, apparently, sufficient justification or oversight at all. Even formal requirements stipulated in legislation are not being properly observed. How is this a country under the rule of law? 4.21 The implications of this legislation for the freedom of the press are that it makes it possible for journalists to be subjected to levels of surveillance and harassment, with or without their knowledge, to which in the conduct of their legitimate work they should not be subjected to, including the hacking of their electronic data, phones and computers, and attempts to identify sources who should be protected. It potentially extends definitions of national interest and national security far beyond what can and should be specifically defined and proven, in order to protect government from public scrutiny and accountability within a functional democracy – in the same way that these powers have been used against legitimate democratic protest and individuals, including intimidation and excessive force. The specific examples of Annika Smethurst and the ABC raid in June 2019 illustrate this threat; other examples mentioned here indicate the willingness of government to arbitrarily and severely limit the freedom of the press. None of this has anything to do with counter-terrorism. 4.22 This entire body of legislation should be subject to comprehensive independent judicial review in the interests of democracy and Australians’ civil rights, and as far as possible abolished, in my opinion. Such powers as are strictly necessary, and with credible independent juridical oversight and accountability, of course need to be preserved, but that can be done with a much smaller body of legislation that is incorporated into existing criminal law and conditional amendments to other

127 legislation. If claims are made in the name of national interest or security, it ought to be possible, indeed, required, to always precise those claims and to subject them to scrutiny, and where that is not possible, those claims should not be acceded to; the example of the Supreme Court decision on the Pentagon Papers, here as elsewhere, should also apply in Australia. The removal of scrutiny from institutions of democracy such as the judiciary, the media, or the entire parliament, constitute un- democratic powers. The ostensible protection of national security in a democracy must be balanced by the protection of the democratic rights of those whom one claims to be defending. Democracy means that government is accountable to the people; the people are not accountable to government, except insofar as government is an extension of the people, in which case, the people are only accountable to one another. Where government stands in opposition to or distinct from the people, it is not legitimate democracy. No demand or coercion of government’s accountability to the people is anti-democratic or should be criminalised; every denial of that accountability or suppression of opposition is anti-democratic. It is a generally observable sociological process that organisations, including law enforcement and intelligence, tend to expand (‘creep’) their spheres of jurisdiction at every opportunity, although this does not result in more effective exercise of their responsibilities, is not necessarily warranted, and is usually incompatible with respect for the rights of citizens. There is absolutely no justification for the continued extension of powers and real or potential erosion of the civil rights of ordinary Australians and professional groups. If these powers, which contravene what are agreed to be normal standards of law, were introduced to address exceptional circumstances, and only to address those circumstances as a temporary measure, they should not ever become ‘normal’ and supervene previously established legal norms – but that is now happening. It should be of concern that such legislation represents a permanent weakening of democracy in this country and the real or potential extension of government powers consistent with tyranny and a police state; they can be used against all Australians for totalitarian purposes, insofar as many of those powers are already exercised outside of effective judicial oversight and normal standards of evidence and habeas corpus, and for purposes unrelated to the justification for their introduction. We are therefore already witnessing an unacceptable trend, and that

128 trend, as argued through this submission, is not inconsistent with the political ideology especially of the Coalition government. This same concern about temporary measures necessary to combat a designated threat being extended to a state of permanency and application to other areas has been nationally and internationally articulated with respect to civil rights limitations introduced for the purpose of combatting the spread of COVID-19; that those measures could also become permanent and be used for other purposes against the citizens they were supposed to protect. 4.23 Specifically with regard to the freedom of the press, there need to be clearly legislated protections of journalists, including whistle-blower protections, and police and intelligence agencies require appropriate education and to be prevented from exercising their powers against journalists, subject to legal proceedings against them should they breach such constraints. To date, while, for example, the review Inquiry into the Impact of the Exercise of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Powers on the Freedom of the Press (August 2020) does identify significant issues and make some reasonable proposals, it is far from adequately addressing all of journalists’ concerns and needs, even assuming that government were to fully implement its recommendations.100 It fails to directly confront the basic problem of the application of counter-terrorism legislation against the media, or to define parameters of public interest and serious journalism. The Privacy Act Review Issues Paper of October 2020101 undertakes some necessary and important reviews, but these are primarily concerned with the privacy of personal data on social media and other electronic platforms, how those data should be protected and who should have access to them, that is, the protection of data collected by the private sector. It does not address other areas of concern such as the invasion of privacy by government or its agencies against private individuals or journalists and their sources, or individuals who are employees of government or a private enterprise who express opinions in a private capacity. There is also the problem of continued hacking of data for opportunistic and nefarious purposes both domestically and

100 Accessed November 2020; cf. Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, ‘Security Committee Recommends Bare Minimum of Reform to Protect Press Freedom’, The Conversation, 27 August 2020; "National security review recommends complete overhaul of electronic surveillance - but will it work?" — https://theconversation.com/national-security-review-recommends-complete-overhaul-of-electronic- surveillance-but-will-it-work-151462, "Major reform of surveillance laws proposed by review" — https://theconversation.com/major-reform-of-surveillance-laws-proposed-by-review-151480 101 Accessed 11.11.2020.

129 internationally, including personal data held by both government departments and private sector businesses. Australian government appears to be unable to properly protect the data it collects from its own citizens.

4.1 The American Constitution

The American Constitution was accepted in 1789, with ten amendments proposed by James Madison which constitute the Bill of Rights added in 1791. Their intention was to curtail and restrict the general powers granted by the Constitution to the Executive, Legislature, and Judicial Branches; in other words, government is intentionally prevented from restricting in any way specified rights of the people, including the freedom of the press by censorship, injunctions, or prior restraints. Government powers are not absolute, nor do they supersede the rights of the people. The Preamble of the Bill of Rights reads as follows: The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution. The first amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.] The fourth amendment is also pertinent to this submission: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,

130 and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.102

4.2 The Supreme Court Decision in the Matter of the ‘Pentagon Papers’

4.2.1 In 1971, The New York Times published excerpts from a study of American policy in Vietnam between 1954-1968 commissioned by Robert McNamara as Secretary for Defence and later leaked by Daniel Ellsberg from the RAND Corporation; the documents consisted of more than 7,000 pages in 47 volumes. The Times was in possession of those documents for three months, which allowed its reporter, Neil Sheehan, considerable time to read and analyse them. When the Nixon administration sought an injunction to stop further publication by the Times, The Washington Post was provided with copies and published further excerpts. A second injunction was sought; those two temporary restraining orders – which were unprecedented in American history - were appealed separately, after which the cases were referred to the Supreme Court, Those four lower court hearings all occurred between 18th June and 22nd June. The Boston Globe and 16 other American newspapers were provided with copies of some of those documents and all published them. By the time of the Supreme Court hearing, there were a number of copies of the Pentagon Papers in circulation, including a set sent by the president to Congress, and those provided to other newspapers. It therefore could no longer be argued that there was a high degree of secrecy applied to them. 4.2.2 The Supreme Court found 6-3 votes in favour of unrestricted publication and against the White House. These documents became known as the Pentagon Papers; this episode was followed almost immediately by the Washington Post’s investigation of the Watergate Building break-in, which led to a series of indictments and the resignation of President Nixon in 1974.103 The two episodes are considered to be

102 Text in From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution: The Roots of American Constitutionalism, ed. Carl J. Friedrich and Robert G. McCloskey (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1954). 103 Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (London: Penguin 2003); Neil Sheehan et al., The Pentagon Papers: The Secret History of the Vietnam War (New York: Quadrangle Books 1971); Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, [1974] 2014).

131 paradigmatic cases of investigative journalism and of the importance of the freedom of the press in democratic societies. 4.2.3 The justices’ decision is worth quoting from extensively in this context. 104 They clearly viewed the Pentagon Papers case in terms of the First Amendment, rejected the Nixon administration’s appeal to the Espionage Act of 1917 as regulating circumstances that were not held to apply in this case, and they reiterated the freedom of the press as an essential defence against abuse of office by elected politicians. (2) They found that the government had not met its burden of showing justification for the imposition of such a restraint. (6) “[…] every moment’s continuance of the injunctions against these newspapers amounts to a flagrant, indefensible, and continuing violation of the First Amendment.” (7) “[…] for the first time in the 182 years since the founding of the Republic, the federal courts are asked to hold that the First Amendment does not mean what it says, but rather means that the government can halt the publication of current news of vital importance to the people of this country.” (9) “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfil its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people […].” (14) “The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic. […] expressed in 1937 by Mr. Chief Justice Hughes […] when the Court held a man could not be punished for attending a meeting run by Communists.” (15) “The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative

104 New York Times Company, Petitioner, v. United States. United States, Petitioner, v. The Washington Post Company et al., Supreme Court 403 U.S. 713/91 S. Ct. 2140/29 L.Ed.2d.822. Decided June 30, 1971. Accessed from www.law.cornell.edu, 12.11.2020.

132 is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein lies the security of the Republic, the very foundation of constitutional government.” (36) “The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practise of governmental suppression of embarrassing information.” (37) “Secrecy in government is fundamentally anti-democratic, perpetuating bureaucratic errors. Open debate and discussion of public issues are vital to our national health.” (42) “The entire thrust of the government’s claim throughout these cases had been that publication of the material sought to be enjoined ‘could’, or ‘might’, or ‘may’ prejudice the national interest in various ways. But the First Amendment tolerates absolutely no prior judicial restraints of the press predicated upon surmise or conjecture that untoward consequences may result. […] only governmental allegation and proof that publication must inevitably, directly, and immediately cause the occurrence of an event […] can support even the issuance of an interim restraining order.” (45) “[…] the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power […] may lie in an enlightened citizenry – in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government. […] without an informed and free press there cannot be an enlightened people.” (66) “The Solicitor General does not even mention in his brief whether the Government considers that there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed or whether there is a conspiracy to commit future crimes.” (96-100) “In order to decide the merits of these cases properly, some or all of the following questions should have been faced: […] 3. Whether the threat to publish highly secret documents is of itself a sufficient implication of national security to justify an injunction on the theory that regardless of the contents of the documents harm enough results simply from the demonstration of such a breach of security. 4. Whether the unauthorized disclosure of any of these particular documents would seriously impair the national security. […]”

4.2.4 Admittedly, different judges among the concurring six stated some qualifications and nuances in their views, but they agreed that the First Amendment

133 should be upheld; there were three dissenting opinions, which did not necessarily disagree with all of the views of the majority, but attached different emphases and were concerned about procedural and interpretative questions, that of judicial and executive jurisdiction and competence, and would have proposed that the matter be returned to the lower courts for a more thorough investigation. The dissenting opinions argued that the First Amendment should not be interpreted as an absolute, inviolable principle when it conflicted with other legitimate concerns, or with other clauses of the Constitution itself; that the cases had been dealt with in undue haste without any of the courts being fully apprised of the details (the applications were filed with the Supreme Court less than 48 hours before hearings commenced, and briefs of both parties were lodged less than two hours before arguments began), while the Times by its own admission had been examining the documents for three months; and that no attempt was made by the newspapers to consult with or reach any agreement with the government prior to publication.105 4.2.5 While acknowledging these points, given that an estimated 58,220 Americans were killed and another 153,303 were injured (often with lifelong consequences, and another 1,587 were missing) in a war that had not formally been declared and which government assessed already in 1965 that it could not win but which was still being fought at this time (and who and whose families should be entitled to hold government to account for the cost they were compelled to pay, especially as conscripts); in addition, 3.8 million Vietnamese were killed; considering the profound social divisions and other effects caused by the war at home; given what was then not known but which is now known about Nixon (and Kissinger), both in his subsequent conduct in relation to this case and what was exposed by the Watergate investigation; and the question, which is not posed here, that laws are not by virtue of being laws necessarily good or just laws, I suggest that the Pentagon Papers should have been published with or without the agreement of government. They did not ‘need’ to be published as quickly as they were, there was no immediate and obvious advantage to their being so, and they might only have been published

105 It was presumably not known at the time of this hearing that Ellsberg had attempted to have these documents read into the public record by three anti-war senators, that is, he had attempted by means within the government of the US to make these documents public. Those senators refused, although some of the material was read into the public record by a Democratic senator in a sub-committee, after having been prevented from doing so in Congress. Publication by the Times and the Post was therefore, in a sense, a last resort, not a first choice. Some of those involved, including Ellsberg, had in fact supported the war, and only changed their minds after reading these documents.

134 after the final US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, but the public’s ‘right to know’, questioned but not further discussed by dissenting Chief Justice Burger, should be established beyond reasonable doubt here. These documents referred to no events after 1968, so that everything contained within them concerned historical events at least three years in the past or more; there was nothing that posed any immediate threat to lives or national security in 1971. The Court obviously only considered this case within the terms of the law and Constitution as the judges determined them, and it would have been outside their competence to have considered any other issues. However, the views of Justice Burger appear to reflect a conservative view of democracy and of the (more limited) rights of the people; and the general public, including the newspapers, evidently had other views of these matters than could be addressed by the Court. To suggest that the newspapers, and by implication also Daniel Ellsberg, were only interested in their scoop, as he did, is also a contentious position to take. The justices could not have known at the time of their decision all of the circumstances surrounding them, or the content of the documents. As much as their decisions are framed in and confined to terms of their interpretation of the law as it was their responsibility to exercise it, Justice Burger’s dissenting opinion does suggest that the manner in which he arrived at his decision was not an absolutely legal process, but was influenced by his own views both of the press and of the rights of the general public, which he does not appear to have held in high regard. Such an influence may equally have operated in the other eight judgements, even if tending in the opposite direction, and merely be less visible from their words; at the same time, such an influence is inevitable and can never be entirely excluded from any legal judgement. These quotations should establish the paramount and unassailable role of the press in relation to government in the American conception of democracy, and that where that principle is subject to exception or suspension, a strong evidence-based justification for doing so needs to be made. It must not be arbitrarily over-ridden or used to serve precisely the behaviour of government, which the freedom of the press exists to expose. Further, that the question of national security, which was also prominent in this decision and which tends to be used as a justification for diverse conduct by government in Australia, was not accepted as a legitimate catch-all reason for impinging upon citizens’ rights or the fundamental principles of democracy; such a

135 case also has to be demonstrated with concrete and persuasive evidence. This understanding appears to be rather deficient in current Australian politics. As implied elsewhere in this submission, the fact that the United States and Australia do not have identical constitutions is not, in my opinion, sufficient reason for Australia not to have stronger legal protections of press freedom and clearer principles upon which to determine if, or when, such protections should be suspended, and by whom. The fundamental principles of democracy should be universal, not limited or defined by any one country. The report commissioned by McNamara was for the benefit of future governments so that they would learn from the mistakes of successive American governments in this instance in developing future foreign policy. However, it also revealed that the American people and Congress had been systematically lied to over half a decade about the war and its progress. After a two-week FBI manhunt, Ellsberg surrendered to police and faced 115 years in gaol on felony charges; he was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, but all charges were dismissed in 1973. The Nixon administration’s response to the Pentagon Papers arguably fully justifies the argument of the public’s right to know and the purpose of the freedom of the press. Nixon was not concerned with posterity and learning from foreign policy mistakes, but with covering up his own questionable conduct. He ordered illegal actions in order to destroy Daniel Ellsberg, and a secret group was formed partly for that purpose, nicknamed ‘The Plumbers’, in the White House; this was the same group that broke into the Watergate Building. He was concerned that it would also be revealed that he had conducted a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia and Laos, and that he had undermined peace talks in 1968. Nixon continued an extremely destructive policy of bombing in North and South Vietnam and then Cambodia, until a ceasefire was agreed in 1973. And he was gratified that the Pentagon Papers did not present previous Democratic governments in a positive light. It was the fall-out of this case on Nixon’s conduct that resulted in Watergate and his eventual resignation.

4.3 An Australian Bill of Rights

136 In his book, The Statute of Liberty, Geoffrey Robertson provided a draft text for an Australian Bill of Rights. It includes the following, under section 12: Freedom of Expression and the Right to Know: (i) Everybody has the right to freedom of expression, which includes the right to hold and express opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by government. (ii) Practitioners of journalism shall have a right to protect their sources, subject only to overriding considerations of public interest. (iii) The above rights shall be accorded especial importance in any civil court proceedings in which they are properly invoked. (iv) This right shall create a presumption in favour of publication, rebuttable only if the restriction sought to be placed upon it is necessary in the interests of a democratic society to guard against incitement to crime or disorder, or to safeguard national security, or to enable other citizens to stop lies being told about them, or to preserve confidential information or to protect their privacy as defined in Article 13. (v) Citizens have a right to know about the workings of their government. In addition to their rights under the Freedom of Information Act, and subject to (iv) above, all cabinet papers and other government documents shall be made available for public inspection within ten years of their creation. (vi) These rights may be invoked by media corporations on behalf of their journalists and editors, and/or on behalf of their readers, viewers or listeners.106

This is a proposed Bill of Rights that has not been enacted in this country, but it demonstrates the perceived importance of the freedom of the press within a democracy and the presumption of public interest over any alleged interest of government, consistent with the principles of the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.

4.4 Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom White Paper on Press Freedom in Australia, and the Australian Press Council

106 Robertson, The Statute of Liberty, pp. 192-193.

137 This document was formulated in May 2019, three weeks before the Australian Federal Police raids on Annika Smethurst and the offices of the ABC in June 2019. This white paper makes seven proposals: (1) Positive media freedom: Introduce a Media Freedom Act that positively enshrines the principle of freedom of the press. (2) National Security: Address press freedom concerns in national security legislation by putting in place an appropriate balance in national security legislation between the imperatives of public accountability of government and operational secrecy for national security agencies. That balance should recognise the fundamental importance of national security and the protection of certain Commonwealth activities and the identities of certain Commonwealth employees, whilst providing a basis for journalists to investigate and report on government misconduct. (3) Confidentiality: Protect journalists’ confidential data where that data is gathered and held for legitimate journalistic work. Where confidential data is accessed due to national security concerns, the basis for doing so must be able to be objectively tested. (4) Shield Laws: Enhance and harmonise the shield laws available under State, Territory and Commonwealth Evidence Acts to cover legitimate journalistic work in a uniform way. (5) Whistleblowers: Enhance whistleblower protections so that: • all disclosures made in the public interest by whistleblowers to journalists are protected, regardless of any steps by the organisation subject of the disclosures to address its misconduct, and • the concept of ‘disposable conduct’ is abolished as a requirement for public sector disclosures. (6) Defamation and the Public Interest: Introduce a succinct and clearly set-out public interest defence to claims of defamation. (7) Transparency around Suppression Orders: Establish greater transparency in the issuing and recording of suppression orders.

In 2003, the Australian Press Council as an independent peak body agreed a Charter for a Free Press in Australia. It reads:

Preamble

138 Freedom of opinion and expression is an inalienable right of a free people. Australia is committed to The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the Declaration provides: “Everyone has the right of freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

In a truly democratic society open debate, discussion, criticism and dissent are central to the process of generating informed and considered choices. These processes are crucial to the formation of values and priorities and help in assessing and finding solutions to social, economic and political problems.

A free press is a symbol of a free people. The people of Australia have a right to freedom of information and access to differing opinions and declare that the following principles are basic to an unfettered flow of news and views both within Australia and across the nation’s borders.

The Principles

1. Freedom of the press means the right of the people to be informed by the press on matters of public interest so that they may exercise their rights and duties as citizens. 2. The press shall not be subject to government licence and government authorities should not interfere with the content of news nor restrict access to any news source. 3. The press has a responsibility to the public to commit itself to self-regulation which provides a mechanism for dealing with the concerns of members of the public and the maintenance of the ethical standards and journalistic professionalism of the press. 4. It is in the public interest for the press to make available to the people a wide diversity of views and opinions. 5. It is the responsibility of the press to protect the people’s right to know and to contest encroachments upon that right by governments, groups or individuals. 6. Laws, regulations and practices which in any way restrict or inhibit the right of the press freely to gather and distribute news, views and information are unacceptable unless it can be shown that the public interest is better served by

139 such laws, regulations or practices than the public interest in the people’s right to know.

The Australian Press Council has also published two sets of general guidelines and separate specific guidelines on the reporting of particular types of cases.

These principles are internationally recognised as being fundamental to democracy. They are arguably demanded or expected by most Australians. The fact that no Australian government has fully legislated to recognise and protect them, and that the previous and the current Coalition governments in particular have repeatedly acted with intent to weaken, undermine, discredit, deny and otherwise hinder them in a wide variety of ways, is a flagrant and sustained attack upon democracy itself. The current government should be required to publicly explain and correct its behaviour, and to reverse any measures not consistent with them, including its counter-terrorism legislation and the unwarranted use of powers provided for in that legislation. Immediate, full and unconditional legislated protections of these rights are essential to the protection of democracy in this country.

5. Summary

• News Corp should be reduced to a market share of not more than one third of print and television media, and it should not own all or the only state newspaper in any state or territory. • Perhaps the greatest challenge facing alternative outlets is their financial viability, which is a problem that requires a solution if we are to have greater sustainable quality media diversity in this country. • The AAP is an essential media source and its independence and financial viability must be preserved. • Murdoch cannot be held responsible either for political corruption generally or for a poor national response to climate change in particular in Australia. All of the major problems facing this country have their sources elsewhere, and are of longer standing, than any alleged Murdoch influence. • Insofar as he may have exercised any corrupting influence on government, so have other actors, such as the mining lobby, and if this issue is to be convincingly

140 addressed, then all means of political corruption need to be effectively addressed, not one individual singled out as a scapegoat. • People read any given newspaper or news source because of other factors, such as because it reflects their world-view, whether it is News Corp or The Guardian; the reasons are the same. However, the assumption that there is a simple correlation between what anybody reads and what they then think, or how they then vote, is facile and misleading. • It would contravene the principle of freedom of speech to attempt to censor News Corp, and we currently do not have enforceable standards of truth content in the media or in government or election campaigns or elsewhere, however desirable some such enforceable standard might be. However, there are other issues here about why some people are disposed to believe some things and not others, to accept fake news and conspiracy theories, or to not trust scientific evidence, for example, and the reasons for this and their effective remedy by better education for all and a higher standard of public discourse need to be considered. Damaging influences would also be reduced if all of the causes of public discontent with government, including inadequate employment and economic conditions, poor welfare support, political prejudice and discrimination, poor service delivery, declining standards of living and quality of life, were to be convincingly addressed. • The internet allows anybody who wishes to read any newspaper or other media source on the planet, assuming they can read other languages, whether for free or for a modest subscription. There is also sufficient information in the public domain for people to fully inform themselves on any issue so that they can form their own opinion if they so wish. From this point of view, there is not a serious problem with media diversity in Australia, despite Murdoch’s majority control of some platforms. The basic question would be why anybody prefers only one media source over any other, whether or not they take the time to form their own informed opinions, and how we can improve the level of public debate through between quality journalism (including from the ABC, The Guardian etc.), through better education of the population, and through cultivating a more respectful and less prejudiced culture of public – and political – discourse. • Sections of the Australian public, and government, continue to be characterised by high levels of prejudice, intolerance, and ignorance, and to engage in an unparalleled culture war. This is damaging to democracy and to the quality of public debate.

141 • Australia has an absolutely atrocious record on implementing the recommendations of any public or private sector enquiries. Before holding further media enquiries, the fundamental incompetence and inertia in our chronically failed implementation of almost anything at all that needs doing should first be addressed, and the recommendations of every single previous royal commission, senate enquiry, coronial inquest, and any other pertinent enquiries and reviews, on every issue, should first be properly and comprehensively acted upon. Numerous Australian lives have been lost or permanently harmed because of these and other preventable failures, while the country continues to be poorly governed as a result. • The real “cancer” on government in Australia is government itself, not a media mogul. • This enquiry is concerned about the relationship between democracy and the media. We should first ask ourselves what we think democracy is, whether we really have democracy in Australia, and whether whatever government we currently have is something Australians should be asked preserve in its present form? Public and political understanding of democracy is not fit for purpose. • Historically, democracy evolved as an alternative to tyrannical government and is supposed to enable the people to govern themselves in their own best interests, to ensure the well-being, prosperity, autonomy, dignity, equality and freedom of every human being without exception, and to prevent any repetition of dictatorial and unjust government. This is also an embodiment of human rights in their fullest and most comprehensive expression. • Australia, like some other western democracies, has failed to prevent elements of injustice and dictatorial conduct by government. So-called democratic governments can be and are anti-democratic. • Democracy is not defined by the fact that regular, relatively free and uncorrupted elections are held: it is defined by the elected representatives then properly representing the entire electorate in every sense of ‘representation’, i.e. it is a matter of substance, not form. • A range of issues prevent our elections from being properly representative, fair, and from providing the people with a sufficient choice of candidates. Elections do not give any government a ‘mandate’ to pursue all of their policies. • Government, especially the current Coalition government but in some measure also Labor governments, pursue policies not supported either by the people or by available

142 evidence, but rather according to an unrepresentative and harmful ideology and in pursuit of their own power. This is contrary to the well-being and best interests of the entire people. There are no effective, permanent mechanisms for the consultation of the people on all issues of importance, in decision making and legislation, or the channelling of knowledge and expertise from diverse sectors of the community into those processes. That means that the people are prevented from participating continuously in their own government and ensuring that their voices are heard and acted upon. The capacity to achieve that exists, but is not effective, and is conceivably not desired by governments. There also a high degree of systemic incompetence and inertia, so that virtually no area of governance is as effective as it needs to be to benefit and protect every Australian. • The well-being, equality and autonomy of Australians has considerably worsened over the past forty years, primarily in socio-economic terms, which is in considerable part due to the pursuit of policies by government not beneficial to us. • The form of neoliberal economic and political ideology in Australia is the most poorly regulated and rapacious and damaging form anywhere in the western world, excepting only the US. • The pursuit of increasingly extreme right-wing agendas in Australia and public concern about the weakening of democracy is part of a global trend, but most Australians are not well-informed about the international debate on these issues, and do not understand their own situation within that larger context. • Historically, Australia has remained the most chronically under-developed OECD country over many decades, and our behaviour on numerous issues is a-typical of all other developed societies, not to our credit and benefit. • The media should fulfil three principal roles within a democracy as ‘the fourth estate’: (1) They should report news events in a comprehensive, intelligible and balanced manner, both domestic and a sufficient coverage of international news. This should not consist merely of sensational episodes, but should inform citizens of all they need to know to be able to understand and participate in their own government. The media have failed to report and investigate on many issues in this country as a matter of course, and could report on some maters in a systematic, regular manner that are currently only covered in an ad hoc manner.

143 (2) The media should conduct investigative reporting that holds all government fully to account to the people, they should function as a tribune of the people to demand action and change. Government holds delegated power on behalf of the people, and should not consider itself to be above or independent of the people, or in any manner unaccountable to the people or to the media as the voice of the people. (3) The media should provide a platform for informed public debate on all issues of importance. That public debate should then inform parliamentary discussion and discussion making as a matter of course. All of these roles are performed by the media in Australia, but not as well as they could be. In particular, both the standard and the culture of public debate are seriously deficient. Journalists also need to be better educated in order to be able to perform these roles effectively. • Government also actively undermines the freedom of the press by attacks on the ABC, by censorship and attempts to interfere or criminalise legitimate activities (also in a range of other areas), to hinder public availability of information, and it has failed to provide any legal definition of the legitimate activities of public interest journalism and effective protections of it. • The unparalleled over-production of counter-terrorism legislation in Australia is not being used exclusively as a temporary measure only against terrorism, but is now a permanent element of our police, intelligence and judicial system that is being used for other purposes and which lacks adequate juridical oversight. This legislation is being extended to infringe upon the civil liberties potentially of all Australians, including journalists, and the current government appears to be unwilling to implement adequate restraints and protections that address legal, civil liberties and public and international concerns. • Australia should have an enforceable Bill of Rights that ensures that all human rights of every Australian are properly defined and protected. The fact that we have neither such a Bill of Rights nor other legislated protections of many of our rights is in international comparison anomalous. Australia’s record on human rights abuses is egregious. • The general quality of democracy in Australia is extremely poor and continues to be further weakened and attacked by the present government. This situation may be encouraged and profited from by Rupert Murdoch, but he has not caused it. It is essential that we have a robust, independent, financially viable media, with better-

144 educated journalists and a better-educated Australian public, as one means among others of challenging these tendencies.

9th December 2020

Dr Stephen Lake [private individual]

145