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1. Political Equality for Women
2. Regulatng the Influence of Money in Politics
3. Changing the Parliamentry System of Remuneration and
Entitlements
4. Changing the System of Parliamentary Representation
5. The Bill of Rights Debate- its Relevance to the Equality
of Women
6. People's Conventions- Public Participation in Democracy
3.1.1 decide on and administer both House and Senate remuneration, superannuation, allowances, the register of property and pecuniary interests of members, privileges, entitlements and facilities for parliamentarians;
3.1.2 investigate standards of probity, political lobbying and largesize and circumstances of donations;
3.1.3 investigate abuses and enforce penalties for breaches of executive power, financial misconduct or the abuse of parliamentary entitlements.
Rationale. These reforms do not constitute a threat to the independence of Parliament. They are designed to restrain the abuse of parliamentary privilege. The low esteem in which the population regards Pparliamentarians, as reported in various surveys of esteem of various occupations, is in large measure due to their remuneration, - Parliamentarian's remuneration, superannuation, allowances and parliamentary services being seen as being at levels and facilities, which many people regard as excessive;. tThis is especially so of their superannuation and also to the well publicised cases of of "rorting" of allowances.
These reforms would require the functions now exercised by the Department of Finance, under the Parliamentary Contribution Superannuation Act, and by the Remuneration Tribunal to being transferred to the proposed Parliamentary Conduct, Privileges and Remuneration Commission.
The giving of donations may well be a breach of trust byof persons in charge of large public funds not their own. Unions have frequently been criticised for making donations to political parties without the consent of their members and on the grounds that this may well be against the wishes and political convictions of their members. We would equally question the right of directors of public companies to make donations to political parties without the consent of their shareholders, on the grounds that this may well be against the shareholders' convictions. This is an issue that requires the attention of regulators of business and unions.
Many people, including some politicians and journalists, realise the danger to democracy inherent in the voting public losing respect for our political institutions. Speaking of the facilities available to Federal parliamentarians, Alan Ramsay (Sydney Morning Herald 28/3/01) said: "The $1.1 billion new Parliament House has been a five star hotel ever since it opened for business 10 years ago. It costs a $100 million a year just to run and the additional millions poured in each year into regularly updating MPs' facilities and technology would make voters weep with rage." (It has no childcare facilities.)
Ramsay goes on to quote Mark Latham MHR as saying: "We have 16 committees of this House but we do not have one examining our own expenditures. If you look around different areas of public policy in this country, you will see that the institution in the greatest crisis is democracy itself. The thing we have neglected is the thing under our very nose - the massive public distrust and dissatisfaction with representative democracy. If we cannot heal ourselves, if we cannot reform our own institution at this time when democracy suffers such a loss of public faith, we are in big trouble indeed." (Sydney Morning Herald 28/3/01).
These reforms would have the advantage of removing matters of parliamentary remuneration, allowances, superannuation, etc. and breaches of conduct from the immediate influence of the parliamentary leaders, incumbent MPs and the party machines, and would in part go towards restoring the prestige of our parliamentary institutions.
The UK Parliamentary Commission for Standards and the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) offers a precedents for such an independent authority.
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