The Conversation: It’s hard for voters to trust leaders who won’t promise true integrity 27 November 2014, Colleen Lewis Adjunct Professor, National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University
What are we voting for? Certainly not decisions made in MPs’ own interest or that of political parties or business cronies, but the present system lets that happen. AAP/Andrew Brownbill
The Accountability Round Table (ART), a non-partisan organisation, wrote to the three major political parties two months ago seeking their position on three important arms of Victoria’s integrity system: Freedom of Information, the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission, and political donations.
While the responses promised to remedy shortcomings, in several areas they fall well short of what is required to ensure transparent and accountable government.
One could be forgiven for thinking that successive governments imagine they are doing the community a favour if they agree to deliver, in an incremental fashion, modicums of accountability and transparency. Well, they aren’t, and voters are acutely aware of this. (More in link)
