Honest Government Ad | How to rig elections

Dear legendary Patrons

Here's the latest Honest Government Ad you've helped us to produce!

Thanks for all your great feedback on the audio preview a few days ago :)

As mentioned when I shared the preview, this is a classic HGA - in the sense that it takes a topic few people outside of politics would know about - electoral campaign finance reforms (which sounds boring as shit) - and explains why we should all very much know and care about it (in a way that isn't boring as shit)

It's also the latest installement in our series covering the Two-Party system - a dynamic we see at play not just in Australia, but in many other countries too (you know who you are).

Some of you have asked us what the name of this proposed legislation is. There isn't one yet, because it hasn't yet been introduced to Parliament. But there has been talk of a bipartisan deal to introduce such a bill in the coming days/weeks/months.

We have an idea of what the reforms include, thanks to the interim report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (whose recommendations are cited in this HGA, with the final report coming out in the next few days). And to be fair, some of the reforms are good (eg. real time disclosure of donations, lower disclosure threshold...). And yes, we do need to address the undue influence of Big (*cough* Clive Palmer) Money in our elections.

But bundled-in with those good proposals, are also reforms that would drastically advantage incumbents - especially the major parties - thereby making it even harder than it already is for newcomers to fund election campaigns and compete on a level playing field.

And since the major parties have enough numbers between them to pass this bill without much debate once they introduce it, we figured it would be best to make an HGA about it now, to help people understand the reforms (which are complicated, and as mentioned, sound boring as shit) while we still can. Because with more public scrutiny, we can ensure that if these reforms are introduced, they will work in the interests of our democracy - and not to entrench the two-party duopoly.

For those who want to know more about this issue, the ABC reported on it just a few days ago. I've also included some key references in the video description of the YouTube video here.

This is one of those HGAs that has required a lot of research (I started working on it back in September!). And the only reason I can do this kind of in-depth research on such niche topics is entirely thanks to the support we get from you - our Patrons.

So, thank you for making this work possible.

That's all for now! We're going to try and squeeze in one more Honest Government Ad before the end of the year, if we can get it in before Christmas. I'm going to get stuck into that in the coming days.

Until then, I hope you enjoy our latest HGA - and I'll catch you in December!

Giordano & team

link to YouTube video
link to Twitter video
link to FB video
link to TikTok video