Welcome

Welcome to this fourth edition of the Democracy First Newsletter. We are building a big, bold, grassroots movement of Australians to reclaim our democracy from the failed political class of Left and Right. Subscribe and keep informed.

Australian politics is broken. There is no leadership in the country. Nothing is being fixed. We have paralysis in government,?distrust of our?institutions, capture of our political parties by career politicians, and widespread frustration amongst ordinary people. The country is drifting?steadily towards?national?decline on every front.

The only strategy we know of to turn this around is the creation of a balance-of-power party to force reform of our political institutions on all players. Democracy First is our balance-of-power party for the next federal election due in May 2025.

We want to represent the 80% of Australians who know our system is broken and has to be fixed. We have a very specific goal – to hold the balance of power in Canberra to force reform of our democracy and political institutions.

.Join us. Sign up today.

Our Political Compass

Here is a map of the Australian political landscape. We've tried to plot the location of the major and minor parties, and place Democracy First in relation to them.

You'll see the Left-Right axis running horizontally through the middle. And you'll see a vertical axis running from Big Business at the top to Small Business at the bottom.

Democracy First is positioned smack bang in the centre of the map. We want to represent the 80% of Australians who no longer identify with Left or Right. We think this map captures that positioning.

Many readers will have suggestions for how to improve this map. We'd welcome your comments.

Dark money in politics — an Open Letter to Climate 200 Candidates.

Michael Yabsley is a former Liberal NSW Minister and Treasurer of the NSW Liberal Party in charge of fundraising. That means he knows a fair bit about corruption in politics and the threat to democracy from Big Money. In May 2022 after six Climate 200 candidates were elected to Canberra, Michael Yabsley wrote this Open Letter to those candidates, published in Crikey. He asked them to think deeply about the ethical issues involved in their election. https://lnkd.in/g3rHdFjy

When vested industry interests can buy seats in parliament, democracy is in peril. Climate 200 was established by investors in renewables, coordinated by Simon Holmes à Court {above]. They spent $13m in the 2022 election, $2m in Kooyong alone to buy a seat, smashing all records.

It is natural for investors to want protection for their investments. When investors make an organised intervention into politics to secure their investments they become vested interests. Vested interests in fossil fuels or gaming or property fund Liberal and Labor. Vested interests in renewables fund Climate 200 candidates.

In Democracy First we want vested interests seeking favours removed from our parliaments. Favours means subsidies or preferential treatment in a market. We call that 'corruption'.

Climate 200 is gearing up for the next election. Their stated aim is to 'Climate Proof' the next parliament. That means ensuring that public subsidies for renewables are protected sufficiently to ensure they can never be undone or removed. Have they heeded the warning issued by Michael Yabsley in 2022?

Climate 200 is offering a quick $20,000 payment to groups in its targeted Liberal-held electorates to support a Climate 200 candidate. (They are not interested in Labor-held seats). This payment is to assist them to get going and start recruiting a candidate who fits the brief.

That brief, first and foremost, is to find a candidate who will protect subsidies for renewables. If you're someone who is concerned about global warming, but not sure about the wisdom of subsidising renewables when they are still in the developmental stage, forget it. You're not what they want. They want a backer of their investments. If you're an independent thinker, forget it. You're not what they want. If you're concerned about social disadvantage in Australia, forget it. They want a doctor or lawyer in an affluent suburb.

In Democracy First we want a wave of independent-minded CANDO people elected to parliament across Australia. We do not want the seats held by Climate 200 candidates to revert to the Liberal Party. We want them won by people with business and community backgrounds who are free of Big Money vested interests.

www.democracyfirst.org.au/politicalclass/

Fixing our Schools

Schools and how to improve them is a subject of growing concern around Australia. Politicians and governments seem unable to break the inertia. Promises abound, but very little changes.

The reason for the inertia in fixing our schools is clear – we have a political stand-off between Left and Right. The Left thinks spending more money on public schools will improve their quality, while all the evidence shows this doesn’t happen. The Right continually talks about declining standards and outcomes, but has no idea how to turn this around. What’s more, the Right is not motivated to turn it around because it has a preference for private schools anyway. The battle between these two positions results in a 0-0 draw.

Nothing happens to enable major reform in the way our schools are run. Teachers are rarely able to teach as they would like. Principals tend to drown in micro-management. Parents search far and wide for schools that may be more suited to their child, and increasingly choose to pay fees which stretch family budgets to breaking point.

The split between private and public schooling has been entrenched for over a century. It’s a split that has been very socially divisive in Australia, and is still an obstacle to social cohesion as well as school effectiveness.

Western Australia has pioneered the way forward since 2009 by introducing ‘independent public schools’. This was a good initiative but it has stalled and not developed to the next level.

A similar but more adventurous reform process has been underway in England over the same period. Public schools are now permitted to opt-in to become Academy schools, which have more autonomy than Local Authority schools, including freedom to adopt their own curriculum and employ teachers from various professional backgrounds, and not necessarily with teaching qualifications. Free Schools are another new option in England. These are new public schools established by parents, teachers, communities or NGOs, usually in areas of disadvantage or poor performing Local Authority schools. There are now 507 Free Schools in operation, with another 226 in the pipeline. 65% of secondary schools in England are now Academies, along with 25% of primary schools.

There is now a major crisis of confidence in Australia on the part of parents and teachers in our school systems and education departments. Bold and innovative changes are needed on both demand and supply sides of the educational equation to stem the decline and rebuild confidence on the part of parents and teachers.

Stay tuned for news of our Fixing our Schools National Network for parents and teachers in Democracy First.

www.democracyfirst.org.au/schools/

Refugees from Gaza

Should Australia accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza? No, they should be resettled in Israel where many of them still own homes and farms. Many were forcibly removed from their properties by Israel in 1948.

When the UN General Assembly recognised the State of Israel in 1948, it did so on two conditions. First, the Palestinians forcibly removed from their homes in Israel at gunpoint should be allowed to return to their properties, and if this was not feasible, financial compensation should be paid by Israel for the dispossession of property. Second, a State of Palestine should be established immediately on land adjacent to Israel.

76 years later, Israel has still refused to honour both conditions. It refuses to permit property owners to return to their properties, even when they hold Title Deeds for property issued to them, in English, by the British Mandate for Palestine. Israel refuses the ‘right of return’. And it refuses to pay compensation.

Refugee policy in Australia is a plaything of career politicians who have never explained to us that there is nothing in the International Convention on Refugees that requires Australia to offer permanent settlement to those seeking asylum. ‘Safe haven’ or ‘asylum’ does not mean permanent settlement: it means asylum till it is safe to return home. Both Left and Right have misled us about our Treaty obligations. By equating asylum with permanent settlement, they can play out a simple 'pro-refugee, anti-refugee' contest. Pick a side. Politicians love that.

When the UNHCR was formed in 1950, it was established on the principle of the ‘right of return’. That is, refugees who are displaced from their homes and forced out of their country have a legal ‘right of return’.

The problem for the Palestinians forced out of Israel in 1948 and earlier was that the UNHCR had not yet been formed. They did not have a legal ‘right of return’. They were in limbo, in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, so the UN established UNRWA in 1949 (UN Relief and Works Agency) specifically for Palestinian relief. It was easier for Western countries to fund UNRWA than to challenge Israel over its opposition to both the ‘right of return’ and creation of a Palestinian State. So they paid up. It was 'guilt money'.

In 2024, Australia should not accept displaced people from Gaza because these refugees should have – after 76 years of denial – a legal 'right of return' to their homes and homeland. Israel does not want this, of course. It wants Gaza emptied of its population so that the land can be resettled with Jewish settlers, just as it is doing on the West Bank where 850,000 Jewish settlers have been brought from around the world to illegally occupy land that belongs to someone else.

But after 76 years of stalemate, Western countries need to draw a line in the sand. Palestinians should have the same 'right of return' to their homes as all other refugees.

www.democracyfirst.org.au/immigration/

Local Solutions Hub

Local solutions for local communities. Innovation in driving solutions. Solving problems?rather than applying bandaids forever and chasing government handouts.

Politicians and governments all say they support local solutions. They don’t mean it, of course. If they meant it they would establish a process by which local solutions can be developed and implemented. But they don’t do that.

Innovators, problem solvers and doers can be found in every town and suburb in Australia. They are mostly ignored. Out-the-box solutions are rarely welcomed by local governments or state departments or big service providers.

Currently there is no process whereby innovators, problem solvers and doers can be brought?together, locally, to turn their ideas into action plans. Those who are well connected may?get themselves a grant, but if you lack the right connections this is almost impossible. And?grants are made available only for certain kinds of projects, not for others. There are obstacles everywhere.

We will establish a Local Solutions Hub in each of 150 federal electorates.

Each hub will comprise a space (a shopfront or warehouse or community hall) in which we can generate better ways of doing things in family support, small business support, aged care, local job-creation, local power generation, inclusion of people with disabilities, natural disaster risk reduction, healthy living and illness-prevention. And in many other areas besides.

The first step in the process of establishing a Local Solutions Hub is the appointment of a Facilitator in each of the 150 federal electorates.

The role of a Facilitator is to put together a Team of people (up to a dozen) to develop the Hub.

CanDo people and natural networkers are invited to express their interest in these roles.

Each Facilitator and Team has autonomy in developing the Hub as they think appropriate for their community. In style and priorities, these will vary across the country.

Participants must be residents in their own electorate. Express your interest in these roles.

www.democracyfirst.org.au/hub/

Democracy First Enquiries: Vern Hughes 0425 722 890