Page 2133 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 June 2005
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and Canberra play an invaluable role in advocating for the groups they represent in bringing the range of needs and ideas together to develop and promote good policy.
There is no doubt that the advocacy and policy advice from peak organisations can be very annoying to government. It seems very clear that the federal government, despite its extraordinary strength, has a very thin skin. If it took its job seriously as providing leadership and direction for this country, rather than seeing its purpose as simply one of holding on to power whatever the consequences, then it would understand that the annoying nature of peak bodies is vital to its work, and it would fund those organisations to increase the government’s own effectiveness through taking notice of effective and informed organisations through their advocacy and advice.
Gary Johns, whom I mentioned earlier on, from the Institute of Public Affairs, and a key author of this government’s strategy to limit the role and effectiveness of the non-government sector—and a former Labor politician, I might add—argues that there is no longer a problem in voicing opinion in this democracy. That is less and less our view, and the view of people working in the sector.
In a paper for the Australian National University democratic audit of Australia, Bronwyn Dalton and Mark Lyons recently highlighted that a flourishing non-government organisation sector is a key indicator of a flourishing democracy. NGOs play a major role in achieving the democratic values of participation, representation and deliberation, and promoting government responsiveness. NGO advocacy is an important contribution to making public debate and policy development more inclusive. NGOs provide their members with both skills and opportunities for democratic participation. Furthermore, they provide a training ground for politicians of the future.
The capacity of each NGO to contribute effectively to democracy relies on many factors including the size, income and status of its constituency, the appropriateness of its strategies and the openness and inclusiveness of its internal governance. The research undertaken by Dalton and Lyons looked at the internal processes of NGOs to examine the level of democracy and genuine representativeness. This research found that, despite diverse governance arrangements, overall the organisations have positive effects for the political system and society.
Criticism by conservative commentators questioning the legitimacy of non-government organisations’ influence on public policy is, in fact, unfounded. Indeed, I must say that NGOs have put a lot of work into improving their governance over recent years. Simply because these sorts of criticisms and funding reductions by governments are not peculiar to Australia alone, NGOs have realised that they must increase their accountability and their transparency overall in order to satisfy the people who donate to them, and to ensure that their voices with governments are strong. Of course, we should not forget that organised industry, which is itself an NGO, is in a very strong position to promote its interests. It has the money, and the ear of government.
The commercial media in this country is concentrated and essentially compliant. The role of media has shifted away from holding people in power accountable and moved much closer to the entertainment end of the spectrum. That is understandable, given the interests of much of the population, but it means that the role of peak advocacy groups; the non-government organisations, which are closest to the ground, and which are often
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