Tag Archive for 'John Faulkner'

Rudd reshuffles

Published
by
Mark
9 months, 2 weeks ago
in Politics
. 37 Comments

Kevin Rudd has announced a bigger reshuffle than most observers were expecting – with Greg Combet and Chris Bowen the big winners. Jan McLucas and Bob Debus have been dropped from the frontbench. No sign of the much touted Mark Arbib ascendancy, which just goes to prove you can’t trust everything you read in Glenn Milne’s columns.

Both Combet’s and Bowen’s elevations are no great surprise. But I’m disappointed to see Bob Debus go – he seemed a reasonable, measured and sensible Minister in a potentially trouble ridden portfolio. In some ways, I think he was a much better performer than Robert McLelland, his senior portfolio minister.

Faulkner on FOI

Published
by
Robert Merkel
11 months, 3 weeks ago
in Media, Policy and Politics
. 23 Comments

John Faulkner has announced a draft bill outlining changes to the federal FOI system. A short article on the changes mentions some highlights – the removal of application fees, the removal of a number of reasons for refusing disclosure (notably relating to ones that might politically embarrass the government), change in the 30-year rule for cabinet documents to 20 years, and – importantly – the creation of an internal advocate for compliance with the “spirit and letter” of FOI rules in the personage of an FOI commissioner.

The Australian seems quite pleased with the proposed new laws, if critical of the government in a number of other related bits of legislation. If you’ve got an hour, you can listen to Faulkner introduce the changes, thanks to ABC Fora’s coverage of the Right to Know conference.

FOI reform is easy to talk about in opposition, but terribly tempting to forget about in goverment. Looks like the government’s going to do the right thing here.

The vigilance of (il)Liberalism never sleeps

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 2 months ago
in Activism and Elections
. 32 Comments

Probably one of the most laudable steps taken by the Rudd government has been the attention given by Senator John Faulkner as Special Minister of State to cleaning up the electoral system. Admittedly, this isn’t one of the funky and sexy issues the media likes to highlight, but the importance of the Green Paper on Electoral Reform is profound.

But while most Australians probably had other things on their mind, John Howard’s former Workplace Relations advisor and Alexander Downer’s replacement as Mayo MP, Jamie Briggs, found time on Boxing Day to denounce third party campaigns as a “a growing cancer in our democracy”.

Briggs named GetUp! and the ACTU’s Your Rights at Work campaign as examples of what he was talking about.

I don’t have any particular problem with disclosure of funding for third party campaigns, though I would object to caps on donations. But the hyperbole from Briggs (and no doubt his views are shared by Nick Minchin and others) is absurd and dangerous. Props to Andrew Norton for sounding the alarm. Norton refers to Briggs’ call for disclosure and observes:

Continue reading ‘The vigilance of (il)Liberalism never sleeps’