Australian governments need to stop treating citizens as free consultants

Across April I'm spending a week participating in government-run sessions to contribute to the democratic life of our nation.

I'll spend two days with CSIRO, supporting their startup commercialisation programs, a day with the NSW Department of Transport supporting their deliberations on future transport needs and policies and a day with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet supporting the open government partnership process.

Plus there's associated travel and preparation time - including several return drives to Sydney from Canberra.

Every bureaucrat and politician involved in these sessions will be paid for their time and have their travel costs covered. 

Every consultant employed by the government to organise, manage, promote and report on these sessions will receive due compensation - paid at their going market rates.

However the participants who give up their time and intellectual property to provide input to government won't receive a cent in payment from the agencies for any of their time commitment. Not even to defray travel or accommodation costs.

Some of the participants might attend representing a university or corporate interests - so while the government won't pay for their time or travel, their employer will. In return their employers will expect some form of benefit in having them attend, whether it be through building or exhibiting expertise, influencing policy directions, senior connections or another form of  potential commercial benefit.

However for other participants, including myself, our involvement is a cost - a personal cost (spending time in another city, far from loved ones), and a professional cost (losing days of productive income time).

I've been prepared to sustain this kind of cost due to my passion for helping government take full advantage of digital ('digital transformation' as per this year's buzz phrase), improving citizen-government engagement to support and strengthen our democracy, and supporting Australian innovators to create the export industries and jobs that our country will need to remain successful throughout this century.

Indeed I've calculated that my personal investment in these goals has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income over the last ten years.

Now I've also had paid gigs helping government to improve in some of these areas - both as a bureaucrat and a consultant, which puts me in the position of seeing both sides of the equation.

However, make no mistake - for most Australian citizens participating in democracy can only be considered a hobby.

While the government 'professionals' (bureaucrats & consultants) get paid - the hobbyists (citizens) do not.

It's no wonder that most Australians do not respond to government consultations, attend government policy events or participate in significant democratic exercises.

It's no wonder that Australian governments find that the same organisations and individuals constantly respond to their requests for attendance at events and round-tables. Organisations with commercial interests and individuals with either commercial or close personal stakes in the outcomes.

Most people can't afford the time off work to provide their views and insights, even when they have expertise on a topic, leaving a deep well of Australian knowledge and ideas untapped.

Now some might claim that it would be inappropriate for government to pay citizens for taking an interest in democracy and contributing their time to inform or influence policy - after all, all that work is being done directly for the citizens' benefit.

However the majority of citizens now only contribute because of commercial benefit to their employer or themselves, or because they have the financial freedom (or willingness to sacrifice lifestyle) to get involved. Most Australians don't contribute at all beyond voting. So this view of citizens as 'free consultants' is quite outdated and doesn't reflect the realities of the real cost of participating in democracy.

When the Icelandic government ran a constitutional event, inviting 300 representatives from across the country to participate in the design of their new constitution, they paid the participants the equivalent of a parliamentarian's salary for the day - plus travel and accommodation costs.

In a country like Australian where people off the street are paid $80-100 to spend an hour or two looking at product concepts and give an opinion, it seems ludicrous that governments won't pay a cent to citizens who give up their time to provide insights and expertise on policy decisions that affect millions.

If we want the best policies for Australia, governments need to at minimum be prepared to pay for the best participants to attend - covering travel costs to bring in citizen experts and leaders from all over Australia, rather than limiting the pool to citizens within driving distance.

Preferable we need Australian governments to budget respectful day rates for Australians who are invited and choose to participate, or who apply and are selected to participate in consultation events of significance to policy and program development. 

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We could resolve the electoral donations dilemma with a little digital thinking

One of the significant news stories in Australia this week is the revelation that Bill Shorten failed to correctly disclose a $40,000 electoral donation in a timely manner - breaching parliamentary requirements.

This is far from the first time a politician has done this, with repeated errors in declaring donations an ongoing issue for both major parties in Australian politics, and even affecting several minor parties and independents.

This has been called a crisis of trust, and one result has been calls for full public funding of elections - an approach that has been tried to some degree in a few other jurisdictions around the world.

Where full or near-full public funding has been attempted it has faced both legal controversies and difficulties in finding a formula that effectively funds established parties without closing the door on new electoral entrants or unfairly benefiting incumbent governments.

Australia already has partial public funding for elections, paid on a per vote basis. At the last election in September 2013 a total of $58.1 million was paid out, on the basis of $2.49 per first preference vote for candidates receiving at least 4% of the primary vote.

This 'flat rate' isn't necessarily a perfect solution either - it doesn't take into account the size of some of Australia's electorates (from Wentworth at 30 square km to Durack at 1,587,758 square km), or the significant differences in the number of voters per electorate (from 62,917 in Lingiari to Fraser with 143,564 voters). It is also open to manipulation by governments or major parties, as the amount per vote, or the threshold for payment, can be altered through legislation passed by a majority in both houses of parliament.

There's also other flaws with Australia's electoral donations laws, with donations often declared publicly through the Australian Electoral Commission 12 months or more after they are donated - often well after the election that the donors may be seeking to influence - leaving voters unable to consider the donations in the context of how they choose to vote.

Electoral donations are also often an area of contention for Australian state, territory and local governments, with varying laws in each jurisdiction, often modified by governments to suit their electoral needs. In particular NSW recently had over 10 Liberal MPs resign the party and several resign parliament due to irregularities as to who they received donations from, or roughly 25% of sitting members in their previous Liberal government.

There's also been cases of parties moving money between states or to and from their federal parties in order to evade stricter electoral declaration rules, and other kinds of shenanigans with the system between funds donated to individual politicians and to their parties.

It seems to me that a little digital thinking could resolve a large proportion of the issues with Australia's donation system, both ensuring donations are recorded and allocated appropriately and declared rapidly to the public.

Why not build a central donations website for collecting and declaring electoral donations for all parties.

The site, potentially called the Australian Electoral Donations System  (or AEDS for those who love acronyms), could provide a single electronic gateway for individuals of any political belief to donate funds from their bank account, credit card, paypal or other account to the candidate(s) and party(ies) of their choice. Every donation could be electronically transferred to the correct recipient and declared in real time as the electronic transfer occurs.

The AEDS could support both personal and corporate donations, including cash donations at events and gold coin donations, through becoming the official way of issuing tax receipts for all donations, making it unacceptable to simply hand candidates 'brown bags' of undeclared cash (a form of donation that is already illegal but hard to trace).

For easy event management, attendee management and an auction component could be built into the AEDS and a mobile app or web service used for recording donations (and attendance) at electoral events - mitigating the current issues with tracking and identifying donations through vehicles like Joe Hockey's 'North Shore Forum'.

It would become far easier for the public to see who has donated what to which parties - on a near-real-time basis, and the Australian Electoral Commission would be able to detect issues much faster - particularly where declared party income and expenditures don't match up. The AEDS may also help the Tax office to track the movement of funds and following up to verify that individuals and organisations are reporting their earnings and expenditures correctly, and even support police in identifying criminal activities linked to donations.

Done right this central donations website could even turn a profit - by taking a percentage of every donation towards its operating costs. Given that $10 million or more is given each year in donations to the federal parties (and that's only counting donations over the current $12,500 donation level), a 10% processing charge for using the AEDS could more than cover the ongoing costs of the service. This could be potentially a much lower charge when considering all the smaller donations (from $2 to $12,499) made at federal level and all of the donations to state and local politicians and parties.

The AEDS could be set-up as a start-up and run as an independent body - or even become a listed entity on the stock market (possibly expanding into offering similar electoral donations systems for other nations).

At worst case, the AEDS could be run under the auspices (or with board oversight) of the Australian Electoral Commission - though given their struggles to update their own technology I doubt the organisation has appropriate management to operate such a significant system.

Of course it would be a crazy entrepreneur to set up such a system without agreement and legislation by government, so the first step must be taken by parliament to recognise that the current electoral donation system is destroying trust and damaging the legitimacy of government - creating a strong perception, if not a reality, that our politicians are, if not for sale, at least for rent by the largest donors - be they corporations or organised crime.

Would our parliament countenance such a move?

I hope so. Removing the difficulty of managing electoral donations from parties, and the embarrassment politicians face when someone in their office forgets or incorrectly declares a donation, or they accidentally take money from an illegal donor, this type of independently-run electoral donation system would both make the lives of politicians easier and reduce their stress levels, while potentially lengthening their careers.

I've thought a great deal about how this system could work, and the problems it may face, so if anyone in government wants to discuss the idea further, drop me a line.

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