Dear Committee Secretary,
This submission has been prepared to share IPA analysis with the committee as it conducts its inquiry into proposals to increase voter engagement, participation and confidence.
A functional democracy hinges on the freedom of citizens to engage in open public debate and participate in the electoral process. Central to these interrelated ideas is freedom of speech.
Freedom of speech is the value that recognises people have autonomy over their conscience, and that it is in recognition of the fundamental human dignity of every person that governments do not restrict the expression of opinions.
In order to have a representative democracy, citizens who are expected to select who their political representatives are must be entitled to engage in open debate about their political preferences. Participation and engagement in the democratic process therefore means allowing all people to express a diversity of views without censorship.
This submission addresses the following three issues relating to voter engagement and participation:
- Democratic engagement is unlikely to be improved by government-led initiatives.
- Donation caps curtail indirect democratic participation and risk entrenching bias in electoral politics.
- This inquiry must not be a Trojan horse for government censorship to regulate ‘misinformation’.
