Comment by Incipient
2 years ago
We really don't have the same overt paid lobbying here (aka bribery) that you have in the US.
Don't get me wrong our politicians are just as morally bankrupt and self-serving, but it doesn't happen at the same coordinated scale.
There's a substantial amount of lobbying, but the reporting requirements on it are laughably low. Agree it's not at the level of the US, though. The member for Kooyong was working to establish a bill about it. At the moment lobbyists have unfettered access to parliament house.
Lobbying and bribery are not the same at all. Equivocating them severely downplays the seriousness of bribery.
Lobbying means someone is trying to influence the government through things as simple as advertising campaigns. Those exist in AU.
Advertising is PR, not lobbying.
Lobbying often involves implicit or explicit offers of campaign funding, PAC support/opposition, and gifts that skirt the edge of what is legally bribery.
No, lobbying is “attempting to influence the government”. Advertising about proposed bills is 100% lobbying.
Without any funding to the politician involved, a lobbyist’s job is to convince the politician of voting a particular way.
A sleazy lobbyist may try money in indirect ways for/against the politician, but a regular one will try to raise awareness through advertising and public pressure. It’s all lobbying.
1 reply →
lol we certainly have lobbying in Australia, they just apparently keep a lower profile than American lobbyists do.
It's so funny to me how many non-americans just assume their country is perfect because they apparently don't pay attention to their local news. Or maybe it's just nationalism, hard to say.
World-know news payment extortion from Meta?