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Large corporations in Australia have shifted from limited to more fulsome engagement in political activity (CPA) in recent decades. The paper argues that this reflects corporate institutional change in response to wider changes in the environment that have included growing government intervention, increased industry concentration and intra-sectoral competition, and a more complex and challenging discursive and issues environment. Quantitative and regression-based analysis of the drivers of CPA are employed and the analysis is extended and deepened with material drawn from interviews with twenty-five corporate government relations professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate political activity by large firms has increased in a range of western countries and in Australia. There has also been an increased tendency for large firms to lobby individually on firm-centred agendas. Both trends have seen large firms engaging in institutional adaptation, primarily through developing dedicated government relations functions (GRF). The last research on this topic in Australia was thirty years ago (Bell and Warhurst [1993]. "Business Political Activism and Government Relations in Large Companies in Australia." Australian Journal of Political Science 28: 201–220.) and this paper updates this earlier research. It also frames the relevant developments as an important set of institutional challenges, not only for government relations (GR) managers within corporate hierarchies, but also in interacting with and influencing other key institutional interlocutors, especially government policy makers. The way in which GR managers deal with such challenges through building supportive relations with key internal and external interlocutors, and especially how this shapes the business-government relationship more broadly, is a key focus of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brereton Report focuses on the unlawful killings of prisoners and others who were hors de combat. Buried in the 530-page report, however, are indications of other violations of international humanitarian law such as cruel treatment. This paper looks at the other kinds of potential war crimes hinted at in the report and examines Australia's obligation to include these in its responses to the Inquiry. It shows how criminal investigations, redress programmes and Defence reform will be incomplete unless the focus is broadened to include the full spectrum of wrongs that have been uncovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural reforms over the past several decades have seen the institution of local government in Australia become progressively less local. Primarily as a result of municipal amalgamation, the average population of Australia's local governments has more than doubled since the early 1990s. The democratic implications of this de-localisation, however, have been severely understudied. This article addresses this gap by analysing the effect of municipality size on several modes of local political participation in the mainland capital city regions of Adelaide and Perth. Drawing on a quantitative analysis of primary survey and electoral data, this paper presents evidence of a negative relationship between municipality size and participation – as size increases, rates of voting, candidacy, contact with local representatives, and council meeting attendance decrease. The implications for local government's input legitimacy and its role as a training ground for democracy – as well as options for 're-localising' local politics – are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being the most tangibly impacted by the first-order effects of a warming climate, much of Australia's agricultural regions have remained relatively conservative in their views on climate change and the need for adaptation. This paper aims to understand how the experience of an extreme climate event like the 2017–2020 drought might shift opinions and values on these issues within agricultural communities. Through in-depth interviews with 20 graziers across Northwest NSW during the worst days of the drought, we found that various psychological lock-ins, historical memories of resilience, and local cultural values appeared to be undermining the perception of their vulnerability, while enhancing perceptions of their ability to endure. Such discursive constructions appear to explain why a jarring climatic event like the 2017–2020 drought was failing to produce a noticeable shift in their views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disinformation and misinformation on social media platforms are growing regulatory concerns for governments. In this paper, we examine Australia's DIGI Code of Practice (CoP). The CoP is a voluntary set of commitments to address false content on platforms that is overseen by Australia's digital media industry. It was established in response to a federal government directive. We evaluate the DIGI CoP by comparing it to the code it was partially based on: the EU's Code of Practice on Disinformation (EU CPD). The EU CPD also attempted voluntary regulation, and yet the EU is now moving towards a strengthened CPD. While the DIGI CoP improves upon the original EU CPD, the original version had limited accountability measures and notable content exclusions. We conclude by discussing a recent review of the CoP, suggesting that Australia will also strengthen regulation in this area. Lastly, we address ongoing tensions around media freedom and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As liberal democracies intensify their efforts to digitise democracy, more governance services and processes are shifting online. Malign foreign entities (MFEs) are exploiting this phenomenon of digital era governance (DEG) to weaken democracies through information warfare operations. Australia is not immune to this, yet there is limited research exploring the relationship between digital democracy and foreign interference in the Australian context. Addressing this lacuna, this paper identifies the ways in which DEG might inadvertently produce opportunities for MFEs to target the Nation's core democratic infrastructure. Through the implicit application of a tri-theoretical framework of DEG, democratic theory, and institutional theory, I argue that DEG has induced a series of new vulnerabilities in Australia's political processes and institutions that challenge the legitimacy of decision-making inputs and outputs. MFEs may exploit these potential vulnerabilities by tapping into key digitally-amplified problems such as inauthenticity, data insecurity, and disinformation, thereby threatening Australia's democratic sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, the debate about Australia's relationship with Indigenous people has entered a new phase with the prospect of a referendum to amend the Constitution. In this paper we use a wide range of survey data going back to the 1970s to examine public opinion towards Indigenous issues and likely voting in any future referendum to recognise Indigenous Australians. Our results show a long-term liberalisation in public opinion which can be traced mainly to period effects within the electorate. This liberalisation in opinion is the major explanation for the large majority who would currently support a change in the Constitution to recognise Indigenous peoples. Our results have significant policy implications for how governments approach the inherent difficulties surrounding Indigenous recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses novel electronic tools to identify the degree to which Australia was listening to Indigenous peoples in a 'national conversation' about constitutional recognition between 2015 and late 2017. The results show that while there was a superficial overlap in themes, there were important differences of framing. Recognition remained a largely formal, elite and non-Indigenous concern, with First Nations focusing on treaties, sovereignty, listening and respect. Interaction was noticeably aggressive, but not exclusively so. Non-Indigenous people avoided discussing racism, and talked more frequently about history, framing issues in the past tense; First Nations talked about the here and now. And despite more focus on everyday racism, Indigenous peoples were consistently more positive and proud, rejecting 'plight' constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted issues of trust in government and experts, as citizens were asked to accept restrictions on liberties in order to slow the spread of the virus. Based on a survey of 1992 Australians conducted in May 2020, this paper reports on the attitudes of Australians toward the responses of their State and Federal governments to the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, we found support for government responses differed with partisan alignment. However, when we controlled for values differences, we found that values predicted social distancing attitudes and behaviour. This oppugns the common conclusion in political psychology that party alignment is a proxy for values. Scientists were trusted more than political institutions or actors for accurate COVID-19 information, and likewise, traditional media were preferred to online sources. These findings have implications for policy communication when individual action is required to address collective goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most established democracies, trends in political trust in recent decades have fluctuated, but have not declined strongly. Citizens' democratic attitudes in many countries have even proven to be resilient in the face of the Great Recession. Such trends contrast sharply with the observation of a gradual and continued decline of Australian's trust in politics since 2007. Using a combined file of seven Australian Election Study surveys, employing exactly comparable questions and methodologies, this paper tests two explanations – government performance and political detachment – to account for this remarkable decline. The findings show that both a lack of performance by successive governments and a broad detachment from politics matter. The findings suggest that there is no single explanation for the decline; rather, a diverse range of inter-related factors appear to be at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inheritance drives wealth concentration and economic inequality, meaning there is a strong case for wealth transfer taxation as an important element of government redistributive policy. In contrast to many OECD countries, Australia has not had estate or inheritance taxes for 40 years and little is known about contemporary public attitudes towards wealth transfer taxation. This paper draws on qualitative interviews investigating the attitudes of young adult and senior Australians towards wealth transfer taxation. Both groups supported the idea of reintroducing wealth transfer taxation in Australia, largely due to an almost universal absence of expectation that people would or should leave bequests to their descendants. These findings raise the possibility that considering the reintroduction of appropriately targeted wealth transfer taxation in Australia at a time when the Commonwealth Government is experiencing acute fiscal pressures may not generate as much public resistance as might have been assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]