Friday 2 December 2011

Australian Collaboration

Australian Collaboration ~ A Collaboration of National Community Organisations


Arms: The overall aim of the Australian Collaboration is to help to achieve an integrated and sustainable ecological, social, cultural and economic environment in and outside Australia.

What is corporate lobbying?

 What is Corporate Lobbying?

Corperate lobbying is what the corporations and firms in the country try to take action and influence the government in some way in order to get interest or run for a campaign by the chairman of the corperation.
 

Who are the Corporate Lobbyists in Australia?
 
The Australian Register of Government Lobbyists and the associated Lobbying Code of Conduct can be viewed online at: http://lobbyists.pmc.gov.au
 
The Australian Government Lobbyists Register:

From 1st July 2008 onwards, all individuals and organizations who conduct lobbying activities or whose employees conduct Government lobbying activities on behalf of a client have to submit their details, including their clients names, to a public register. There are certain exclusions, but the rules are fairly comprehensive. 

The register covers all parties who represent clients in dealings with the Australian Public Service, Minsters or their staff, Government agencies and a number of other types of people.

Thursday 1 December 2011

What is Lobbying? (From Wikipedia)

What is Lobbying?

Lobbying (also lobby) is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies.

Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or advocacy groups (interest groups).

Lobbyists may be among a legislator's constituents, meaning a voter or bloc of voters within his or her electoral district, or not; they may engage in lobbying as a business, or not. Professional lobbyists are people whose business is trying to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest who hires them.

Individuals and nonprofit organizations can also lobby as an act of volunteering or as a small part of their normal job (for instance, a CEO meeting with a representative about a project important to his/her company, or an activist meeting with his/her legislator in an unpaid capacity).

Governments often define and regulate organized group lobbying that has become influential.
The ethics and morality of lobbying are dual-edged. Lobbying is often spoken of with contempt, when the implication is that people with inordinate socioeconomic power are corrupting the law (twisting it away from fairness) in order to serve their own conflict of interest.

But another side of lobbying is making sure that others' interests are duly defended against others' corruption, or even simply making sure that minority interests are fairly defended against mere tyranny of the majority. For example, a medical association, or a trade association of health insurance companies, may lobby a legislature in order to counteract the influence of tobacco companies, in which case the lobbying would be viewed by most people as justified (duly defending against others' corruption).

The difficulty in drawing objective lines between which lobbyists are "good lobbyists" and which ones are "bad ones" is compounded by the cleverness with which lobbyists or their clients can speciously argue that their own lobbying is of the "good" kind. At heart, the effort to influence legislation is a power struggle.

As in other forms of power struggle, such as war or law enforcement, motives range from predation to self-defense to fighting for justice, and the dividing line between predation and justice is subject to rationalization.

Lobbying in Australia

Over the past twenty years lobbying in Australia has grown from a small industry of a few hundred employees to a multi billion dollar a year industry.

Lobbying has become a political fact of life and is now endemic in local, state and federal government. It is not just the local councillors, state and federal politicians being lobbied. What was once the preserve of big multi-national companies and at a more local level, property developers, has morphed into an industry that would employ more than 10,000 people and represent every facet of human endeavour.

Lobbyists must organise a pass to get access to the federal parliament. However, this is not necessary as some are simply signed in as guests of Senators or Members on the day of their visit.

When lobbyists visit most federal government departments they must also sign a register.
 The Parliamentary Pass must be signed by two parliamentarians. It is administered by the Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) and has the enforcement of the Criminal Code Act 1995.
The Pass is valid for 2 years.

There are some advocacy groups in Australia that can lobby without passes. For example in 1995, following the lobbying done by The Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association Incorporated (ARPRA) and other interested tenant organizations, the Government created new legislation to provide residential park residents with improved protection. The Residential Parks Act of 1996 became the operating tool for the conduct of residents and park owners alike. In 1998, following further lobbying for the legislative review and revision of the 1996 Act, the Residential Parks Act of 1998 became law.

From the Australian Government Website: http://lobbyists.pmc.gov.au/faq.cfm#4

A lobbyist is defined in clause 3 of the Code to mean a person, company or organisation who conducts lobbying activities on behalf of a client or whose employees conduct lobbying activities on behalf of a client.

These lobbyists are sometimes known as consultant lobbyists, or third party lobbyists.

The Code does not apply to in-house lobbyists, such as government relations staff employed by companies to make representations to Government on behalf of the company that employs them, or staff employed in peak industry bodies or trade unions who make representations to Government on behalf of their industry or their members. These people are not required to register.

Mike Daisey on "Collaborating with Corporations" (Big Ideas; ABC TV)

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/bigideas/stories/2011/11/01/3352340.htm

New York's master monologist delivers one of the best performances of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Choose life, he says, and ditch the corporation!

(Editor's Note: If you only watch one talk this year, this should be it!)...

Intro from the website:

We live in the era of the ascendancy of the corporation. Endowed with the rights of man and none of the responsibilities, they have proved corrosive to human values.

Mike Daisey argues that working inside corporations is akin to collaboration in Vichy France, and that only when we have the courage to look at the truth about these flawed creations can we bring ethics back into this sphere of life.

Daisey has been called "the master storyteller" by the New York Times for his ground-breaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance. He’s been a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as a commentator and contributor to WIRED, Vanity Fair, Slate, Salon, NPR and the BBC. Daisey has toured his performances to five continents, in venues ranging from Off-Broadway to abandoned theatres in post-Communist Tajikistan, from remote islands in the South Pacific to this one at the Sydney Opera House.


His talk at the 2011 Festival of Dangerous is titled “Sleeping With the Enemy: Collaborating with Corporations Sells Out the Human Race”. Afterwards, he is interviewed by ABC broadcaster and columnist Richard Glover.


Mike Daisey is an actor, commentator and professional monologist. His celebrated monologue performances include the critically acclaimed “The Last Cargo Cult”, the controversial “How Theatre Failed America”, the six-hour epic “Great Men of Genius”, the unrepeatable series “All Stories Are Fiction”, the international sensation “21 Dog Years”, and his latest,” The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” which also played as part of the 2011 Festival of Dangerous Ideas. His first film, “Layover”, was shown at Cannes Film Festival in 2011, and a feature film of his monologue “If You See Something Say Something” is currently in post production.

His second book, “Rough Magic”, a collected anthology of his monologues, will be published in 2011. He has won numerous awards for his work. Daisey lives in Brooklyn with his wife and collaborator Jean-Michele Gregory.

What is a corporation, what is it's purpose?

What is a corporation?

 A legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners.

Corporations enjoy most of the rights and responsibilities that an individual possesses.
That is, a corporation has the right to enter into contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets and pay taxes.

The most important aspect of a corporation is limited liability.
That is, shareholders  have the right to participate in the profits, through dividends and/or the appreciation of stock, but are not held personally liable for the company's debts.

They have privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members.

What is "Limited Liability"?

Shareholders & Employee's may lose there investments and jobs, but neither will be liable for debts to the corporation's creditors. (Creditors are the people who lend money)

What is the benefit of a Corporation?

Shareholders have the right to participate in the profits, through dividends and/or management or employees
(A bonus if the company performs well financially. Such a method is called a 'plan'.), but neither the shareholders or the employee's are held personally liable for the company's debt.

What is the purpose of a Corporation?

The Formula:
Corporation > Capital > Profit & Loss > Corporate responsibility will act in the interest of it's shareholders, instead of public's = Shareholders & Company employee's do not face the consequences of there actions.

SO, corporations are given the right (Despite not being human) to, enter into contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets and pay taxes.

And because of it's "Limited Liability", the shareholders and employee's are not held personally responsible for the company's actions. So the real purpose of a corporation is so that the people running it don't get held accountable for there actions.

After all, a corporation isn't human, and it can't go to jail.


The ""Limited Liability" of a corporation, insures that neither the Shareholders or Company employee's face the consequences of there actions.

But what is the difference between a Corporation and a Business?

Business: A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods and services (or both) to customers.
Corporation: A corporation (or company) has "Limited Liability".


What is the best way to dissolve/ destroy a corporation?

A corporation is not human. Therefore it will only exist if people work for it.

What is a corporatocracy?

The concept of corporatocracy is that corporations, to a significant extent, have massive power over governments including those governments nominally elected by the people. They exercise their power via corporate monopolies and mergers, and through their subsequent capacity to leverage broad economic interests, which allows them the luxury of being declared "too big to fail"; this is accomplished by legal mechanisms
 (i.e., lobbyists, campaign contributions to office holders and candidates, threats to leave the state or country for another with less oversight and/or more personally beneficial subsidies, etc), which renders them immune to vague accusations and prosecution.

It may also refer to an unrealized form of government or theoretical corporate governance in national or international affairs.