A summary of the speech delivered by Clive Hamilton, executive director of the Australia Institute, to the Communities in Control conference 2004.
Clive Hamilton, executive director of the Australia Institute, in his address to delegates at the Communities in Control Conference, focussed on Australia's non-Government and community organisations (NGOs), their role in democratic society and the threats they face from government to their independence.
Dr Hamilton said that NGOs played a vital role in society and "are admired and respected not just for the services they deliver to marginalised and disadvantaged groups but for their contribution to public debate and the democratic process".
He also asserted that, given growing public disillusionment with political processes both in Australia and overseas, community organisations had given many people who are "frustrated with the political process have turned their energies to community organisations, and hope to help create a better society through them" – making them even more vital to sustaining democracy.
However, Dr Hamilton said that recently the legitimacy of NGOs and their contribution to democratic processes had come under threat. He cited recent criticism of NGOs by "right-wing Melbourne think-tank" the Institute for Public Affairs – who described them as "'selfish and self-serving' interest groups with little representative legitimacy".
He then said NGOs were also under threat from the Federal Government itself with the Government asking the IPA to carry out an audit of how NGOs relate to Government departments.
Dr Hamilton said many NGOs also felt threatened by the (now defunct) Charities Bill which had looked at restricting the advocacy pursued by community groups.
He said a study of NGOs' perceptions found that many found themselves increasingly excluded from the policy-making process. Mr Hamilton said a study of NGOs perceptions and attitudes by the Institute last year had charted these fears. Its results included:
- That 61% of NGOs surveyed said the Federal Government was their main barrier in getting their message heard. 34% said the State Government was their main barrier;
- That among NGOs with Federal Government funding, 70% reported that funding sometimes restricted their ability to comment on Government policy – with some expressing that there was an "implicit pressure" from the Government that it did fund organisations that criticised it;
- That NGOs overwhelmingly see the Federal Government, and to a lesser extent State Government, more keen to silence debate than tolerate or encourage it;
- That NGOs overwhelmingly feel that the current Australian political culture did not encourage public debate, and that those who dissented from current government policy were not valued by the government "as part of a robust democracy", and
- That almost 90% of NGOs surveyed felt that dissenting organisations were at risk of having their government funding cut.
"It would appear from the survey results presented here that, contrary to the Prime Minister's view, many NGOs are reluctant, if not afraid, to speak out. It means that the knowledge and breadth of experience collected together in this room are having much less influence on how we develop as a society than they should."