Federalist party promoting global peace and cooperation

It is a sad truth that many governments today are elected by and heavily rely on manipulation. Few rich and powerful people can brainwash the vast majority of us and get elected by massive (and often misleading) advertising, political spin-doctoring, selective media information or outright fraud. We live in a world where truth and honesty are rapidly becoming an “endangered species”, surrounded by an ocean of mystery, taboos, secrecy, conspiracy, mega-lies and gimmicks. This ocean is created by a gigantic propaganda machine wasting astronomical amounts of money, most of it coming out of the taxpayer’s pocket.

Unlike many poor recent examples our government shall rely on minimalist advertising strategy focused on unbiased, correct and practical information, and not self-promotion. Advertising expenditure shall be greatly reduced, strictly budgeted and distributed evenly throughout the year, rather than just before the election. Except for special circumstances (emergencies, health, natural disaster, law and order, absence of government media coverage, etc.) all government advertising shall be achieved through government media.

All government advertisements (except for urgent ones) shall be available for public scrutiny on the web (for comments and suggestions) one week before publishing. Like all other advertising material they shall go through the independent Fair Advertising Ombudsman who can stop and reject any advertisement considered misleading, partial or inappropriate.

We truly believe that knowledge is power, and we’ll be happy to empower the entire nation by providing free internet access to every household. In this way everyone (please note that some remote areas may not be covered in the initial period) can have free access to knowledge, information, email, phone (VoIP), banking and many other online services.

Like any other area of life Internet is not perfect yet and e-crime badly affects many of us. Getting rid of and protecting against hackers, viruses, spam and other malicious bugs cost us billions of dollars and hours every year. We shall introduce severe punishments for all types of e-crime ranging from heavy fines (for minor first offence) through to lengthy jail terms.

We shall provide free internet advertising for all businesses offering products and services to the public. Every business shall be able to list its products and services into categorized comparison tables where everyone can easily find all the essential information (and definitely no gimmicks) about a particular product or service.

Example: If you want to buy a certain model TV you can quickly find the nearest retailer, the best price, warranty, service and other details (the integrity of the published information shall be guaranteed by each business) Same ease of operation shall let you quickly find a plumber – location, callout fee, hourly rate, licenses, experience, services and business hours shall be listed in a simple and unambiguous way.

Thanks to new and affordable technologies unwanted marketing penetrates deeper into our private life costing us valuable time which we desperately need for business, study, relaxation, etc. Having a phone is great, but when it rings non-stop it can be very frustrating: “Congratulations! You’ve just won a 2 week holiday valued at $20 000…”(gorgeous female voice with strong Indian flavour). Do we really need all this marketing? We shall protect our privacy by enforcing “Do not call/send” lists for phone, mail and email at local and international level (by means of bilateral and other international agreements). Everyone (business or individual) who doesn’t want to be contacted by unknown businesses and organizations (except for police and emergency services) shall be able to state his/her wishes on this list. Any business or organisation ignoring the list shall face serious fines and other penalties.

We shall also:

Promote freedom of information in all aspects of life. Our open and transparent government system shall allow complete 24/7 access at all levels for public and media scrutiny. We hope that our example shall be followed by many other community and business organisations.

Encourage media diversity by restricting media agglomeration. We shall amend certain parts of the Broadcasting Services Act which reduce diversity of media ownership and opinion. Greater variety of opinion and media shall be encouraged by supporting community broadcasting and issuing additional radio and TV licences

De-monopolize the postal services and introduce fair competition in order to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Adopt measures to ensure uniform distribution (on per capita basis) of communications infrastructure across the country.

Ensure that most electronic government information is available for public use in a format that is based on free software. When such software is not available media and community representatives shall be able to visit all government offices and have access to any documentation on request.

Promote and implement ISO standards throughout all government levels and industries

Substantially increase funding to SBS and the ABC (incl. online services) allowing network modernisation, expansion and reduction of advertising adversely affecting program quality

Ensure that appointments to the boards of public broadcasters are subject to approval by the Parliament.

Ban alcohol, tobacco, gambling, junk food and X-rated advertising.

Protect individuals from vexatious and malicious defamation actions to ensure a wide range of participation in public debates.

Assure protection of anonymous journalistic sources.