Hello, I’m from the Government
And I’m from the Opposition
We might not agree on much
well, apart from tax cuts for the rich
And blowing billions on nuclear subs
and outlawing peaceful protests
and screwing refugees
and doing whatever Santos tells us to
and prosecuting whistleblowers
and giving our mates plum jobs as trade commissioners
Wait, wasn’t that us?
It was both of us, stupid
Ok so we agree on most things
But if there’s one thing we really agree on, it’s preserving our
Two-Party System
Sadly our cosy duopoly is now under threat
Look: In the fifties, almost all of you voted for one of us
Good times!
But our primary vote’s been falling ever since
and at the last election barely two-thirds of you did
It’s almost like you’ve been deserting us for less-shit options
And if that continues, we won’t be able to form majority governments ever again
and be forced to share power with those guys
Eww
Sure, we could reverse this trend by winning back your votes with less-shit policies
and by having different policies to each other
But we said
yeh-naahh
let’s just change campaign finance rules to make it impossible for newcomers to get elected
Introducing Our 3 Step Plan to Ratfuck the Electoral Act
And Rig the Rules in Our Favour
STEP 1
Give ourselves a shitton more of your money
We already get millions in public funding after every election, but we figured
why not more?
Don’t all candidates get that funding?
Yep
But if you’re a newcomer, you start off with approximately…
fuck all
So, the only way for newcomers to fund an election campaign is to raise donations?
Yep
Which brings us to
STEP 2
Limit how much candidates can raise in donations
Genius
We’ll tell you we need this to stop this big sack of shit
And sure, limiting the influence of Big Money in politics is a good idea
But we’re not worried about the one loser who spent a fortune to win a single seat
We’re worried about all these newcomers who crowdfunded donations from you
and won all these seats off us
And these ones off us
What’s that, will this also limit the money we can raise?
Awww sweetie
We don’t rely on donations from you!
Most of our revenue comes from corporate membership fees
union fees
investment portfolios
MP levies
10 grand to hang out with this bellend
all of which we can exempt from being called “donations”
And if newcomers still manage to raise enough to compete with us?
That’s where STEP 3 comes in
Limit how much candidates can spend on election campaigns
Will that spending cap include the shitton our MPs get in taxpayer-funded staff, travel, ads and offices?
Of course not
We’re such *s
We are
Two-Party System!
So to sum up
Give ourselves more of your money
cap the only funding newcomers have to challenge us
and exempt ourselves from those caps
thus making it impossible for newcomers to compete with us
We know you’d never stand for this shitfuckery, so we’ll call it an “integrity reform”
and maybe throw in some good stuff so you’ll pat us on the dick for “saving democracy”
And if that sounds like an outlandish conspiracy to entrench our Two-Party duopoly forever
just remember that’s exactly what happened in Victoria
Hello I’m from the Victorien Government
Where we used to have 3 Independents in Parliament
But then we increased public funding for ourselves and capped everyone else’s revenue
and not only were no newcomers elected at the last election
we even got rid of the Independents we did have!
Amazing
Thanks for showing us the way Victoria
We need that shit at the federal level
And quick
Coz if we don’t rig campaign finance rules in our favour before the next election
we might never control this joint again
Participation in our democracy will increase
Eww
And we wouldn’t be able to keep agreeing on most things
Like keeping Jobseeker below poverty levels
and rorts that prop up the housing bubble
and defunding the NDIS
and relying on dodgy carbon credits
and approving more coal and gas
and native forest logging
and habitat destruction
and betraying renters
and our Pacific neighbours
and being totally captured by these fuckbags
And we wouldn’t want that now…
would we?
TWO-PARTY SYSTEM!
Authorised by the Department for Rigging the ERules of the Game Instead of Trying to Win it By Being Less Shit
PS.
We’re really hoping you don’t get wind of our plan before we try to ram it through Parliament
so please don’t share this video as widely as you can