International Organizations

	Recently Added
	Submission to Operation Halifax investigation into lobbying of public officials and public authorities in NSW and the related procedures and regulatory system. Political parties' responses to our two election 2010 questions on integrity and transparency Blagojevich and Legal Bribery - On the mess the USA campaign financing system has become Law Council of Australia's poll of Major Party's electoral positions on key legal issues Book Launch "Money and Politics: The Democracy We Can’t Afford Parliament of NSW Final Report: Public funding of Election Campaigns 23 March 2010 Government announces whistleblower protection scheme JOE LUDWIG 17 March 2010 Button Missen Parliamentary Integrity Awards Launch Speech - Tony Fizgerald QC No favourites in the pollie Oscars Engage, Getting on with Government 2.0: Report of the Government 2.0 taskforce LobbyLens

	ART About Us
	ACCOUNTABILITY ROUND TABLE - ABOUT US The Accountability Round Table is a non-partisan group of citizens with diverse backgrounds (academics, lawyers, politicians, journalists, authors) who are gravely concerned with the current erosion of honesty and integrity of our democratic parliamentary and governmental process. The Accountability Round Table is dedicated, in particular, to the resurrection and enlivening of the principle of ministerial accountability, that is the obligation of government ministers to be answerable and accountable the Parliament for the actions, inactions, defaults and carelessness, not only of the ministers themselves but also of all those in the minister’s office (such as advisers) and in the departments and agencies of which the ministers are head. It is an integral part of Australia’s democratic parliamentary structure that Ministers of State be members of the Parliament in which they are answerable - i.e. accountable, and accountable for performance of themselves and their subordinates. It is critical that this accountability be transparent, open and immune from hidden influences. The Accountability Round Table is mindful of the following observation of the 1976 Royal Commission (the Coombs Commission) on Australian Government administration; The evidence tends to suggest rather that while ministers continue to be held accountable to Parliament in the sense of being obligated to answer to it when Parliament so demands , and to indicate corrective action if that is for , they themselves are not held culpable – and in consequence bound to resign or suffer dismissal – unless the action which stands condemned was theirs, or taken on their direction, or was action which they ought obviously to have been concerned.

ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

About the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network

The ACE website is an online knowledge repository that provides comprehensive information and customised advice on electoral processes. The website contains in-depth articles, global statistics and data, an Encyclopaedia of Elections, information on electoral assistance, observation and professional development, region- and country-specific resources, daily electoral news, an election calendar, quizzes, expert networks and much, much more. The ACE website is freely accessible to all and the number of visitors is constantly growing - as of January 2010 the website has more than 1,2 million unique visitors per year.

I NTOSAI
International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions

The International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) operates as an umbrella organisation for the external government audit community. For more than 50 years it has provided an institutionalised framework for supreme audit institutions to promote development and transfer of knowledge, improve government auditing worldwide and enhance professional capacities, standing and influence of member SAIs in their respective countries. In keeping with INTOSAI's motto, 'Experientia mutua omnibus prodest', the exchange of experience among INTOSAI members and the findings and insights which result, are a guarantee that government auditing continuously progresses with new developments.

INTOSAI is an autonomous, independent and non-political organisation. It is a non-governmental organisation with special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.

INTOSAI was founded in 1953 at the initiative of Emilio Fernandez Camus, then President of the SAI of Cuba.

International Commission of Jurists

The International Commission of Jurists is dedicated to the primacy, coherence and implementation of international law and principles that advance human rights.

What distinguishes the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) is its impartial, objective and authoritative legal approach to the protection and promotion of human rights through the rule of law.

The ICJ provides legal expertise at both the international and national levels to ensure that developments in international law adhere to human rights principles and that international standards are implemented at the national level.

Common Cause - "Everyone's organised but the people"
More than 200,000 US based members and supporters lobby for social reform, including reforms to the US funding system for election campaigns. A citizens activist organisation founded in 1970.

Fundrace
A website of the Huffington Post that used geographic visualisation software to allow voters to check out how much their neighbours donated to political parties, and maps donation levels across the country for the 2004 US elections.

Open Secrets
An excellent guide to money in USA politics. A website of the Centre for Responsive Politics, a research body tracking political funding and donations

WIKILEAKS

WikiLeaks is a website that published anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors.

The Sunshine Press (WikiLeaks) is an non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public

PoliticalSheepDog

In its simplest description, a constituent goes to the PoliticalSheepdog.com website and registers for free. The constituent chooses from legislation associated with auctions on the PoliticalSheepdog.com website with a click of the mouse. Then, he or she bids for the amount of money that he or she desires in payment for their services as a constituent lobbyist. Later, the constituent lobbies their legislator for 5 to 15 minutes on a piece of legislation. If the legislation is passed into law and the constituent places a winning bid, then the government will pay for their lobbying services.

Financial Secrecy Index

The Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) creates a ranking which identifies the jurisdictions that are most aggressive in providing secrecy in international finance, and which most actively shun co-operation with other jurisdictions. It attaches a weighting to each jurisdiction, according to the scale of cross-border financial services activity that it hosts.

The two measures – the opacity score, and the weighting, are combined to create the Financial Secrecy Index. Nothing like this has been done before.

SourceWatch Portal: Frontgroups

A front group is an organization that purports to represent one agenda while in reality it serves some other interest whose sponsorship is hidden or rarely mentioned -- typically, a corporate or government sponsor. The tobacco industry is notorious for using front groups to create confusion about the health risks associated with smoking, but other industries use similar tactics as well. The pharmaceutical and healthcare industries use front groups disguised as "patients rights" advocates to market their products and to lobby against government policies that might affect their profits. Food companies, corporate polluters, politicians -- anyone who has a message that they are trying to sell to a skeptical audience is tempted to set up a front group to deliver messages that they know the public will reject if the identity of the sponsor is known.

Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet)

The Freedom of Information Advocates Network (FOIAnet) is an international information-sharing network of organizations and individuals working to promote the right of access to information. Members of FOIAnet are civil society organizations with active programmes to promote the right to know. FOIAnet also runs a discussion list for news and debate on the right of access to information; there are currently over 400 people on this list, including CSO representatives and lawyers, academics, information commissioners and others with a specialised interest in the right to information. The network launched and promotes International Right to Know Day which takes place on 28th September of every year.

Open Society Foundations

The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve this mission, the Foundations seek to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights.

The Technology for Transparency Network

The Technology for Transparency Network is a research and mapping project that aims to improve understanding of the current state of online technology projects that increase transparency and accountability in Central & Eastern Europe, East Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the former Soviet Union. The project is supported by the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, a donor collaborative that includes the Ford Foundation, Hivos, the International Budget Partnership, the Omidyar Network, the Open Society Institute, the Revenue Watch Institute, the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Over the past few years we have observed the formation of an expanding and increasingly global movement of technology and digital media projects aimed at promoting government transparency, accountability, and public participation in political processes.

The International Budget Partnership Open Budget Survey

The International Budget Partnership collaborates with a large and diverse network of civil society organizations around the world to fight poverty and improve governance by reforming government budget systems and influencing budget policies. At the heart of this work are efforts to make government budgeting more transparent and participatory, more responsive to national priorities, better able to resist corruption, and more efficient and effective.

In support of this collaboration, the IBP provides technical and financial assistance, comparative research opportunities, information exchange, and peer networking.

The Open Budget Survey is the only independent, comparative, and regular measure of budget transparency and accountability around the world. The 2010 Survey finds that 74 of the 94 countries assessed fail to meet basic standards of transparency and accountability with national budgets.

Our Publications

CRUCIAL TO ENSURE OPEN GOVERNMENT

Submitted by admin on Fri, 26/11/2010 - 09:35

by Tim Smith.

The full version here, published as an edited opinion piece, The Age Friday November 26th 2010.

Tim Colebatch recently criticised the Brumby Government as having “refused to run an open government” (Ballot box overflowing with choice, The Age November 23, 2010). The editor of the Sunday Age (21 November), expressed a reluctance to choose between Labor or the Coalition and concluded "if we were put up against a wall, we would say, maybe Labor, but it will need to change its ways in a

CORRUPTION - Our Policy

Submitted by admin on Fri, 27/08/2010 - 12:10

August 2010

The Anticorruption reforms that ART would like to see

The risks of corruption have been increased by: the on going increase in government control of information; the ever-increasing need for funding of political campaigns; the methods employed to obtain it and the failure to enact legislation to impose controls; the commercialisation of government services and projects; the development of lobbying and the inadequacies of the attempt to control the activity and make it transparent in a timely manner; and failure to either stop or control the flow of Ministers and their staff to the lobbying industry on retirement from their positions.

DONATIONS - Our policy

Submitted by admin on Fri, 27/08/2010 - 11:06

August 2010

The reforms to political donations that ART would like to see

The Accountability Round Table’s starting premise is that the cost of election campaigns should be borne entirely by the State

THE STATE OF ACCOUNTABILITY As at September 2009

Submitted by admin on Mon, 19/10/2009 - 00:11

September 2009

How close are we to achieving reform?
This document checks the Rudd Government's actions on:

Anticorruption
Greater Accountability of the Executive and strengthening of the role of the Parliament
Electoral Reform
Citizen Engagement and Civil Society
Human Rights

1 attachment

RENEWING ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT: Reforming Accountability in Victoria

Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/03/2010 - 10:26

November 2006
The Victorian Legislative Council, which will be reformed with effect from the
general elections on 25 November 2006, has the potential to be a major
instrument of accountability.
This discussion paper canvasses a range of reforms and revisions affecting the
accountability of ministers and governments to Parliament and citizens.