| rdfs:comment | - Silencing Dissent: How the Australian Government is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate is a 2007 Australian book, edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison. Hamilton and Maddison argue that during its decade in power, the federal Coalition government in Australia has systematically dismantled democratic processes, stymied open and diverse debate and avoided making itself accountable to Parliament or the community. Dissenters, even of the non-threatening variety, have found themselves sidelined, intimidated or publicly attacked, including via parliamentary privilege. All of this, Maddison states, reflects not merely a government enforcing its particular version of democracy but amounts to a serious deterioration of Australia's democratic health.
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| abstract | - Silencing Dissent: How the Australian Government is Controlling Public Opinion and Stifling Debate is a 2007 Australian book, edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison. Hamilton and Maddison argue that during its decade in power, the federal Coalition government in Australia has systematically dismantled democratic processes, stymied open and diverse debate and avoided making itself accountable to Parliament or the community. Dissenters, even of the non-threatening variety, have found themselves sidelined, intimidated or publicly attacked, including via parliamentary privilege. All of this, Maddison states, reflects not merely a government enforcing its particular version of democracy but amounts to a serious deterioration of Australia's democratic health. The book's thesis is that "the apparently unconnected phenomena of attacks on non-government organisations, the politicisation of the public service, the stacking of statutory authorities, increasing restrictions on academic freedom and control over universities, the gagging or manipulation of some sections of the media, and the politicisation of the military and intelligence services form a pattern that poses a grave threat to the state of democracy in Australia".
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