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Michael Geist is reporting that ”[t]he European Parliament has voted for a proposal to bring more transparency and public access to documents. The resolution includes specific language about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”

Acting in accordance with Article 255(1) of the EC Treaty, the European Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing international negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) publicly available.

The justification for the language is:

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will contain a new international benchmark for legal frameworks on what is termed intellectual property right enforcement. The content as known to the public is clearly legislative in character. Further, the Council confirms that ACTA includes civil enforcement and criminal law measures. Since there can not be secret objectives regarding legislation in a democracy, the principles established in the ECJ Turco case must be upheld.

Geist notes that ”[t]he vote sends a strong signal on the need to open the ACTA process and heightens the pressure on the negotiating countries to remove the veil of secrecy.”

I think that the EU Parliament is spot on when it says that ”[s]ince there can not be secret objectives regarding legislation in a democracy” we ought to make these documents public.

Late last year I put this point to DFAT:

When pressed about the secretive process, Dr Nicholas Rodgers from DFAT noted that “the procedure is not an unusual one in trade negotiations, although it is more generally applied to free trade agreements and sub-multilateral groups.” I asked Dr Rodgers what the justifications could be for keeping the negotiations confidential in an intellectual property agreement, as opposed to a trade agreement. Dr Rodgers responded that Australia was not an original proponent of the process, and did not support the secretive manner in which negotiations are taking place. However, Dr Rodgers noted that in order for Australia to 'be in the tent' – to be involved in the negotiations – we had to abide by the ground rules set down for initial participation.

While DFAT have been very helpful to the Australian public by holding public consultations and briefing sessions, the overarching requirement of secrecy was seen as beyond their control – which meant that, as DFAT saw it, they either had the choice to abide by the requirement of secrecy or not 'be in the tent'. This decision by the EU Parliament, if it carries any weight, may be the first step in changing the rules of the negotiations.

I had a great day campaigning for the Democrats on Saturday. This was my first campaign, and I'm still a bit hoarse from talking all day. I was really impressed with the support that members of all parties had for the Democrats and Andrew Bartlett – I received positive comments and well wishes from nearly every campaigner on the day. I was interested to see how voters responded to the way I was campaigning, which was a bit more aggressive than any of the other parties' campaigners. I was afraid that being too aggressive would turn people off, but I think I was able to convince some people of the benefits of an independent Senate.

[ ed: I've removed inaccurate polling results ]

The message seems to be that there is a significant proportion of voters who haven't made up their mind on polling day, and that vocal campaigning works. This confirms to me that the big problem lies in the sheer difference in size of the major parties. The ALP campaigners were particularly out in force on Saturday, followed closely by a small army of coalition campaigners. This really puts minor parties at a big disadvantage – after being greatly disadvantaged for the whole campaign (plus the months of informal campaigning) by lack of funding for advertisements, the minor parties are also significantly underrepresented at the polling booths themselves.

I was really impressed by the youdecide2007 people this election – I heard a lot of positive feedback about the informative and unbiased way they presented the candidates. I think that these sorts of organisations are perfect for restoring some balance in a dichotomous two party system.

Along with grass-roots activists like GetUp!, I have some hope for minor party campaigning through technology use in the future. The internet provides a great platform for distribution, but eyeballs are still a scarce resource – intermediaries play such a big roll that it will be difficult to achieve much balance without groups like youdecide and GetUp!. These are the focal points we need to work on in the future.

I'm probably a little less impressed with the social networking sites – I don't really have a strong feeling about how much they influence voters, but I suspect that it's much less than we think. These sites, along with the video sharing websites, are great hosts for content, but less useful for disintermediarisation. I know that people will go look for the content if they know it's there, but I'm not sure to what extent they work as viral marketing tools.

Brett Solomon from GetUp! and Andrew Bartlett at the BlogOZ conference we hosted last month. Photo by Felix42 under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Since obtaining a majority in the Senate, the Howard Government has consistently and irresponsibly acted to turn the Senate from a house of debate into a rubber stamp.

• Sitting days are lower than ever, and the amount or complexity of legislation to be considered has not decreased

• Very few amendments from other parties have been accepted. The Government refuses to debate, let alone alter its proposed legislation (20 since July 2005, compared to 215 in 2004).

The majority that Howard promised to use responsibly has consistently been used to push controversial legislation through without debate. Examples include the full privitisation of Telstra, work choices, the Northern Territory intervention, harsh immigration laws, and over-broad and redundant anti-terrorism laws.

I don't like the content of a lot of these laws, but I am even more concerned about the process.

Democracy needs reasoned debate. Howard's government has become too scared to put its policies through any form of democratic debate. The Howard Government's persistent refusal to even consider amendments to its proposed legislation is pure arrogance and myopia.

Howard's majority was not a mandate to push any conceivable piece of legislation through both houses of parliament. Our system has historically placed the Senate in a very important role in examining potential legislation and working with the government of the day to create better laws for Australia.

I'm voting for the Australian Democrats and Andrew Bartlett in the upcoming election to help restore an independent Senate. The Democrats have a fine history of examining proposed legislation without getting caught up in party politics, and this is what I believe Australia needs most right now.

For more information, see:

• Australian Democrats "Senate Watch"

• GetUp! campaign "Save Our Senate"