Political Corruption - Elections and Beyond: Perspectives from Indonesia and Australia

Electoral Regulation Research Network Seminar

Tuesday, 23 August 2016

Speakers:

  • Denny Indrayana
  • Maxine McKew
  • Alison Byrne

About the Seminar:

Money in politics poses challenges to democracies across the world. An international study of elections held in 2015 has even reported that the most serious risks to free and fair elections stem from the failure to effectively deal with these challenges. This seminar looks at the complex ways ‘money politics’ works to subvert democracy in two very different systems in two very different societies, and asks what can be done to prevent it.

Co-sponsored by the Electoral Regulation Research Network and the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society.

The speakers

About the Speakers:

Denny Indrayana is an internationally recognised anti-corruption campaigner who has played a leading role in law reform efforts in Indonesia. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Melbourne Law School and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne and Professor of Constitutional Law at Gadjah Mada University. Before being sworn in as Vice Minister of Law and Human Rights, Denny was Special Advisor for Legal Affairs, Human Rights and Anticorruption to President Yudhoyono, Chair of the Centre for the Study of Anti-Corruption at Gadjah Mada University, and Director of the Indonesian Court Monitoring NGO. Denny has a PhD from the Melbourne Law School and won the prestigious Australian Alumni Award in 2009. He has written hundreds of articles and books.

Maxine McKew is a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute. Her career spans both politics and journalism. In 2007, Maxine wrote herself into Australian political history as only the second candidate to have ever defeated a Prime Minister in his constituency seat. She entered the Federal Parliament as the MP for Bennelong, and served as Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood and later Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Regional Development and Local Government. Before making the switch to politics, Maxine had a thirty-year career as a broadcast and print journalist, earning a reputation as one of the country’s most authoritative interviewers.

Alison Byrne is the Executive Director Funding, Disclosure and Compliance (FDC) at the NSW Electoral Commission. FDC is a multidisciplinary team responsible for regulating compliance with donations, expenditure and disclosure, election and lobbying laws. FDC also administers statutory registers under various legislation and the public funding scheme in NSW. Alison is a lawyer with 15 years’ experience in criminal and civil litigation, policy development, investigation and compliance.