Threats to Democracy

Lawlessness:

Lawlessness is the defiance of the law. As Australia is built upon the rule of law, lawlessness breaks the foundation of liberal democracies and leads to others thinking they can do whatever they want without consequences. They will believe they can riot, loot, burn and harm others as the law doesn’t apply to them as they are ‘immune’ to the rule of law. This will lead Australia to crumble as chaos takes over if nothing prevents this from becoming extreme. Lawlessness leads to corruption and organised crime which undermines the freedoms and rights of people and disregards the rule of law that everyone is equal. It leads to mayhem, disorder, and the fall of a nation as it impacts the economy, increases crime rates and removes the law enforce system. Lawlessness deters other countries from wanting to invest or trade with the country as they seem unstable and can’t contain and regulate their people. Due to the disruptions it leads to business failing or operations seizing. Lawlessness generally occurs due to the lack of moral compass, or the gain is better than the consequences or they are forced into the situation or aren’t educated on how it’s wrong. An example of this is in the Kimberley town of Halls Creek crime rates doubled from 2017 to 2018. Residence have spoken out in 2018 after kids slashed the tyres of police cars after police attended to a recent burglary. Adolescence was throwing rocks at the house while the cops were searching, which took a dad to come yell at them to stop at 3 in the morning before disbursing. This was one of the few lawless activities’ kids were taking to in the small town. From bins being set a light to people not being able to sleep with the fear of a break in, the residents of Halls Creek have stated things are getting out of control.

Media Bias:

Media bias is when the media present prejudice information to the public meant to influences their views. This affects democracy due to creating narrow minded citizens by them only receiving one-sided information about topics which can make them believe that what is happening is good or bad. For example when it comes to politics the Western Australian newspaper is more liberal party leaning which leads them to post more support or shed the liberal party is better light, which means they can be omitting the good, bad and the ugly of the liberal party as well as other parties such as the labour party. This also makes the public create decisions about topics with incomplete information, this denies the public balanced information that a democracy requires. It can spread misinformation and disinformation undermining trust in public intuition. Examples of this can be seen with the 2015 Malcom Turnbull election where Mr Turnbull was being slandered by news corporations placing him in a negative light with the polices he put in place, influencing the public to view him unfavourably which diminished his credibility. Another instance of this happening was when the ABC reported on renewables and claimed Australia was excelling with recycling omitting the fact that huge amounts of toxic waste was being dumped into lakes that had have turned into toxic waste lands. The ABC did this to ensure trust amongst Australian and the government leading a false lie about what was really happening.