The Gettysburg Address is famous for its line that democratic government should be “of the people, by the people, for the people”.
In Australia today, unlike most other western liberal democracies including the more recent examples of the United Kingdom and the state of Tasmania, we remain stuck with a system that screams “of the Party, by the Party, for the Party”.
And we have a lesser democracy because of it.
If Australian voters want to take control of the agenda of government, then it is high time we returned to the values of parliamentary democracy over executive democracy. It has been drilled into our heads by political parties in this country that the whole idea of an election is that one of the tribes – the red tribe or the blue tribe – gets executive government so that it can then, and only then, do things for us, the people.
Like a succubus, they continue to fool the Australian people and cynicism, frustration, and a weaker policy agenda runs rife as a consequence.
Take as today‟s example the issue of $38 million being spent on taxpayer funded advertising on a mining tax policy idea, where promises made at the 2007 election have been clearly broken, leaving the morality of both tribes on this topic alone, in absolute tatters.
So this “executive contest” view continues to deny the important role a local MP can and should play, and it denies the over-riding importance of the Parliament over the Executive. In George Washington‟s farewell address only 220 years ago, he urged his parliamentary colleagues to be wary and concerned about this rising phenomenon called the political party (Google it – it‟s worth a read!). So with all the standard pre-election talk about possible “hung‟ Parliaments in Australia starting to heat up again, it is timely to challenge some of this repeated mythology that our major political parties promote as fact at this point of the political cycle.
1. “Hung” as a concept.
The original concept of a Parliament has been around a lot longer than the concept of the political party. Democracy has existed in many forms since man has been able to think rationally, and a hung Parliament was never a perceived or real problem until the concept of the political party arrived.
The term “hung parliament” implies that voters want power to rest in the hands of a majority political party, rather than with the Parliament. Yet in the upcoming Australian election, voters will elect 150 local members, who will have promoted themselves, as night follows day, as local MP‟s who will be voting in their electorate‟s and their nation‟s best interests.
No other issue, including their party’s agenda, should matter. Indeed, it should be seen by local electors as borderline treason if a local MP votes against the best interests of their electorate or country and votes against these pre-election promises, due to some self-interest or political party interest. This can be argued as the all-pervading problem in Australian politics today, and a problem deserving of push-back from the people. I am pleased Newspoll is now starting to show the push-back is on.
Under the original concept of a Parliament, every new MP was unaligned and the Parliament was therefore “very hung”. No one group could exercise control over the rights of the individual MP, nor take authority off the Parliament itself. Open negotiation and compromise on the parliamentary floor was difficult but welcome, and it was certainly a superior system to the alternative we see in Australia today, whereby deals are done behind closed doors, away from the eyes and ears of voters. An active, alive floor of Parliament is democracy at its best, not worst, and unfortunately only seen today in the form of conscience votes, or hung parliaments.
A hung Parliament is therefore a concept created by political parties, to help entrench their role and kill the concept of a living, breathing, transparent (and therefore accountable) Parliament. Following this year‟s national ballot, if elected MP‟s, regardless of party affiliation, fulfil their duty in Parliament and put their electorate and their nation first in their voting patterns, then Australia will be stronger and healthier without a majority political party in charge, And this outcome should be celebrated, not feared.
2. A hung Parliament means the “balance of power” rests in the hands of a few.
Rubbish. This will only occur if political parties vote in block and along ideological party lines that are at odds with their duties as local MPs. Every MP has the balance of power in their hands if a Parliament is so tight as to make the concept itself an issue. It then becomes an issue of who wants to use this power, where, and why – all in the public domain on the floor of Parliament and all within the direct gaze of the people, transparent and therefore accountable.
3. A hung Parliament is a slow, chaotic, unstable, and bad Parliament
I am forever reminded by my NSW State colleague and Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, that between 1991 and 1995, when the NSW Parliament had no clear majority party in charge, more legislation passed in that four year period than at any time in its history. Compare the current frustrations in NSW regarding dodgy planning decisions and how they relate to political party funding, where a majority political party runs the show, compared with the period from ‟91-„95 where a charter of budget honesty was in place due to the fact the Parliament had authority over the executive – the fact that “balance of power” forces an open, transparent process, and is not an indicator of a weaker policy agenda. If anything, it’s the opposite.
I, for one, therefore argue the important return of the authority of the Parliament within Australian politics. And I am not alone. Prior to their recent break-out elections, the UK’s House of Commons was going through a similar battle where the Parliament was resisting executive authority and asking for control back under the Standing Order 14 debate (again, Google it – its interesting!). This wrestle for authority between Executive Ministers and the people‟s Parliament has no clear winner yet, but expect even more of this and greater reform now that David Cameron runs a minority Government. Parliamentary back-benchers in the UK have for some time been pushing back on behalf of electors and, in my view, not a moment too soon. Now with the Cameron-Clegg ticket, we will see the floor of the Parliament come alive in the UK and the more power to them.
Not only the UK’s new Parliament and the work that has already been happening on Standing Order 14, not only the new Tasmanian Parliament, but even more importantly, just about every other western democracy in the world are all examples of where the current Australian 2-party system is proven wrong on a daily basis. We get told the old Chicken Little line that the “sky will fall in” if people don‟t vote Liberal or Labor in Australia. Newspoll is saying the joke is up, and we’ll be stronger if the voter stays strong and continues the rejection of the “big two‟ through to actual voting day.
From Rob Oakeshott’s website HERE (The date it was written is unstated, but it was pre-poll).
Ross Gittins, SMH:Sorry but I’m not convinced a hung parliament is a terrible thing. It may end up being a good thing. I see it as the revolt of thinking voters against an election campaign that was aimed almost exclusively at unthinking voters. Labor’s been given an almighty kick in the pants but there was no enthusiastic embrace of the Liberals, whose campaign was almost completely negative. The parties should take it as a warning that if they want to win sufficient votes to form government in their own right next time, they should offer more sensible policies and arguments. The big winner is the emerging third party, the Greens: Revolution of the thinking voter turns politics green
First published: 2010-08-23 06:45 PM
