Toby Rowallan

A small number of people have raised the issue of Upper House reform with me recently, to which I have only been able to reply with further questions. I admit that I am certainly no expert on the issue of constitutional and parliamentary reform, and there will be those that believe there is no need to fix something that they cannot see as broken. Nonetheless I argue that our parliamentary democracy in Tasmania is broken and urgently needs fixing. What is the solution for this dilemma?

THE excellent article by Sue Neales in Saturday’s Mercury (23rd June) deserves careful consideration, although she misses one vital point. As Bob Cheek made clear in his book, Confessions Of A Ferret Salesman, the real reason the Liberal and Labor parties voted to reduce the size of parliament, was to get rid of the Greens. The number of additional advisers put on after the 1998 election meant that there was no saving of money whatsoever, which had been one excuse publicly trumpeted at the time.

Sue mentions another, which I seem to remember the late Jim Bacon using, which was that Tasmania was over-governed. Well, I suspect that many councillors and aldermen in Tasmania may not like this being mentioned, but it’s worth noting that there are twenty-nine councils in Tasmania, yet it is also a fact that the Brisbane City Council alone has a budget larger than the state government of Tasmania, not to mention a larger population!
Perhaps this is an unfair comparison, yet to me it shows that whilst we may indeed be “overgoverned”, simply looking at the number of people sitting in Parliament was a false economy. Whilst there are many people who were, unsurprisingly, glad to have less politicians around, Sue makes many points of merit in favour of increasing numbers.

Of course, in hindsight we can see that the Labor’s goal of removing the Greens was an abject failure, and not only that, actually increased the “supposed risk” of a minority government! However, the actions of the current majority Labor government prove that we would have been much better off with the check on authority that a balance of power could have provided.

That risk, the notion that political parties would be sitting around moving no confidence motions just to get their agenda up, thereby risking sending Tasmanians to another election is also ridiculous — even the Liberal and Labor parties, blessed as they are by large corporate and union donations, still have to find money to fight for elections, and would not do such a thing lightly, never mind the Greens.

It’s quite clear that the Labor and Liberal parties will always manoeuvre to ensure that the processes and procedures as made law by parliament work to their advantage, and yet the nature of parliament and the intentions set down within the Westminster system ensure that simply deciding that something is a good idea and then going ahead and doing it are two completely different things. This, despite the Premier’s likely misgivings with such idealistic notions, is manifestly a good thing, and such processes have been put in place by well-intentioned people for good reasons. However, it is also clear that these intentions and legislative processes are constantly being beaten down, not only here in Tasmania of course.

The other concern, not mentioned by Sue in her article, that of the public’s significant lack of awareness of Legislative Council elections and the role of the upper house, I believe also needs addressing. Whilst door-knocking for the last Legislative Council election I discovered, again unsurprisingly, that a number of people were unaware that an election was on, let alone what it was for, never mind who was running! All this after posters had been put up, letters sent out by the electoral commission and advertisements reminding them on TV!

A small number of people have raised the issue of Upper House reform with me recently, to which I have only been able to reply with further questions.
How can we increase the public awareness of the importance of the Upper House? How can we increase the awareness of those elections that are held every year (by rotation) in one electorate or another? Is six years an appropriate term for Legislative Councillors? My immediate thought is, probably not, I think that is too long.

However, if reform is implemented, very very careful consideration must be made first. Do we want an Upper House that is basically a mirror of the Lower House? Probably not, as this would defeat the purpose of even having it. How then do we ensure it’s independence from the Lower House?
Do we hold elections for the Upper House at the same time as the Lower House? Are there sufficient members in the Upper House?
Could (or should) we ban members of political parties from holding seats in the Upper House? How can we ensure that issues in Upper House elections are relevant to voters?

Not for nothing did Dr Kevin Bonham, in his psephological appraisé of the then upcoming upper house elections, note apologetically that there were no issues.
This was in my view a little unfair, however there’s no doubt that the media were not on-side with the contestants, for I fail to recall almost anything said by any of the candidates for either election being made public in print or even television (I admit I didn’t listen to the radio at the time). I’m quite sure that some of them, at least, were trying to get things out there through the media. In other words whilst some issues were out there, for whatever reason, they were not allowed to gain traction.

Perhaps we should therefore have a Constitutional Convention for Tasmania? I don’t believe our parliamentarians should be the only ones who decide how many politicians we have and there are many experts and interested groups who should be able to have a say. Rather than certain corporate interests dominating politics and attempting to sway everything in their favour, any future changes to the make-up of Tasmania’s parliament should be clearly explained to all voters and then put to a referendum.

Such a convention, perhaps broadly similar to the Constitutional Convention for a Republic, could come up with one or two proposals, considering both the Upper and Lower House, local government and all permutations within. I personally think that dramatic change should also be discouraged, however lessons from the past and particularly the more recent lessons should be specifically included. This would therefore include the possibility of fixed terms, state funding of election campaigns (similar to federal elections and recently introduced in Victoria — I’m unsure of what other states do), the size of the Parliament, local governments, areas of responsibility and so on.

Other significant items could (or rather should) be a bill of rights and electoral disclosure laws. That could put paid to things like “Tasmanians For A Better Future” and certain other groups we all know about. And yes, during an election that might mean groups such as the Wilderness Society and the Forest Industries Association could not advertise.

Finally, the lofty, but worthy goal of an Independent Commission Against Corruption, happily proposed by opposition parties the world over, but rarely by those in power, could be instituted at the same time. To my mind with Tasmania governed as it is, these things are unlikely to happen. However with recent events fresh in mind, and spurred by Sue Neales, the idea of reform, to evolve and improve our currently weak democracy is surely a vital one. Those in power wouldn’t want this, they will see it as a threat to their position. However if they were doing their jobs as elected representatives and were beyond reproach as they should be, then I do not believe they should feel threatened at all.

Furthermore, I do not believe they can argue that we have a strong democracy, when a public campaign gets 11,000 people on the streets of a city and they are dismissed as a misinformed and noisy minority, with their very serious concerns ignored as being simply wrong. Meanwhile a corporation apparently gets to write it’s own legislation and the alleged leader of the state asks ‘how high?’ when they say jump.

I admit that I am certainly no expert on the issue of constitutional and parliamentary reform, and there will be those that believe there is no need to fix something that they cannot see as broken. Nonetheless I argue that our parliamentary democracy in Tasmania is broken and urgently needs fixing.
What is the solution for this dilemma? I invite and look forward to comment.

Disclaimer

Toby Rowallan previously stood as a Greens candidate for Denison in the 2006 State Election.
He currently works in the Health Sector, having done so for over eleven years.
He is also currently the Convenor of the Denison Branch of the Tasmanian Greens.
The above opinions are entirely his own, and do not necessarily match that of the Tasmanian Greens.

Toby Rowallan
Mount Nelson