[LINK] Not-Quite-On-Topic: 'Elective Monarchy'

[Roger Clarke]

[I wish a couple of the current 'National Living Treasures'
http://www.nsw.nationaltrust.org.au/treasureslist.html
would hurry up and depart, to make room for Harry Evans]

A day spent in the public gallery would shock the founding fathers
The Sydney Morning Herald
OpEd Piece
Date: June 21 2005
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/06/20/1119250926616.html

Parliament should be a place of debate, not a rubber stamp for the 
prime minister, writes Harry Evans.

WHEN the legislation about research on human embryos passed Federal 
Parliament in 2002, several Government members expressed their 
gratitude to the Prime Minister who, in his kindness and wisdom, had 
allowed them a free, or conscience, vote. No one pointed out the 
bizarre implication of these statements for the system of government: 
the prime minister determines how the electors' representatives vote.

If any of the framers of the constitution were brought back to life 
and heard these statements, they would be amazed, and would ask how 
the system they devised had come to this.

Their basic principle, as one of them expressed it, was that the 
law-making power should never be vested in a single authority, 
whether a single man or a single assembly, because that is the 
definition of tyranny. Their constitutional structure aimed to 
distribute power to prevent its abuse and the corrupting effect it 
would have if it were absolute.

They could point out in their handiwork a range of institutions 
designed to divide power: the governor-general, the local 
constitutional monarch, could act as a supreme umpire when 
appropriate; the executive government, the ministry, would be 
responsible to the House of Representatives, so that the House could 
remove it at any time; law-making would be divided between the House 
and the Senate, differently reflecting the votes of the electors in 
their states; power would be divided between federal and state 
parliaments; the High Court would act as the guardian of the 
constitution.

It would be painful indeed to explain to our revived founder how this 
structure has deteriorated: the governor-general is hired and fired 
by the prime minister; the prime minister, who is the executive 
government, controls the House of Representatives through an 
ever-reliable party majority; the Senate has been a restraint on the 
prime minister's will when his party has not had a majority there; 
the federal government has been able to take over virtually any state 
functions; High Court judges are appointed by the prime minister with 
regard to their ideological persuasion.

That would be depressing enough for him, but we would then have to 
tell him that a government recently gained a party majority in the 
Senate.

But what does the Parliament do? he would ask. Answer: members act as 
a cheer squad for their leader, and non-government parties are 
overridden in every contested vote. Why do the electors tolerate this 
situation? he would cry. Answer: because they generally only have the 
information the government is pleased to give them through its vast 
media-management network, and, in any case, they have come to believe 
this is how the system works. They have only the ability to change 
one autocrat for another, if they can get around the incumbent's 
propaganda.

Our founder would recognise this system as more like one he thought 
had long gone. We would have to concede our government has become 
more like an early modern autocracy: the monarch rules from his royal 
court (the prime minister's office) and while he might consult his 
courtiers, his will is the law. The power and influence of those 
courtiers depend on how close they are to the throne and to the 
monarch's ear.

In an extreme situation, the palace guard (the government party) may 
depose the king and replace him with another, who will carry on the 
same system. We no longer have parliamentary government in any 
meaningful sense of the term.

The system is justified on a "mandate" theory, the claim that, by 
electing a government, the electors endorse everything it has said it 
will do and everything it does in the future. The absurdity of 
supposing that the voters give a blank cheque to their rulers has 
long been exposed by political analysts. More significant is the 
point that this theory leaves no role for a Parliament, or for any 
other constitutional restraint on government.

Before shuffling off to his immortal abode, our resurrected founder 
would probably demand to know what we are going to do about it. There 
are no obvious solutions, only analyses of the problem which might 
lead to solutions.

The first step is to persuade enough people that the system was not 
meant to be like this, and should not be like this. Parliament is the 
key weak link.

Government members should not feel they have to support the 
government on every vote. Members of other parliaments do not abide 
by this alleged rule. It is not the case that a government defeated 
on a vote in the House of Representatives must resign or go to an 
election; that is a prime ministerial bluff. Members can vote against 
their government on a particular matter while still supporting its 
remaining in office. That is not a violation of the Westminster 
system; it happens in other places supposedly following that system.

The record of 57 of the 104 years of Federation, when governments did 
not have majorities in the Senate, shows that government is not 
paralysed when it does not control that chamber.

In the last Parliament only six pieces of legislation remained 
finally deadlocked, out of the 200-odd a year which are passed, 
sometimes with amendments the government reluctantly accepts. The 
legislation which remains deadlocked in any Parliament is usually of 
high ideological content lacking broad community support.

The inability of governments to pass this legislation is a small 
price to pay for a House which is, by virtue of not being under 
government control, able to make the government accountable and to 
inquire into matters of public concern. Giving a monopoly of power to 
one party is not the essence of good government but, under the way 
our parties operate, a sure route to corruption and misrule.

In short, people have to demand that their elected representatives 
actually represent them, and not settle for choosing between 
autocrats every three years.

Harry Evans is clerk of the Senate.

__________________________________________________________________________

[Yesterday the Herald commenced an (excellent!) assault on the 
Government's failure to even respond to large numbers of Committee 
reports, let alone to implement their recommendations.  Its lead 
story on page 1 today continues the attack by featuring Harry 
lambasting the monarchic style adopted by the Prime Ministers of the 
last, say, 10 years or so]


Senate boss blasts PM's monarchy
The Sydney Morning Herald
Date: June 21 2005
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2005/06/20/1119250927991.html
By Gerard Ryle, Lisa Pryor and Mark Metherell

The Australian Parliament has deteriorated into a form of elective 
monarchy where the Prime Minister "rules all he surveys", says the 
most senior public servant in the Senate, Harry Evans.

In remarkably frank reaction to Herald revelations that parliamentary 
inquiries are being ignored by the Government, Mr Evans, the Clerk of 
the Senate, says it is time the public insists on better 
representation.

Writing in the Herald today, he argues: "We no longer have 
parliamentary government in any meaningful sense of the term."

On radio yesterday, Mr Evans likened John Howard to a king and said 
people needed to be more sophisticated about what they expected from 
their elected representatives. "There is in Australia an enormous 
concentration of power in the Prime Minister," he told 2UE. "People 
don't realise this, that we really have a sort of elective monarchy 
where, you know, you elect the monarch and Š [he] rules all he 
surveys."

While voters solidly support the Howard Government and gave it a 
clear majority in both houses of Parliament, Mr Evans argues that 
this does not give the Prime Minister the right to dictate how his 
MPs should vote on every issue.

Calling Parliament the weak link, he writes that Government MPs 
should not support it on "every note" and urges voters to demand 
their "elected representatives actually represent them, and not 
settle for choosing between autocrats every three years".

Mr Evans has a reputation for being impartial but also a fierce 
defender of parliamentary process. He has been tough on Coalition and 
Labor governments.

Yesterday the Herald revealed that millions of taxpayers' dollars had 
been wasted on more than 70 parliamentary inquiries whose 
recommendations had been left to collect dust. Forty-six of these 
were Senate inquiries, some dating back to 1997.

The Government Senate leader, Robert Hill, defended its record by 
saying many of the upper house inquiries were designed to embarrass 
the Government. "In relation to proper bipartisan reports, they are 
taken seriously by the Government. Most have in fact been responded 
to, certainly not always within the very strict time limited that are 
required Š We take the task of responding to genuine parliamentary 
reports seriously."

However, today the Herald details how the Government has not even 
responded to inquiries that it has ordered - 27 of them in the House 
of Representatives since December 1998. It is supposed to respond 
within three months but some of these inquiries date back six years. 
They include reports on the 2003 bushfires, crime, substance abuse 
and salinity.

The Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, said: "There's a whole range of 
issues which from time to time have deeply concerned and worried the 
Australian population and this Government has treated them all in the 
most cavalier fashion in its arrogance."

A coalition of community groups burnt by the inquiry process will 
form a watchdog group to monitor how the Federal Government responds. 
To be known as the Parliamentary Action Group, it will check whether 
it replies within three months, as it promised in 1996. The groups 
met yesterday at the Ashfield Uniting Church, led by the Reverend 
Bill Crews of the Exodus Foundation.

But the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, said people who went to the 
trouble of giving evidence to committees should not think their 
efforts were in vain as many government policies "are subtly 
moderated because of the kind of evidence that parliamentary 
committees take". A 2003 Senate inquiry had been taken into account 
in the Government's "strengthening Medicare" changes.


Story Picture: Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, stands with Committee reports.


-- 
Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
			            
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Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, UNSW
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science,  Australian National University