Can Australian politics be rebooted?

by Nance Haxton

PolicyInnoHub
Sep 3, 2018 · 4 min read
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The tumultuous nature of partisan politics combined with a lack of diversity in parliament is destroying important Westminster conventions, one of Australia’s leading political analysts says.

Griffith University Professor of Politics says the suspension of Federal Parliament as a political tactic during the latest battle for the Prime Ministerial leadership is of the greatest concern.

She will speak on at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“What I do think is shocking, is that people who would purport to be conservative, who would invoke the Westminster system at every juncture then treat it with fundamental disrespect,” Professor Tiernan says.

“It’s an organic set of understandings, a very flexible concept that embodies a few key principles. The fact that there was no accountability to the parliament was a radical break with that and I was surprised, that I do get very concerned about.

“I was disappointed to see how little coverage there was of that yawning chasm of accountability — a very disturbing development. I think that shows a disrespect that concerns me is at the heart of adversarial politics. And people hate it. That’s what’s showing up in all the data.”

“People woke up again for the fifth time in five years shocked and disappointed that they hadn’t had any say about the prime ministership. The Commonwealth remains the only jurisdiction now where it’s the prerogative of the prime minister to call an election whenever they want to.”

She says the battle for the Prime Ministerial leadership of the nation highlighted the need for Australians to actively participate in democracy, and not simply sit back and watch it play out.

“I think the whole diversity of the parliament question is obviously one that’s been really important for a long time but will now have much more salience,” she says.

“And that diversity is not only about gender it’s also about background and experience.

“Because if you look at some of the plotters back in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd days, in this Abbott-Turnbull scenario they’ve often been quite junior backbenchers who are professional student politicians and I think people are really starting to react against that.

“You can’t be an audience democrat. You have to get involved and demand better.”

She says women and young people were the most alienated by what she terms “hyper-partisan politics”.

“It’s actually been the last ten years of this kind of leadership churn and that’s reflected in people’s strong sense of disenchantment,” she says.

“Tony Abbott — the protagonist behind the scenes in last week’s leadership spill — has said the age of the assassin is over, but we’re seeing extraordinary recriminations within the party.

“Women and young people were really being forgotten in this whole scenario and I think they’re some of the most disaffected.”

She says better diversity in federal parliament is crucial, not just on the basis of gender but also people’s background, to reduce the influence of “professional student politicians”.

“People are starting to react against that,” Professor Tiernan says. “Labor must not be able to believe its luck.

“This whole structural question about the political parties and their capacity to reform themselves to avoid these kind of debates and have more tolerant differences of opinion instead of this extreme kind of view that you get from the rise of the career politician.

“But of course, my research would tell you that they don’t learn, they can’t learn, they are absolutely incapable of learning so can Australian politics be rebooted? It’s a tough one”

She says she is stunned by the disrespect being shown to important Australian institutions.

“I think we need to take really seriously our political institutions and our processes,” she says.

“This is what the hyper-partisans can’t do — they don’t know how to operate the machine.

“There was some constitutional radicalism last week in terms of a real disrespect for the Westminster system I thought in the adjourning of parliament — I was genuinely shocked by that.

“Because those rules that are inherent to a system of responsible government are that the Minister needs to account to the parliament, and there was no parliament to hold the Minister to account to. So that’s really bizarre.”

She says the argument about whether we should consider directly electing our Prime Minister as an alternative to the current system, opens a complicated can of worms.

“There are parts of our system of government in Australia where leaders are directly elected,” Professor Tiernan says.

“You can change the rules about who elects the parliamentary leader but you would want to be very careful I think about making a prime minister formally a president, we haven’t had that debate and that opens the whole republican question.”

She says the aftermath effects of the change of Prime Minister are felt for some time, and come at a great cost.

“The flow on consequence of a change of prime minister, and a change of cabinet, is that you have machinery of government changes, you have massive disruptions to institutional memory, personnel and so forth,” she says.

“We just had the mega department of Home Affairs created, now Immigration’s been pulled out of it. So there’s a lot of instability in those arrangements, that means the flow of advice and decision making is very difficult. “


The Machinery of Government

Independent analysis from Australia's best political scientists and policy researchers with a focus on politics, policy, and governance.

PolicyInnoHub

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Independent expert analysis and insights from Australia’s best political scientists and policy researchers.

The Machinery of Government

Independent analysis from Australia's best political scientists and policy researchers with a focus on politics, policy, and governance.

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