As for transparent public debate — that is the role which should be filled by the minor parties, independents and particularly the opposition. I’m not sure why government MPs should be expected to publically debate against each other.

Why is it good if a proposal gets endlessly debated, amended and passed back and forth between Houses for months, and then finally it gets vetoed by a single person at the top?

On the Parliamentary ‘borg’ — I consider that a consequence of our rigid two-party system rather than a necessary consequence of a Parliamentary constitution. In any case, policy discussion and decision-making gets subsumed into the party room discussions rather than the Parliament — it doesn’t mean that Turnbull has no influence on policy whatsoever.

Well, the problem is in a representative democracy, the people making the decisions should be ones chosen by the people to represent them. If someone can be part of the Executive without being elected, that breaks that principle.

Another problem with having a technocrat Executive is that those in charge think they are always right. And that sometimes makes you blind to good advice from others (cf. Donald Rumsfeld).

Cam:

I suppose I don’t understand why we need innovation in constitutional areas given that what we have works pretty well at the moment. Why is re-electing Congress and 1/3 of the Senate every two years while leaving the Executive intact for four years inherently more democratic than re-electing the entire legislature and executive every three years? For that matter, why do we want a single person in charge of our affairs at all?

BTW, you say:

Am I arguing for a separate executive and a Presidential system for the Australian Federal government? Yes. The argument against Presidential systems is that they are less stable than Parliamentary ones, this is mainly because the Parliament collapses two branches into one giving the Prime Minister greater power than a President has. Pseudo-tyrants and one-party states can exist in a Parliamentary system, they cannot in a Presidential one.

I’ve read this many times, and I still can’t make it make sense. Parliamentary systems are more stable because the PM has more power? Have you switched nouns somewhere accidentally?

Queensland recently formalised their constitution into one document. Prior to that it was spread over multiple acts in the typical spaghetti code westminster style. Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania still do not have formal constitutions, their enabling acts IIRC are old British ones that mainly mention electoral boundaries.

I would also argue that the Democrats are a modern aberration. The multi-member preference system existed in the Senate since 1949, and it wasn’t until 1980 that the Democrats established themselves in the Senate as a third party broker. All the tinkering that has been done with electoral techniques and enfranchisement have been self-serving to the incumbent. They have nearly all back-fired too.

The classic one is Chifley changing the Senate from a FPTP party-block to preferential. Labor hasn’t had a Senate majority since. The only altruistic change in that area I know of was when Steele Hall abolished mal-apportionment in South Australia with the knowledge that it would cost him his government.

- one of the best methods of determining an electorate’s preferred candidate (full preferential voting)
- one of the best ways to promote minority party representation in the Senate (a quota system)
- executive government that must answer to the people on their performance via elections

As you can probably guess, I am against the separation of the executive from the legislature. The reason is simple: if an executive member of government can be voted out, they will tend to act in accordance with the wishes of their constituency. Even Ministers in safe seats have to be careful because they will have a support base and Cabinet Colleages in other seats that may not be safe. By extension, Ministers tend to act broadly in line with the wishes of the community.

I suppose the drawback to this system is that this produces a tendency towards focusing on the short-term rather than the long-term.

 
Ken: I would argue that Ministerial advisors mostly fill the requirement for non-elected expertise in the Ministries.

Also, I think that there really isn’t a need for excluding the Senate from the Ministry since minor parties can wield a big stick with only 17% of the vote. Dedicating a whole chamber to being a “house of review” is only really necessary when there is no feasible way to elect independent candidates.

In reality, I would have thought that our current majority control in the Senate is an anomaly and unlikely to continue once a new party steps in to fill the void left by the Democrats.

If we do stick with the Westminster we still need an overhaul of the constitution anyway so that we make the Senate the formal ‘Legislative’ and the House a party dominated Executive with Question Time. Another one that immediately springs to mind is Senate confirmation of judicial appointments.

although it might be worth considering emulating the South African Constitution in this respect and allowing for a minority of Ministers to be drawn from outside parliamentary ranks (to enahnce the talent pool).

The Imagining Australia folks suggested this too, but again, if we are going to go to these contortionist lengths to make the Westminster system like a Washington system, why not separate the Executive out, get full separation of powers and make three powerful (political and media) figures in the Executive, Senate and House Majority Leader. The House will still have exclusive dominance over money bills, which incidentally I think is the main leverage the US Democrats will have over the US President.

The Westminster has served us well, but only because we are committed to liberal democracy, not because we are committed to the Westminster system itself. We could probably make dictatorship work. If Australia had despotism it would probably be pretty polite and benevolent – might even have the Department of Lawn Mowing.

The Westminster is a historical hack to neuter the executive power of the monarch. It was never really intended to be that way, it happened because British politicians couldn’t divorce the developing British nation or the church of England from the King. Its success is a spaghetti code of convention, statutory plug-ins, constitutional grafting and liberalist good manners.

I certainly think a constitutional amendment that:

(a) strengthens the role of the Senate by vesting in it (say) functions of ratifying treaties and federal judicial appointments; and
(b) prohibits Senators from holding ministerial/executive office;

would be well worth considering. In fact that would achieve a complete separation of half of the legislature from executive government. If we then also expanded the Senate’s size (which either means deleting the nexus provisions or also increasing the size of the Reps), thereby decreasing the quota for election as a Senator in an ordinary half-Senate election, we would also probably get greater representation of Independents and minor parties in the Senate. That should also assist in developing further a political culture where the Senate exercises a real independent oversight function in relation to the executive government. Many observers already argue that Australia’s Senate committee system worked far better than the US system, at least until Howard got his majority last year and started tinkering with it.

I don’t see any persuasive functional/constitutional design reason to dismantle the Westminster responsible government system so far as it relates to the House of Reps, although it might be worth considering emulating the South African Constitution in this respect and allowing for a minority of Ministers to be drawn from outside parliamentary ranks (to enahnce the talent pool).

I am not arguing for the process of impeachment. I am also not romanticising the US system of governance, but it does have constitutional aspects which I believe we should innovate upon. Most of the things we have adopted outside of the Westminster tradition have been taken directly from the Washington System. If we have a citizen’s council or some other non-political means to dismiss/impeach a separate executive – fine – whatever works best.

I don’t think we have to accept that the Executive and Legislative are one and the same due to the political organisation of parties. The way Australia has structured itself electorally is far superior to the US, so if we adopted the US system verbatim I reckon we would get superior outcomes to the US. But the US has its own independent bodies, GAO being a good example, the AEC and NSW’s ICAC play important roles outside of the political partisan theatre. ICAC has actually liked an informal term-limits act, removing Greiner and indirectly Carr.

There is a roll for that. I think, however, a separate executive is a weaker executive because of the legislative’s independence. In the Australian Washminster mutation I expect we would see improved outcomes immediately if we the Senate was excluded entirely from the Executive Cabinet.

Yes, but compare that with the functional structure of the US system. Executive and legislature are separated, but the function of dismissing the executive government is vested in the legislature, and both executive and legislature are mostly hopelessly politicised/corrupted by the party political system and the influence of big money and the perks of power. There is quite a lot to be said in favour of a system like Australia’s, which effectively accepts that the political arms of government (executive and legislature) are unavoidably and inextricably interwoven by party politics and the realities of power, and which therefore vests the executive government dismissal function in a person who is essentially outside day to day politics, and then vests the dismissal of that person in turn in another person who is also outside day to day politics. Exactly how both those “outside politics” officeholders are selected is another question and a hotly contested one, but that doesn’t affect my overarching argument that vesting the power of dismissing the executive government in a body or person outside day to day politics is an excellent design feature, and superior to the US system.

Yes but we now mention parties explicitly in the Australian Constitution because the convention of appointing a Senator of the same party was broken in the run-up to the dismissal.

In the meantime, a “lame duck”

It is mainly because the Executive is split across four constitutional personas; five if you include the Prime Minister who is not mentioned in the Australian Constitution.

I’m not saying that mid-term US elections are irrelevant, just that one can overstate their effectiveness as democratic checks on executive power, and that they aren’t decisively superior to the Australian system where the entire government can be removed and replaced every 3 years.

Consequently, in the Australian Constitution, the Governor-General can dismiss an Executive Council, but the Executive Council can recommend the dismissal of the Governor-General in Council who must take that advice.”

Cam, this passage is a bit confused. First it ignores the role of conventions as to constitutional conduct in a Westminster system. As a matter of convention the G-G can only act independently of EC advice in relation to a small number of his/her powers and functions, and even then only in a very limited number of circumstances: serious illegality in governance that can’t effectively be dealt with by the courts; loss of confidence of House of Reps; prolonged inability to obtain supply (the Whitlam November 1975 situation).

Now, one may reasonably criticise this structure for being based on convention rather than any legally enforceable mechanism, but in fact it would work very well if the person who was envisaged as the Head of State (i.e. the Queen) was an Australian and taking part in constitutional processes as envisaged. The problem in 1975 was that Kerr apparently decided to keep the Queen out of the picture for whatever reason (whether nationalism, hubris or a misguided desire not to embroil her in political controversy). If our system had an Australian occupying the Queen’s circuit-breaker role in relation to dismissal of the G-G, then the G-G could viably discharge his/her government-dismissing role without fear of pre-emptive dismissal.

What your above passage misstates/misunderstands is the proposition that “the Executive Council can recommend the dismissal of the Governor-General in Council who must take that advice.” In fact the Prime Minister can recommend the G-G’s dismissal to the Queen, who must ultimately take that advice but who is also expected to insist on being fully informed of the circumstances and may take the time to advise and warn the PM about the consequences of his/her action if she disagrees. Thus, in a 1975 situation but with a local Head of State who everyone accepted as having a legitimate and central role in such a situation:

(a) Kerr would have consulted the HoS before acting;
(b) the HoS would certainly have directed/advised Kerr to warn Whitlam in advance that he faced sacking if he didn’t get supply by a nominated time;
(c) if Whitlam had then tried to advise the HoS to pre-emptively sack Kerr, the he/she (assuming his/her agreement that the basis for Kerr’s proposed action and his manner of carrying out his constitutional function had been proper) would no doubt have taken sufficient time in advising, warning and insisting on being fully informed as to give Kerr the time to discharge his dismissal function.

Thus, with a local HoS (independent dismissal arbiter) sitting above/alongside the G-G/President, this aspect of Australian constitutional design would in fact be a genuine and extremely functional check and balance, not a “race condition and an indication of poor design”. It is our failure to completely break free of the Imperial apron strings, coupled with treating the monarch as if he/she had no real role in the system (in order to maintain the bizarre Tory pretence that we should maintain the monarchy because the Queen doesn’t actually do anything except provide filler for the Women’s Weekly), that turns it into a poor design feature. In fact, with a local HoS/independent dismissal arbiter alongside the G-G/President, Australia’s constitutional system would have a much superior executive government dismissal system to the hopelessly politicised US Presidential impeachment mechanism.

You’ve advocated a change ostensibly to tame party discipline, but haven’t demonstrated how your proposals do that. Further, party discipline isn’t all bad – it can lead to stronger government, and sometimes you want a government to be able to make unpopular decisions and then return to the electorate a few years later with something to show for it. America is well known for the extent to which it’s political system is gridlocked between interests and this is generated in substantial part by a lower level of party discipline than Westminster typically produces – or at least than we’ve produced with Westminster.