Where the rot begins

This feature suggests a way to reconcile Burke's theory of political duty, based on personal conviction, with the co-operation and support needed for any political enterprise to succeed - to reconcile the primary duty members owe the community with the duty of loyalty a political party needs to govern and to fulfil its promises. The key is in the difference between issues of principle, which are matters for conscience - and judgments of party policy, where members are free to defer to party authority and arguably have a duty, based on democratic theory, to do so.

The most plausible account of this distinction - because of its explanatory power - was that proposed by the late Ronald Dworkin in his early essays on legal theory; the difference, he argued, was in the former's use to describe the provision of group or collective benefits in pursuit of public goals, whereas principles describe the abstract standards used to justify or criticise these decisions, including the allocation of benefits and costs. We argue for policies by showing they are required by or consistent with principles such as fairness, humanity, community wellbeing etc. - we argue against them by showing they transgress these or other values we believe are important.

One can, arguably, take this distinction further: an electoral platform will typically serve the public by programs likely to benefit some but not all groups - ideally those whose needs have been neglected in the past; this incremental approach is necessary because no government will have the resources to pursue all its goals at the same time. It means choosing from among worthy policies - as when Liberals chose a four-lane Tasman highway instead of a new Hobart hospital. In such a case unity is important - it is the only way a governing party can give effect to its promises.

Issues of principle are different - the polarity of argument is different because it is not a choice between worthy goals, but a judgment whether the action is condemned by community values. In the first case no irreparable harm is done - the wrong choice will fail in its aims or cost too much or bring unwanted results, but in the second case it will violate principles all politicians profess to defend. Most decisions will be of the former kind, but from time to time a proposal to further the interests of the community will risk conflict with its values.

Whether or not this is the case must, as Burke saw, be a matter for individual judgment and conscience. Accordingly, if an elected member is convinced on the evidence that the public health system is so run down that poor patients cannot get essential care, an argument of principle arises which trumps the popular appeal and convenience of a new highway. In this case the judgment is not obvious because competing arguments of principle will support a duty to minimise death and injury on the roads.

But the responsibility to make this judgment cannot be avoided because it is difficult, and this suggests an answer to the question implicit in the title of this paper. If the distinction makes sense, and if the interests of a community are not the same as its values, and if issues of principle are matters of conscience - it is not hard to see where the rot begins: it begins with a theory which asks politicians to treat a leader's views as more important than the community values they claim to defend. But if they ignore these values they can only dissemble when asked about decisions they believe are wrong; the equivocation this gives rise to has in recent years been the subject of continuing media comment.

But the rot goes further; it discourages politicians from looking at the evidence on major issues, such as the Iraq War, on which leaders have formed a view. It explains why no Labor member would support a Senate inquiry likely to offend the US by taking a sceptical and forensic view of WMD allegations. It explains why the Liberal Party takes the cake for a theory of loyalty which, as Julie Bishop insists, is needed to give leaders a free reign: nothing more emphatically brings out this moral subservience and debasement of public discussion than the apology, both when it was refused by Howard and when it was supported by his successor.

It is time to go back to Burke, the father of conservative political philosophy, and ask if this doctrinaire theory of party loyalty, which compels honest politicians to ignore both their own conscience and community values, is really compatible with representative democracy.