Democracy or bureaucracy

However, those regulations expire shortly and replacement ones developed by the Department of Education and Training would defer essential details to policy. These regulations will be tabled sometime in the next month. Stakeholder consultation has been minimal and had no effect on the regulations drafted.

In the first round of submissions, the 43 submissions which expressed satisfaction with the current regulations were dismissed and the two submissions (by government agencies) advocating higher regulation were given credence.

In the second round, 565 submissions were made, with only 16 not about home education. Overwhelmingly, home educator submissions opposed the changes.

After perpetrating a massive privacy breach in the publication of submissions, and then retracting sections of submissions in the republication process, the Education Department has indicated the regulations will be tabled without substantive change.

Once passed, the requirements for home education will be exclusively controlled by the Department of Education and Training. As the department runs the state school system, it has a vested interest in discouraging alternative education methods. Many home educators find that the registration body already actively discourages people from home education and the proposed regulations would enable policy that fits that agenda.

Home educators would prefer to keep the emphasis on education instead of unspecified bureaucratic requirements which can be changed and increased without consultation or parliamentary scrutiny.

The only way for the regulations to be avoided is through a disallowance motion. The Liberal Nationals will move this once the regulations are tabled, but the motion is dependent on cross-bench support to succeed.

This pattern of deferring details to subordinate legislation and policy is discernible throughout our law-making and could gradually result in a 'democracy' where citizens have very little control over the laws that govern their lives. Laws would say 'comply with regulations', regulations would say 'comply with policy', and the public service machine would grind on making policy.

Bureaucracy works on the Pythonesque principle that the policy is right because the policy says so. Whenever policy is revised, citizens can object, but their objections are met with standard letters.

When politicians make bad (or unpopular) laws, they can be voted out. When bureaucrats are in charge, there is no debate, there is no scrutiny, there is no accountability.

At what stage will our democracy tip over into being fully governed by the bureaucracy and will it be too late then to object?