Getting to grips with longer-term policy issues

All these conditions have now changed. Mass memberships have collapsed. Party conferences are stage-managed. Australians no longer have visceral political loyalties. Interest groups no longer link closely to either party. Activists join social movements not the major parties.

This past House of Representatives bucked the trend of a drift in voter support towards minor parties and independents that has marked the past couple of decades. There were apparently some gross misjudgements by the Labor leadership. For its part, the Senate result partly followed the suicide of the Democrats. But no serious commentator or participant, not least the Prime Minister, regards this outcome as marking a durable shift in underlying public sentiment towards the major parties.

If we want to improve the management of longer-term issues, what is to be done? Political parties have historically been critical conduits for two-way communication between the community and the formal political system, particularly about long-term issues. Prime Minister Howard has lamented their decline within the community. Speaking at the centenary dinner of the Australian Women’s National League, the Prime Minister commented, “(The political parties) are becoming too narrow … they need to find ways of relating more comprehensively to community concerns”.

Reviving the major parties is not the solution to the representation gap. They played strong linkage roles in a very different social environment. Then, Australian society was broadly divided on class lines, and socio-economic class was the principal determinant of political attitudes and loyalties. Those days are long gone. Economic status remains an important source of social cleavage but it is criss-crossed with all the other divisions noted earlier. Australian society is now much more diverse. This is a positive development to which the formal political system needs to adapt.

A ”contemplative phase” in public debate is required. This would allow issues to be considered on their merits. This phase would need to occur prior to the parties making their detailed policy decisions. There is only one institution in the political structure with the necessary formal standing and authority to create this capacity. This is the parliament. It is the only institution capable of achieving an immediate, comprehensive and direct impact on public, interest group and official opinion. It provides the only setting where the scope for political consensus can be explored.

Within the parliament, the Senate, the House and the joint committees constitute a prime setting for routine review of strategic issues. Committees are the right institutions to introduce new strategic issues to the political agenda and to engage interest groups and the broader community in their consideration. They provide a forum where official, novel, sectional and deviant or marginal opinions can be voiced. Bureaucrats, ministers, interest groups and independent experts appear on an equal footing.

The parliament can also stimulate the formation of broader public opinion through its varied processes and deliberations. The theatre of parliament creates the cameo dramas that communicate the significance of these issues to a broader public. This is now mainly fostered through rituals such as Question Time and Urgency Motions that have lost their original purpose. The political drama needs to be refashioned to contribute positively to the development of sectional and public opinion.

The present committee system provides basic infrastructure but many of its features fall far short of what would be required. To amplify parliament’s contribution to the broader policy making process, its committees would need to have enhanced standing, roles and powers. The present system is inappropriately structured; committees are insufficiently focused. The present committees work on a shoestring and their staffing is totally inadequate. The incentives for committee work are weak; those with ministerial ambitions may be fearful of taking an independent line. Finally, the use of latent parliamentary powers, particularly in the Senate, to gain attention for committee findings and recommendations is hugely underdeveloped.

Developing the role of parliamentary committees on longer-term issues would be a radical step, since it would involve new parliamentary arrangements specially focused on the long term, outside the immediate authority of the government and the immediate influence of the major policy departments. Those used to adversarial approaches may find an attempt to explore the scope for even limited consensus between the major parties impractical or worse. The idea of routinely seeking an exploration of the scope for even limited consensus between the major parties, at least on guidelines and principles, might instinctively be rejected as giving too much away. Yet this is one key promise of these changes. Of course consensus will be limited, often partial and often unavailable. This is at it should be. But the notion that we are stuck with present ritual adversarialism staunches any possibility of imagining an alternative approach.  

The current political system does not provide the setting for sustained review and analysis of long-term trends and their possible social and political consequences. There are inadequacies in research, in technical analysis, and in public engagement and consultation. Australia needs to invest in each of these areas if it is to have the capacity to respond to emerging developments in an effective way.

An informed public opinion is the ultimate foundation for wise and durable public choice. There is not now sustained concern for public education, involvement and debate. There is minimal capacity for constructive discussion of strategic issues in parliament. There is little capacity to make transparent the bipartisanship that is so patently present between the major parties. There is little capacity to engage interest groups in the consideration of strategic issues. The net result is a political structure at odds with our real situation and our real needs. The familiar competitive two-party system is now itself a principal obstacle to the capacity of Australians to exercise wise policy choice.