Direct democracy comes to Australia

In the past the Democrats have proposed a strict system that would only allow proposals with widespread community support (determined by either a percentage of voters, or by establishing a numerical base point of signatures on a petition) to get a proposal to the referendum stage. This approach mirrors most other jurisdictions where there is some kind of minimum percentage of voters or petitioners before a citizen initiated referendum can proceed.

In some jurisdictions CIRs are binding on the legislature. That type of direct democracy can be open to abuse under voluntary voting systems if there is a small voter turnout influenced by powerful sectional interest groups. Australia has the safeguard of a compulsory voting system and therefore a high voter turnout. A further safeguard would be if the vote was binding only when the voter turnout was (say) more than 60 per cent and if a clear majority of votes cast were in favour. Below those percentages the result should not be binding and would have advisory status only.

Another safeguard could be that once the citizen initiated referendum has passed, the resolution would not automatically pass into law until it was approved by the Federal Parliament. This provides an important check on popular referenda backed by powerful sectional interests, ensures full legislative scrutiny and ensures that the final decision rests with the elected representatives.

Although it has been considered by many that any Parliament would be reluctant to oppose any resolution backed by a wide cross-section of the community, the experience in New Zealand, shows that even on CIRs where voter turnout was over 80 per cent and a favourable vote of over 80 per cent was achieved, the Parliament did not necessarily feel obliged to legislate on the matter in line with the result.

A further possibility exists for direct democracy. Although there may be issues which do not reach the required number of signatures or percentage of voters for the matter to go to referendum, if 0.5 per cent of the population petitioned over an issue, then it would automatically be referred to a parliamentary committee, which would determine whether a referendum would be held.

In the legislation establishing the mechanism for CIRs there would also have to be some sort of limit on the funding of the campaigns for or against, otherwise the opportunity for special interest groups to obtain the requisite signatures and then spend vast amounts of money promoting their side of the argument could impact on the effectiveness and fairness of direct democracy and possibly create an imbalance.

No doubt in the CIR legislation there would be some issues that could not be subject to CIR - these might include taxation, appropriations, matters affecting the court system, questions arising from Court decisions, or even contentious issues such as immigration.

It is increasingly clear that Australians are often disenchanted with our political system, and there is a feeling that they are not listened to on many issues. In the past, ordinary Australians used protest and public meetings to make the Government and politicians aware of their dissatisfaction about an issue. When large numbers of people protested against the Vietnam War, the Government took notice and changed direction. The Coalition Government has ignored at least two large protests in the recent past, one against the Iraq War and the other in relation to reconciliation. Those who participated in these lawful protests probably feel that their wishes were ignored.

Direct democracy has been shown to improve people’s engagement with the political process - in 1993 prior to the Citizen Initiated Referenda Act 1993, New Zealanders were asked if they agreed with the statement “Politicians don’t care what people think” and 66 per cent of those surveyed agreed with that statement. In 2005, that figure had reduced to 44 per cent.

Direct democracy could provide an important mechanism for re-engagement with the political process in Australia. As the UK Conservative leader David Cameron said recently during the “Stand Up Speak Up” campaign “I want us to end the age of top-down, ‘we know best’ politics. Politics should be bottom-up and open - driven by the passions and priorities of the public.”

All Australian political parties have declining membership. The age of the masses being signed up political party members has gone. Ways need to be found to re-engage Australians in our democracy so that voters feel empowered when they need to be. Much greater active participation in democracy is a model which Australia should embrace.

Possibly the federal Government’s call for plebiscites on issues like council amalgamations and the location of nuclear power plants will be the starting point.