Checking and balancing in Queensland

We heard claims that the Queensland laws were anachronistic and did not reflect the situation in other states. This is clearly wrong: in New South Wales the Parliamentary Evidence Act 1901 enables a five-year prison sentence as the maximum penalty for knowingly giving false evidence before a Parliamentary committee.

The very clear actions in removing Parliament’s ability to jail a member of the executive who knowingly lies to a parliamentary committee is a fundamental shift in the power relationship between the executive and the Parliament.

The Labor Party after the Watson government established a principle that when it was elected to government the caucus would elect the executive, not the leader. Thus giving significant power to the parliamentary institutions and providing a significant check on unbridled executive power.

One only has to remember the actions of the ALP caucus in the Hawke years in overriding the Prime Minister on the MX missile testing issue to see how an activist caucus could stop the executive from gaining unbridled power.

Likewise the backbench revolt led by Con Sciacca on timed telephone calls stopped the executive running roughshod over the Parliament.

However, federally and in Queensland the ALP has moved away from the Labor tradition of the caucus electing the executive, to a system where the leader chooses the executive. This is a further sign of the Queensland ALP turning its back on the Fitzgerald reforms by allowing complete executive dominance over the Parliament.

The Labor tradition of the caucus, rather than the leader, having sovereignty over the executive is an important element in ensuring members of the executive can challenge policy positions of the leader to ensure the greater public good. If a member of the ministry has a different view to the leader and there is support for that view in the caucus (proxy for Parliament in terms of the separation of powers) it enables the empowerment of the Parliament as a check to unbridled executive power.

In Queensland, given we have no upper house, and given the Beattie government trashed the Fitzgerald reforms that were essential to giving proper balance to the power relationship between the Parliament and the executive, it is important that ordinary rank and file members of the Queensland ALP insist on the caucus choosing the executive and not the leader.

If we fail in this mission then the Queensland ALP has no right to claim it is advancing the spirit of the Fitzgerald Reforms.