Australian Politics

Countering totalitarianism

"As I read on through our recent and gratifyingly rich heritage of commentary and memoir, it became clearer to me all the time that we hadn't become a prosperous and reasonably equable democracy by the accidental dispensation of benevolent nature and a favourable geographical position. The country had been built, by clever people. Our constitution itself was the work of people who had studied history. They were readers of newspapers and periodicals, they were eternal students in the best sense, they were bookish people. They had built a bookish nation. But, as so often has been the case with Australia's consciousness of itself, the problem was to realise it." Clive James - November 2002

To many people, Australia is a boring place where nothing much happens. Unlike the middle-east, there are no suicide bombings or endless cycles of violence. Unlike France, there aren't ethnic riots that go on for weeks. Unlike the US, there aren't cults committing suicide on mass, or having a shoot out with the law. In some regards, the peaceful nature of Australia is surprising. In 2006, migrants constituted 22.8 per cent of the Australian population, and many of these migrants came from cultures defined by their violence and dislike of other cultures. To have a society with such a diverse range of people, but so little conflict can be attributed to the Australian political system.

The Australia political system was design to stop mass movements and so allow England to maintain minority rule over Australia. In the 19th century, there were three armed rebellions aimed at over throwing British rule, and the culture of the day was hostile to the mother country. British leaning politicians knew they had to get Australians seeking change with votes instead of guns, but they also had to design the system in a way that wouldn't see them lose control. The system they came up with gave people the opportunity to express their grievances, but it also made it very difficult for extremists to ever gain the reins of power, or for a mass movement to maintain solidarity.

House of Representatives

Every Australian is in an electorate tha has at least 21,343 people. Each person in the electorate votes for an individual to represent them in the House of Representatives. These members are usually aligned with a major party. The party that gets the most members elected will govern.

The House of Representatives forms the bills that the Senate and the governor general subsequently assess and deem suitable or unsuitable to pass into law.

As well as creating bills, the House of Representatives has question time. This gives members the opportunity to question the opposition party, or waffle on about whatever they want to talk about. In theory question time is meant to be about debate, but in truth it is more about vilification and implementing political strategy. If a party doesn't want to answer a question, it simply ignores it, or just insults the other party with phrases like:

It is in the House of Representatives where each party comes up with wedge policies to divide their opponent, or tosses the general public a bone to distract them as they pass an unpopular bill.

Voting styles

Compulsory voting is one of Australia's anti-extremist measures. In America, voluntary voting means that the extremists are great assets to a political campaign. It is the extremists that get out to vote, and convince others to vote as well. To keep the extremists happy, the American political parties must pander to their interests, and this can result in a polarised society. In Australia; however, the extremists are not really important at all. The political party that they have chosen can simply take them for granted and ignore them. The party can then devote its resources on the swinging voters that will decide the election. As a consequence, it is the moderates from the middle-ground that need to be kept happy. On the whole, these moderates are the most likely voters to be apathetic, and not the kind that will join a movement seeking to overthrow a government or hang its ministers.

Compulsive voting is just one of the many electoral innovations that Australia gave the world. Another notable innovation is the secret ballot. World-wide, the secret ballot is sometimes referred to as the "Australian ballot" or "kangaroo voting". The secret ballot allows people to resist peer pressure and register their true feelings. This was quite important around the time of federation. As patriotic sentiments of the day were quite hostile to mother England, politicians quite rightly feared that mobs using patriotic fervour could pressure to individuals to fall in line, and vote out politicians loyal to Britain.

For the House of Representatives, preferential voting is another innovation that keeps extremists out of parliament. The system forces voters to rank candidates in order of preference. When the ballots are collectively tallied, it is the candidate that is the least hated, rather than most liked, that represents the people. It also allows voters to risk voting for an unlikely candidate in the knowledge that their two-party-preferred choice will count if the unlikely candidate failed to gain enough support.

Even though preferential voting helps keep the extreminists out of power, it was initially designed to allow two likeminded parties to compete with each other, without risk of both parties losing out from doing so.

The Senate

Even though compulsory voting, the secret ballot, and preferential voting help keep the extremists out of the House of Representatives, the extreme fringe still has a chance to influence the direction of Australia via the Senate. In the Senate election, gaining a proportion of the vote leads to a form of representation. If elected, a minor party can exert influence if it sides with the major opposition party to block the passage of the governing party's legislation. Historically, few major parties have had a majority in both houses, thus the senate has been able to deny the passage of legislation that is not deemed to be in the interests of those who support the opposition, and the minor parties. For this reason, the senate forces the government to create legislation that is relatively satisfactory for all Australians, not just 50 per cent of them.

In a final blow to extremism, only half of the senators are elected each election. Furthermore, if they lose their seat, there is a lag between the election and when they leave office. This lag prevents an extreme political group from secretly orchestrating a terror attack against Australia, riding the emotion of outrage to an election victory, and then quickly implementing legislative policies that consolidate its power. The lag ensures that there is a cooling off period that allows politicians to take stock of exactly what happened, police to investigate, and decisions to be made free of short-term community hysteria. The lag also prevents a newly elected party being too different from the previous party. Whatever change occurs, it is a gradual one.

The Head of State

The Australian system of government was designed to preserve British rule. Reflecting this aim, the British monarch is the Australian Head of State and the governor general is her representative. After the House of Representatives has passed a bill, it goes to the Senate. If the Senate also passes the bill, it goes to the governor general for final approval.

Even though the governor general is the most powerful position in the Australian political system, that power has rarely been used - at least publicly. Governor generals just sign every bill they are asked to sign. The main reason for their compliance is that governor generals are appointed by the Monarch on the recommendation of the prime minister. Understandably, prime ministers don't recommend anyone that may want to use their power.

Prior to the 1930s, the position of governor general was always filled by an Englishman. Since the 1930s, the position has been filled by an Australian. Once in the position, the governor general has gone around giving speeches that few people have paid attention to.

In 1999, Australia's politicians gave the people the choice of changing the constitution to replace the Monarch with an Australian president appointed by parliament. 80 per cent of Australians supported the move to a republic, but wanted a directly-elected president. Politicians were against a direct-election model on the grounds it would lead to a "populist" president. Presumably, the politicians feared that a president would advocate "populist" polices such as tax cuts and pay for them by cutting government funding for obscure causes and interests. The referendum recieved a no vote.

Separation of powers

In theory, power is dispersed in Australia so that no one person or body can ever have complete control. One power is the legislative, which is Parliamentary power to make law. The second is the Executive, which refers to the different Ministers of the Crown's power to execute and administer law. The third is Judicial power, which refers to a court's power to interpret and enforce laws.

For many years after Federation, judicial power resided with the privy council of London, and its power to interpret and enforce Australian laws positioned it at the apex of the Australian legal system. The apex of Judicial power has now been transferred to the High Court of Australia, with the justices being appointed by parliament.

As federal parliament has the power to make and administer laws, as well as choose the justices that interpret them, Australia doesn't have a much seperation of powers. Furthemore, because the federal government selects the governor general, it has managed to gain control of a system designed to preserve British rule in Australia. The result is quite a weak democracy, yet one that is incorrectly perceived to be a strong democracy.

Halting the revolution

The policies countering extremism help explain a bemused comment by Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin about the Australian political system. After visiting Australia and seeing that the workers were very much in control, Lenin was surprised that the free market still reined. According to Lenin:

"What sort or peculiar capitalist country is this in which the workers' representatives predominate in the upper house....and yet the capitalist system is in no danger?"

Simply, the Australian political system doesn't allow a government to come to power, and then go on a massive purge of dissidents, critics or anyone else that threatens its power. Instead, the system gives voters the means to express their grievances, but denies individual politicians the means to exploit those grievances for their own personal gain.

On the negative side, a government can be as corrupt as sin, and even if it loses an election, the new government can't purge all the corrupt members in the ex-ministry or bureaucracy. In a recent example, the late Bob Collins was a paedophile who molested little boys over decades. Successive governments would have known what he was doing, but they did nothing. The extent and public nature of his paedophilia didn't even emerge until after he was dead. Collins was entrenched as a power broker and that power remained irrespective of which party was in government. People needed him, and people feared him. Consequently, they turned a blind eye to his actions, even when he raped boys in his parliamentary office.

Bill of Rights

A Bill of Rights is conspicious by its absense in Australia. This absence can be attributed to the diverse nature of Australian society at the turn of the century. It was a society that still had people, and offspring of people, who had been sent to Australia in penal servitude. It was a society that had people of English descent loyal to mother England and people of Irish descent seeking rebellion. It was a society in which a large segment of the population was sympathetic to the executed bushranger Ned Kelly, and another segment of the population was sympathetic to the police force that hung him. It had coloured races, and those who wanted to rid Australia of coloured races. It had populist leaders that held favour with the uneducated classes, and unpopular leaders that held favour with the educated classes. It had people who wanted a socialist revolution, and people living in fear of a socialist revolution. A Bill of Rights would have had no chance of success because the society would never have been able to agree upon what rights were important. The only thing that the diverse interests could agree upon was that it would be a disaster for Australia if any one of the other extreme interests gained the reins of power, and ruled over all others.

*One Australia state, Victoria, has succumbed to the feel good vibe of a Bill of Rights and sure enough has created a legal paradise that paves the path for tatalitarianism. Some rights have been maintained, while others have been suppressed in the aim of achieving the greater good. For example, anti-graffiti laws were found to interfere with freedom of expression, freedom of movement and equality. Consequently, lawyers have been able to stop the government curtail certaining activities disliked by voters. In another case, film classification laws have been found to limit freedom of expression but were permissible for the protection of public morality and national security.

By allowing the violation of some rights, but not of others, a message is conveyed that rights can be overridden in certain circumstances. It is up to lawyers to decide what those circumstances are.

1) The Federal Government controls national issues such as foreign affairs, immigration, defence, post, social security, census, statistics, coinage, and banking.

2) State Governments are responsible for schools, police, gaols, hospitals, and most community services.

3) There are approximately 900 Local Governments. They control local administration issues such as local transport, garbage collection, town planning and utilities.

The Australian Labor Party was established in the hardships of the 1890s with the aim of providing a fair go for workers. It used the American spelling of Labor to associate itself with the progressive United States rather than conservative England.

As a progressive party, Labor attracts left wingers who want to see change. Unfortunately, the focus on change tends to keep the party divided about which change of direction they should go. As a result, Labor experienced traumatic splits in 1917, 1931 and 1955. When it has taken government, usually it has only governed for a short time. It has just found it too difficult to keep the country or itself united with its fringe agendas.

In the 1980s, Labor finally went mainstream, and stayed mainstream for over a decade. It then pursued minority interests and stayed out of power for more than a decade. In 2006, it went mainstream once more and in 2007, Australia elected Labor leader Kevin Rudd as prime minister. In the process, they elected the first western leader with the ability to speak Chinese.

The Liberal Party was established in 1944 by Robert Menzies; the then leader of the United Australia Party. The Liberal Party generally supports an ideology of individual determination. Consequently, it has often deconstructed the collective power structures that encourage people to identify with racial, sexual, union or nationalistic groups.

Broadly speaking, Liberal ideology is consistent with capitalist ideology. For this reason, business usually supports Liberals.

Originally known as the Country Party, the National Party was founded in 1913 to represent rural Australia. When Australia was a rural-dominated society, the Nationals had governed. As Australia became a urban-based society, the Nationals became a fringe political party with no hope of governing in its own right.

The coalition is a partnership between the city-backed Liberal Party and the country-backed Nationals. For the Liberals, the partnership offers a greater chance of gaining enough seats to take government. For the Nationals, a partnership with the Liberals gives themselves the chance to take ministerial roles in a government.

As it is a perpetual union, neither party needs to worry about attacking the other and can instead focus their attacks on Labor. The cost to both parties is that the coalition has to operate in a way that sometimes alienates their respective supporters. As individual entities, the only real commonality that the Nationals and the Liberals share is a dislike of unions. To keep the coalition together, the Liberals have had to become more conservative and the Nationals have had to compromise some of bush's interests for those of the city.

The Australian Greens were formally launched in 1992. Initially, they were meant to be a party concerned for the environment, but environmental issues soon took a back seat to a social agenda involving independence for Tibet, gay rights, open door for refugees, attacks on America, and a variety of strange issues that have nothing to do with the environment.

In essence, the Greens are a wowser party that has a lot of trouble coming to terms with Australia being a multicultural society with a diversity of values, beliefs, and morality. As the Greens are strongly driven by moralistic imperatives, they are indignant towards all people whose views are unlike their own. In many ways, the Greens behave like a religious fundamentalist party - except they are very anti-institution and have no bible to justify their morality being superior to anyone elses'.

As a result of their extreminist views, the Greens deny themselves any chance of governing. At the 2007 federal election, climate change, global warming and water shortages were all the major issues of concern, yet the Greens were only able to pull 7.5 per cent of the vote.

Family First is Australia's newest political party, and one which is likely to be quite influential for some years to come. As the party was established by Christians, it is associated with Christian fundamentalism. Like the Greens, it appeals to the morals voter. As yet, Family First has not revealed many policies, but when they do they are likely to be similar to the Greens - with divergence over homosexuality and drug issues. The Greens' cynicism to the institution has motivated them to see Family First as their enemy.

With the Democrats no longer existing and the Greens being an extreme left party, Family First will probably take the niche of the negotiating the middle ground between Labor and Liberal.

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. Both the site it was located, and its urban design, represent the fear of a popular uprising held by Australia's fathers of federation. Officially, the site of Canberra was chosen because it was half way between Sydney and Melbourne. In truth, it is far closer to Sydney than Melbourne. Furthermore, it is disconnected from the major transportation links between Sydney and Melbourne. Canberra is in a backwater location for the same reason that Brasila, the capital of Brazil, was located in the middle of the jungle. It is in the middle of nowhere that governments can feel comforted in the knowledge that their grand plans are not going to be corrupted by revolutionary ideals flooding in from ports, or traders.

As well as reducing the threat of rebellion by locating Canberra in the middle of nowhere, the threat of rebellion was reduced with Canberra's urban design. Canberra's planners had seen America's White House burnt down by those seeking to overthrow the government, and were determined to reduce the potential fuel load for any interest wanting to do the same in Australia. Consequently, instead of building monumental constructions seen in France and America, planners built understated constructions that would look quite tame in a bonfire. Furthermore, instead of building huge boulevards that would allow the military to quickly be located in different parts of the city, as was the case in Paris, planners decentralised Canberra and left sheep farms between the buildings. The planners knew that a dispersed mob storming across sheep farms to burn one building after another would not be as emotive as a concentrated mob pulling down statues or burning down imperial palaces.