Preface
Our political life suffers from a cancerous disease called the 'party system'; in which party leaders corner the power of the people after each election, substituting government by 'executive' for the democratic principle of 'government by the people'.
It has long been recognised that the party system is an oppressive anomaly that subverts our democracy. To overcome the dominance of powerful organisations and restore power to the parliament, and the people, the power of parties to establish executive rule must be curbed. This requires that our representatives elect all ministers and officials by secret ballot, in parliament. Furthermore, all debates in parliament must be decided by the secret ballot of all the members.
This quite radical proposal is unavoidable if we would free our representatives from the confinement of the party system, to play their individual roles in our parliaments. The issues are the important thing (not 'politics'), and must prevail over all else. This is the essence of genuine representative democracy.
With people of political stature avoiding the issue of democratic reform, 'A Chariot of Fire-Secret Ballots in Parliament' was published in 1992. Reviewing this book for the 'Geelong Advertiser', John Craig, of Deakin University, said that this suggestion: "Would change the face of politics as we know it".
Some expressions of interest in a revision of that work have encouraged a fresh look at the question of the operation of our parliaments in the climate of the institutionalised political conflict, and the negligible representative ability of our MPs under the existing system. The following chapters represent that revision.
This book therefore challenges the notion that party politics is essential to democratic government. On the contrary, it insists that party politics destroys democracy and that only the adoption of secret voting (by electronics) in our parliaments can enable our representatives to act as genuine independents, able to genuinely represent the people, and revive diverse leadership in, and a new authority to, our parliaments.
Australia has the history and the potential to be an influential democratic leader in the world, at a time when a far-from-certain future is calling on all the world's political, diplomatic and social resources. This challenge can and must be met; but it will require, for people and parliament, the vitality of a new and purer democracy-one that only the secret ballot in parliament has the power to create.
Many will agree; some may oppose. But let the debate begin.
Introduction
The year of 2004 was the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Eureka Stockade, the rebellion in which six soldiers and twenty-two miners died at Ballarat in Victoria. The reforms that followed, including secret ballots for elections, would probably be the most significant since Magna Carta. Despite the great need of further commensurate reforms to restore power to the people, none are in sight, the urgent need concealed by a fog of misinformation, and the 'leadership cult'.
Democracy means a mature and stable decision-making system, which the people can 'own', producing harmony and hope. On the contrary, our political system is marked by party conflict, frustration and despair. While the spin of the powerful, smothers the capacity and will of the people to make any effective contribution or protest, hope fades into resignation and apathy. Time, and the fading memory of the people, sweeps the system's many failures into the maw of history.
The vital factor missing from our constricted democracy is the liberating power of the secret ballot. While it has been adopted for elections in most countries since introduced in Victoria, and other states in Australia, after the Eureka Stockade, its constructive role for decision-making in our parliaments has been studiously avoided.
Political leaders have summarily dismissed the adoption of the principle of the ballot for parliamentary decision-making, although one party activist described this principle as 'pure democracy'. Why has it been so cavalierly rejected? The answer is simple. After each election, the parties are able to immediately reclaim the power that the people had briefly regained by the secret ballot election - and the people are too bemused to know how it can be prevented.
Again, there is a growing denial of the Westminster principle of ministerial responsibility in our parliaments at a time when shareholders of public companies, and their allied bodies, are tightening the screws of responsibility on company directors and auditors. It is apparently sufficient for politicians to weep crocodile tears over 'the serious communication failure' of their (public) servants who refrain from mentioning to their masters the troubling information they hold. Since political 'advisors', under tenuous contracts, have replaced top public servants, any shaky trust that we may have had in the tenuous principle of the responsibility of ministers, and public servants, to parliament, and parliament to the people, has largely vanished.
Everyone worries about party governments. Those in power worry about how they can hold on to the reins of power. Those in opposition worry about how they can overturn the government. Those having, or hoping for, a balance of power, sharpen their wits as they study the ever-shifting possibilities of influencing the government. The rest of us worry about what those in power are going to do next, because there is so little we can do about it - and while the machines of political power grind away in determined secrecy, public confidence in government (and the morale of the people) dwindles.
Is this really democracy?
Well-known historian Geoffrey Blainey was recently asked about the challenges of the new century. He noted the importance of experts in matters of defence, but insisted that upholding our democracy is a responsibility of the people - you, and me.1
Democracy has always been an ongoing battle, but we are not winning. Some people are happy, some are angry, and the rest of us are confused. Rather than solving the problems of the nation in peace and harmony, our political process reflects and even exacerbates society's tensions and conflicts. Politics is supposed to 'purge the system'. It's a nice theory, but party politics subverts the real politics; the affairs of the nation. It's not pretty. Years ago, Dean Jaensch, well-known Adelaide University political lecturer and author, noted that parliament was basically dysfunctional.2
That is the crux of the problem. Nothing has changed. In a world dedicated to economic efficiency, perhaps the most inefficient of all is the conflict-based clumsiness of our political system. How did the dream of democracy fail? Many characteristics of our world move on, but the political system is stuck in the past. The urgent task is to understand why, and what can be done to arrest the ongoing chaos of our pretend democracy.
In the growing complexity of life, and the unstoppable trend to globalisation we, the people, must have a constructive role in the nation's political affairs. We don't. Is that democracy? We are isolated and politically helpless in this conspiracy called the party system. Although politics is too important to leave to the politicians, we are forced to do just that. Recently, South Australian Senator, Amanda Vanstone indicated regret at the lack of people-participation in political matters. Similarly, Labor leader Mark Latham has warned that the system is in danger from power groups.3 Partisan objectives dominate, while the rest of us are excluded from any useful role.
Whose democracy is it?
Centuries ago Roman Senators walked to and from the Senate freely and intimately available to the populace, while in ancient Athens all those able to vote participated directly in the decisions to be made. Today, rival parties set the political agenda, while ministers' quarters in the new parliament in Canberra have been deliberately isolated to exclude interference from the public.Government is the preserve of parties, which have gained an extensive stranglehold over the political process. They continue to rule, despite widespread cynicism about politicians' honesty, objectivity, and accountability. The power they exercise by pumping populist policies keeps the public at bay. With selective release of strategic information by government, and the uncertain role of the media, public opinion is acutely vulnerable to scare tactics and appeals to the 'hip-pocket nerve'. Nothing is changed by our brief arousal from political torpor in the lead up to an election. Political power creates its own momentum, cultivating a growing helplessness and inertia of the people, and an increased dependence on strong, presidential type leadership. Just as force does not prove who is right, only who is strongest, the exercise of political power by strong groups, factions and political parties, distorts democratic government and leaves us disturbed, dissatisfied and cynical. Public morale is an important casualty, depleting the confidence and wellbeing of the nation, fuelling dissension and hindering sound democratic governance.
It has been said that 'war is the failure of politics'. Similarly, confrontation politics fails the people. While parties are able to win government on the back of major emotional issues, we will not see the just solution of the multitude of problems in the 'too-hard basket'. Decisions being made by 'leaders', instead of the people, would never have been acceptable to the Athenians.
If we do not achieve a more effective participation of the people in the decision-making process, government of the people will continue to be strong to do wrong and weak to do right. Government by the people will continue to be a dream, and government for the people will continue to be annoyingly vague and ineffectual in achieving just outcomes.
Where is the democracy of the Athenians? Is a modern counterpart impossible?
Democracy has changed over time to seek to accommodate new situations. The constant challenge is to find better ways to conduct government with efficiency and justice. Ultimately the manner of our government is the responsibility of the people, but since power concentrates at the expense of the people's interest, needed change has been explosive. This is not good enough.
Frenchman, Jean James Rousseau, asserted, in effect, that democracy is an ongoing dream.4 To President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was more positive. It is up to us to move it along. 5 In Blainey's opinion there needs to be at east a substantial minority (of uncommitted people) in the community, insisting on 'public ownership' of the political system. Moreover, as he says: 'it must be updated every generation or two, to ensure that democracy is able to meet our need for sound governance'.6
Those who benefit most from the existing inequalities of power don't want to see the real democracy that could enhance the life of us all. Amid the endemic over-confidence in their own wisdom, their addiction to political power, and the flagging will of the people, we fail to give the silent cries of the environment, the explosion of world population, and many more problems the serious and immediate attention they deserve.
Why is it that democracy is so much loved in theory, and yet democratic governments are so criticised and, indeed despised, by so many? That: 'democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others'7, illustrates the gap between hope and reality. How can we fully support the ideal of real democracy, if, as Alcuin, Anglo-Saxon scholar, 735-804 said (in a letter to Charlemagne, variously translated from the Latin): 'The voice of the people is the voice of God ... [but] the turbulence of the mob is always close to insanity'. However, Samuel Johnson is more positive: 'About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right'.8
Obviously, any worthwhile democratic reform must enhance the opportunity for concerned people to think and to decide. Only a real involvement can give the people the hands-on political education needed for a fuller participation in an advancing democracy.
We are familiar with Hiram Johnson's famous remark, in a 1917 speech: 'The first casualty, when war comes, is truth'.9 In a similar way, in the conflict style of our political life, secrecy and 'commercial confidentiality' are enemies of the people's 'right-to-know'. Secrecy is obviously a serious obstacle to any realistic participation of the public in political discussion.
Although they have the least input into the decisions governing their lives, ordinary people are the major sufferers of imperfect government in every country. Since it is the common people who die in war, starve in famine, and live depleted lives when democratic government fails to live up to its promise, it is high time for ordinary people to have a way for a more significant involvement in the serious matters affecting their lives, both now and in the long years ahead.
It's up to us
We are not absolved by a silent acquiescence in the status quo. Democracy means that we, the people, are responsible for what government does, or fails to do. It is for us to pursue change when it becomes necessary. An active engagement of an increasing proportion of the people is essential, but that engagement must have a. non-partisan basis, in the sense that our loyalty must be to a conscientious examination of the issues-not a blind following of leaders. Without that level of participation enabling an independent and intelligent cooperation of the people, government cannot be sufficiently flexible and strong to meet the serious challenges of the future. Good government needs the intelligent backing of the people on all issues, dissolving controversy into consensus, via community involvement. If we, the people, are to successfully meet the challenge of a complex future with confidence, we must have the opportunity to be involved- to the expanding extent of our individual capacities.How can we achieve this?
We have seen the rise of minor parties in Australia through upper house proportional representation and, occasionally, independent members in our parliaments. On Radio National recently, in a segment significantly called 'The National Interest', a member of the New South Wales parliament explained his reasons for resigning from his party. Aiming to better represent his constituents, he expressed his frustration at the control of policy by his party, which prevented him from truly responding to the electorate's interests in parliament.
Again, on 'Australia Talks Back',10 Presenter Sandy McCutcheon asked on line guests if they could see a 'circuit breaker' that could lead us out of the vicious circle of party dominance and widespread public apathy. Many callers criticised our governmental process, but there was little agreement that 'we get the government we deserve', and no sign of a 'circuit breaker'. In one important move, politics classes in secondary colleges are examining the legitimacy of party executives forcing members of their own party to 'toe the party line'.
We cannot give up on self-government. We cannot allow politicians to run our lives without bothering to seek a better answer. If we do, then our aspirations for plain sanity in government will continue to be diverted into inconsequence and we will deserve the government we get.
We need a democracy that is evolving, changing to serve the needs of the people, and making the people strong through a practical infrastructure of self-government. How can this be done? Geoff Barrett, CEO, CSIRO, tells how, when speaking with an Indian science colleague, they were asking each other: 'How did we come to be scientists?' His colleague spoke of his experience as a twelve-year-old lad. His science teacher took the class out in the sun and demonstrated to them how the sun's rays, focussed through a magnifying glass, could set a piece of paper on fire. Turning to the boys, he said: 'If we focus our energies, we can set the world on fire'!11 We need a new focus; a way that will enable our democracy to lead us more successfully, and safely, into the future.
That kind of focus still eludes us.
Democracy, as Roosevelt said, is an everlasting march-but are we marching?