Australian Democracy: Robert Manne in conversation with Barry Jones and Malcolm Fraser
Lunch today was more challenging than usual. I went to see Manne, one of Australia's (and La Trobe Uni's) leading public intellectuals, in conversation with former minister and Australian Labor Party President Barry Jones, and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Though they spent their careers on different sides of the political fence, Jones and Fraser have quite a lot in common philosophically, including shared passions for education and civil liberties.
The topic, the present state and future of democracy in Australia, is an important and timely one. The conversation was wide-ranging, and touched on issues including: the impact of lobbying and professional political consultants on political decision-making; the role of public-private partnerships on transparency and accountability of government spending; funding for election campaigns; the concentration in Australian media ownership and its impact on public debate; the impact of the internet on public engagement in politics; political candidacy and selection mechanisms (in the Liberal Party) and the influence of intra-party factionalism (in the ALP), etc.
Fraser was highly critical of what he sees as a recent trend in the Liberal Party (and in government in general) for politicians to toe the party line and/or vote with the government, rather than crossing the floor or voicing dissent. He sees this as encouraging political managerialism and decision-making by executive fiat at the expense of debate in the House, and described the Rudd government so far as being characterised by just this kind of managerialism (fascinatingly, this is a term explicitly rejected by Rudd, in his maiden speech to parliament). As a small-l liberal, Fraser believes MPs have a duty not necessarily to "represent" the beliefs of their electorate, or their party, but to use independent judgment to form opinions on political matters. A belief which, these days, has an almost quaintly old-fashioned tone to it. Fraser also voiced his support for a string of reforms to strengthen democracy, such as awarding (or restricting) the power to decide to go to war to the legislature, as is the case in the US (as opposed to this power being held by the Crown, as is currently the case in Australia -- effectively meaning that the government of the day, or the PM, makes the decision).
Barry Jones also sounded a note of nostalgia for the role of ideology in politics, and even praised former PM John Howard (irrespective of whether one agreed with his politics) as an exemplar of the ideologically-motivated politician. Jones emphasised that governments sometimes need, for the benefit of the public interest, to take difficult decisions that run against popular opinion, and pointed to various ways in which vested interests in politics can serve to undermine this. Some of the examples referenced included gun control and the ending of the 'White Australia' policy.
How this kind of difficult and often unpopular decision-making by government might tally with notions of popular democracy was a tension left mostly untouched in the discussion, perhaps regrettably. All three -- Manne, Jones, and Fraser -- concurred that climate change is the moral and practical issue of our time that demands political will and action, even in the teeth of public opposition. Barry Jones made the point, which I think is insightful, that one problem with the proposed emissions trading legislation is that it carries little emotional weight: it's hard to explain, and even harder to relate to most voter's everyday lives except in quite abstract terms. There was some discussion here of reported "failures to communicate" at the Australia 2020 summit (a national talkfest / forum involving a selection of the supposed "best and brightest" of the nation). Robert Manne pointed out that in the 2020's "political" discussion stream, in which he participated, two dissenters were able to generate a more coherent "message" (i.e. a message of dissent and uncertainty) than the varying positive proposals, and that this was enough to undermine any of the proposals for action that were put forward.
Best response to a heckler (someone in favour of voluntary -- instead of compulsory -- voting): Fraser's line that he thought "Freedom should be compulsory." (Like the wit, not the message: I strongly favour "compulsory" voting -- which is not strictly "compulsory" -- and consider it a major benefit of the Australian system).
I'd write more, but am off to my French conversation group. Bonsoir tout le monde.