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September 11, 2009
An insight into the Rann Labor Government in South Australia can be seen in its attempts to reform the Legislative Council. It's an insight that indicates its attitude to democracy and to the checks and balances on political power of the executive.
The reforms suggest attempts by the Executive to gain an advantage over the Legislature in relation to power; even though the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, with the development of party discipline over the last hundred or so years, is suffering from an excessive dominance by the Executive.
Three years ago the Rann Government proposed to abolish the Legislative Council, thereby ensuring its executive dominance, with minimal checks and balances---The inference is that the Rann Government understands itself as equivalent to a CEO of a company.
A company is structured along authoritarian lines not democratic ones. In effect we would have an elective dictatorship in South Australia because Parliament rubber-stamps the actions of the executive. Therein ends the idea of the separation of powers in the Australian political system.
There is no power for the Parliament to act as watchdog to the executive government and any pretence of respect for the Westminster tradition has been thrown to the wind. The Labor tradition of the caucus, rather than the leader, having sovereignty over the executive, which helps to ensure members of the executive can challenge policy positions of the leader to ensure the greater public good, is weakened by factional conflict.
The Rann Government backed away from the abolition option because of unfavourable public opinion, which wanted parliament to hold the executive to account. Currently, the Rann Government is planning to hold a referendum at next year’s election on whether the number of Upper House members should be reduced from 22 to 16 and if their terms should be cut from eight years to four. They are not interested in increasing the power of the committees to scrutinise Government activity.
The aim here is to reduce the minor parties and ensure a majority is held by the government in the Legislative Council. This would basically reduce the latter's capacity to a house of review and effectively turn it into a house which rubber stamps all Government Legislation.
The former Independent member for North (in the federal House of Representatives) Sydney Ted Mack described the purpose of the House of Representatives (and in turn the legislature) thus:
The House of Representatives is for most of its time a ritualised charade. The Executive totally dominates, while members of the Parliament amuse themselves by being allowed to contribute to an endless flowing river of words dutifully recorded at a great expense (in Emy & Hughes 1991 p361).
This quote is a strong representation of the power that the Executive holds over the legislature in the Australian political system. While there can be instances of the Legislature exerting power, for the most part dominance is almost always seen and used exclusively by the Executive.
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no doubt the ministers in the Rann Government would say that the dominance of the Executive is not an aberration in our system of government. Rather it is a necessity to govern a modern western society.