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December 18, 2004
A quote from Justice Tony Fitzgerald's speech launching Margo Kingston's book, 'Not happy John! Defending our democracy', at Glebebooks in Sydney on June 22:
"My brief remarks will be directed to the damage that mainstream politicians generally are doing to our democracy...Mainstream political parties routinely shirk their duty of maintaining democracy in Australia.
This is nowhere more obvious than in what passes for political debate, in which it is regarded as not only legitimate but clever to mislead. Although effective democracy depends on the participation of informed citizens, modern political discourse is corrupted by pervasive deception. It is a measure of the deep cynicism in our party political system that many of the political class deride those who support the evolution of Australia as a fair, tolerant, compassionate society and a good world citizen as an un-Australian, “bleeding-heart” elite, and that the current government inaccurately describes itself as conservative and liberal.
It is neither.
It exhibits a radical disdain for both liberal thought and fundamental institutions and conventions. No institution is beyond stacking and no convention restrains the blatant advancement of ideology. The tit-for-tat attitude each side adopts means that the position will probably change little when the opposition gains power at some future time. A decline in standards will continue if we permit it....In order to perform our democratic function, we need, and are entitled to, the truth. Nothing is more important to the functioning of democracy than informed discussion and debate. Yet a universal aim of the power-hungry is to stifle dissent. Most of us are easily silenced, through a sense of futility if not personal concern."
There lies the argument for deliberative democracy.
What then is the opposing view?
The opposing view ---the political consensus of the two major parties---is that economic growth comes first democracy second because economic growth creates the pre-conditions for democracy. Economic growth requires strong technocratic governance.
Now you can quite easily argue the other way. Strong economic growth has depended on a well functioning democracy and constitutional stability. What would happen to the economy if we decided our political conflicts through civil war? Australia could not have emerged as a succesful capitalist economy without a stable constitutional base, and a functioning democracy that provides for democratically elected federal and state parliaments.
Tony Fitzgerald's words, " our democracy", "if we permit it", "perform our democratic function, we need, and are entitled to the truth", [m]ost of us are easily silenced', imply us Australians speaking as citizens. Yet the word is never mentioned by Fitzgerald, even though we commonly understand citizenship to be relevant to our understanding of democracy. Is not freedom of political communication and discussion a necessary implicvation of of the Constitution's doctrine of representative democracy?
The question of citizenship is fundamental to looking at the relationship between the individual and the State. How do we determine the rights that flow from citizenship?
Is not the centrality of citizenship is the right to participate in, or to be consulted in government. Citizenship is about democratic participation in government. Citizens are those who have the right to vote. Citizens have the right to participate in, and influence our democratic system.
Does not the development of implied rights in the Australian Constitution also raise the question of whose rights? If you have the right to vote, then do you have the right to rely on the Constitutional protection of free speech in trying to invalidate a law. Do non-citizens have the protection of implied constitutional rights?
Key questions. Yet silence from Fitzgerald.
Has our political language decayed that much that we no longer talk about citizenship? Greg Craven's Conversations with the Constitution is strong on federalism and constitional order but does not explore the relationship of citzenship to the Constitution. And though the High Court is the arch of federalism it has has little to say about citizenship. Neither Craven nor the High Court seem much concerned that the Constitution still doesn't refer to citizenship.
Let me conclude with an insight from an early text by Habermas. In his 1962 work The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas argued that the competitive pressures of a free market economy eventually require state intervention and regulation, which in turn produces increased competition and still more regulation. Finally the state becomes a major player in the economic arena and is faced with what he called a "legitimation crisis" -- a set of normative contradictions -- such as the conflict between serving special interests and advancing the common good. A vibrant public sphere is the only safeguard against such a crisis, Habermas insisted. Some form of public discourse about common affairs (dialogue that arises naturally among citizens, rather than the sort orchestrated by the state), as well as an arena in which it can happen, was therefore necessary, he said.
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I think we should look beyond liberalism, neoliberalism, conservatism, neoconservatism to what Philip Pettit (1999)has termed neorepublicanism and John Maynor (2003) republicanism. This has no relationship to any American party.
Modern republicanism is characterised by a particular meaning of 'freedom', by inclusion, participation, the 'common good' as defined by the people, limited terms of public office, education of the people to be citizens, values, and the right of citizens to resist government decisions. Deliberative democracy, in my view, is a tool by which republicanism could be made to work in the modern world.