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Competing Mandates in Australian Politics
Liz Young
Statistics Group
Introduction
The term mandate enters political discourse in Australia on a regular basis.
This research note considers what a mandate means and its application in
the Australian political context. It argues that there are two competing
notions of a mandate in Australian political life, both of which have a
claim to legitimacy.
The Current Debate
Following the 1996 federal election competing claims of a mandate have been
made. On the one hand, the Coalition government, on the basis of its success
in the House of Representatives, has argued that it has a mandate to form
government and to implement the policy program it proposed during the election
campaign. On the other hand, the Australian Democrats have pointed to their
increased vote in the Senate and have asserted that this support represents
a mandate to maintain their role in reviewing legislation and where required,
to amend, block or request amendments to Bills that enter the Senate.
What is a Mandate?
Mandate was the term originally used to describe the legitimacy of individual
members of parliament, validated by popular support, expressed during elections.
Thus, a mandate has always involved notions of legitimate democratic
representation, expressed through parliamentary processes and based on popular
electoral support.
Early debates focused on whether the mandate of an individual parliamentarian
required them to act as trustee or delegate of those who had
elected them. In the trustee model parliamentarians decide what is in
the best interests of those people s/he represents. In contrast, the delegate's
actions and decisions are derived from the demands made of them by their
constituents. Parliamentarians typically interpret their mandate as combining
the traits of both a trustee and a delegate. (1)
The Party System
The notion of a mandate was reconceived to allow for the increasing prevalence
of party systems in Western democracies. A mandate was no longer solely
given to an individual but to a political party and its policy program.
When people cast their vote, they envisaged it going to a particular party,
rather than to an individual candidate.
The mandate has therefore become associated with the level of electoral
support for a party's policies and its responsibility to implement these
policies if elected. In this regard, a mandate involves a mixture of both
the right and responsibility of a party to follow through
with its electoral platform. This emphasis on the party, rather than the
individual in parliament, is referred to as the partisan model
of a mandate. (2)
The degree of electoral support that a party enjoys is also seen to
influence the nature of a mandate. It is widely interpreted that the greater
the majority a party wins, the broader the mandate.
There is some debate over the extent that parties may deviate from their
proposed party platform without undermining their mandate. It is usually
acknowledged that such changes are only acceptable when unforseen circumstances
arise, making it impossible for a party to be consistent in following
through with their electoral promises.
Are mandates reserved for governments?
Debates about mandates usually focus on the activities of the government.
The link between a government and its mandate are clearly defined:
- A party publicises policies during an election campaign
- People vote for that party based on its policies
- Those votes provide the party with enough seats to win government
- The government has the mandate to introduce Bills to implement its
policy program.
There is nothing to suggest, however, that the same logic does not apply
to other parliamentarians or parties. Thus, individuals, minor parties
and oppositions, when elected to parliament with a well defined policy
program, can argue that they have a mandate to influence parliamentary
outcomes, as far as possible, in a manner that is consistent with their
position.
Focus tends to be on governments and their mandate simply because they
have a much greater capacity to influence political outcomes, thus their
commitment to their mandate is more easily tested.
A Mandate in Australian Federal Politics
The meaning of a mandate varies depending on the political system in which
it is located. In Australia, this has led to the term being used in a number
of ways, reflecting competing assumptions embedded within the political
system.
First, there is the notion that the party that wins a majority of seats
in the Lower House has the electoral mandate to form government.
This is widely accepted by the majority of actors involved in the political
process.
A second view follows on from the first and contends that the party
of government enjoys the mandate to implement the policy program
it outlined prior to an election. This position may be extended to argue
that the party of government enjoys the mandate to implement
policies developed following their election.
A third perspective takes a different approach in arguing that parties
in the Senate can refer to their mandate to review, block, amend
and request amendments to legislation if they can generate a majority.
The first and second of these views places the power of the mandate
firmly with the House of Representatives and the government. The third
view divides this power. It identifies the role of the Senate and the
mandate enjoyed by the parties that hold a majority in this house.
A fourth perspective argues that when most people vote they have little
understanding of detailed party policy and any claim to a mandate is therefore
flawed.
Competing Mandates
In the main, two competing notions of a mandate are evident in contemporary
Australian politics. First, the government of the day may claim to have
a mandate to implement the policy program on which it was elected. Second,
the party or parties that generate a majority in the Senate may profess
to have a mandate to review the Bills that enter the Senate, and where necessary
amend, block or request amendments to that legislation.
The potential for conflict this creates is clearly evident in recent
debates about the proposal to partially sell Telstra. The Coalition claims
a mandate to implement the proposed sale. The Australian Democrats have
argued that, in concert with other parties or individual Senators, they
have a mandate to block this legislation. Both parties have pointed to
their success in the 1996 election to justify their position.
For both parties, the term mandate has been used in a way that is consistent
with the assumptions that underpin definitions of the mandate: they are
arguments about the rights and responsibilities of parties to implement
the policies they proposed in the 1996 election. Moreover, they are linked
to assertions about popular support for these policy proposals expressed
through voting behaviour. The conclusion that can therefore be drawn is
that both claims to a mandate are valid; determining whose mandate is
more valid becomes a political question.
The Role of the Political System in Creating Conflict
It is more valuable to reconceptualise the current debate over the mandate
as one about the nature of the Australian political system and to understand
this conflict as a consequence of the Constitution and how it constructed
the relationship between the House of Representatives and the Senate. Specifically,
this is a consequence of the fact that apart from the power of the Lower
House to introduce and amend Supply or Appropriation Bills, the Constitution
gave virtual equality to each house when it came to the legislative process.
The intention of the Constitution was to distribute legislative power
evenly between the two Houses of Parliament because they both had crucial
roles to play in the democratic process of representing the Australian
people. With this in mind it is difficult to argue that a majority in
either house does not provide a mandate, especially when the party or
parties in question went to the electorate with a clearly defined policy
program.
There are some commentators who would argue that because a Senator is
elected every six years, his or her claim to a mandate is diminished.
There are always a myriad of competing arguments about the level of representation
each house embodies. Whether or not these assertions are valid misses
the point insofar as it is still the case that once elected, it remains
the right and responsibility of individual Senators to act in a manner
consistant with the policies on which they were elected. Thus it is not
a question of abusing a mandate given. Rather, it raises broader questions
about the character of Australia's political institutions.
Conclusion
The debate over who has a legitimate mandate in the Commonwealth Parliament
is frequently misdirected because it overlooks the origin of the problems
that arise. These lie in the nature of the political system enshrined within
the Constitution, a system that provides elected members of both houses
with a mandate, albeit of a slightly different character. Debate should
therefore be refocussed on the crucial issue of what is the appropriate
role of each house, rather than complaining when parties in either house
fulfils the role that the Constitution allocated to them.
Endnotes
- D. Jaensch 1991 Parliament, Parties and People: Australian Politics
Today Longman Cheshire, Australia: 88-9
- Ibid.
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