 |
Introduction
The political system know as responsible government, under
which the executive government is chosen by, is answerable to, and may be
removed by, the popularly elected house of parliament, emerged in Britain
during the nineteenth century. The power and prestige of Britain
caused its system of government to be widely copied around the world, though
with some variations.
In this
book I look at the history, recent performance, and defects of Westminster
system of responsible government in the United
Kingdom and in the three countries-Canada,
Australia and New
Zealand-which follow that system most
closely. In all, twenty parliaments are examined, including those of six states
in Australia
and ten provinces in Canada.
The
features of the Westminster system were first delineated by Walter Bagehot in
1867, and it is necessary to look in some detail at what he said, for
politicians are surprisingly conservative when it comes to procedural change
and Bagehot’s work is something of a bible for politicians, whether they have
ever read it or not.
Nevertheless,
there have been considerable changes in each of the twenty parliaments since Bagehot’s
day. The growth of party discipline, in particular, has destroyed some of Bagehot’s
assumptions. This has been helpful in one of the key roles of the lower houses
of parliament-choosing the government. Unlike the American electoral college,
which is dissolved after it has chosen the President, the Westminster
equivalent-the lower house-remains in existence, and lives, in Bagehot’s
words, ‘in a state of perpetual potential choice; at any moment it can choose a
ruler and dismiss a ruler.’ Few would feel that such instability would result
in good government, for a government constantly concerned about its survival
will have little energy to spare for policy and administrative work; the
experiences of minority governments in the UK
and Canada
during the 1970s are illuminating examples. Party discipline adds some
necessary stability here.
One might
ask, however, whether it is compatible with the other roles of parliament such
as legislation? When there is a majority government, party discipline dictates
that the cabinet is answerable not to the parliament but to the caucus of the
majority party; have any of the twenty parliaments we are concerned with been
able to combine majority government and tight party discipline with an
effective legislature? Or has tight party discipline resulted in elective dictatorship,
with the legislature being effective only when there is an unstable and
ineffective government, and usually not even then?
The
handling of legislation proposed by the executive government it has chosen is
not the only business of the lower house. Examination of the performance of the
twenty parliaments reveals that control of delegated legislation-laws made by
the government or its agents under the authority of an act of parliament-is
virtually non-existent in many of the twenty parliaments, and inadequate in all
of them. Parliamentary supervision of government business enterprises and other
non-departmental government activities is derisory. Desirable parliamentary
investigations into government activities are often frustrated by party line voting.
No lower house has been able to be both the decisive chooser of a government
and an effective critical scrutineer of the administration of that government.
Non-parliamentary structures have had to be set up to extract essential
information from governments, to protect human rights, to inquire into serious
administrative failures by the government, and to obtain fair treatment from
the bureaucracy for individuals and organisations. These are all matters for
which the government is supposed to be responsible to the parliament, but which
the various parliaments have proved unable to handle.
Upper
houses, where they survive, can put some controls on an elective dictatorship,
but they have generally proved frail barriers. There are now only eight
surviving upper houses in the twenty parliaments, and it is the constant aim of
governments, if they cannot abolish them, to reduce their ability to frustrate
the will of the ‘democratically elected government’. The performances, the
strengths and the weaknesses, of these eight upper houses are examined in some
detail in this book, for they may hold the keys to some otherwise insoluble
problems.
There is no
perfect system of democratic government, but serious flaws are appearing the Westminster
system. These concerns are not new. Lord Bryce,
writing more than 70 years ago about the decline in the power of legislatures,
concluded that this was not a problem in Australia
or Canada.
Their standards had never been high enough, he thought, for there to be any
possibility of a decline. We can hardly afford to be so cynical. My purpose in
examining the twenty parliaments is to find out what reforms are needed to
preserve the vital features of democracy. Since I am an Australian, and an
ex-member of the Australian national Parliament (with service in each house),
my focus is ultimately on what can usefully be learned from the other nineteen
parliaments, and what in turn the Australian Parliament can offer them; but it
will not be hard to see how the other national, state or provincial systems
could with benefit reshape some of their institutions and procedures. Most
important of all is to identify problems for which there are no current working
solutions, and to see if any remedies can be proposed.
In this
final task it is important to remember political realities. Voters may be
disenchanted with politics and political systems, but they are not likely to
accept dramatic changes. Any changes will have to be subtle and incremental,
reversing the decline of the Westminster
system, not destroying it.
Comments to: web.senate@aph.gov.au
Last reviewed 20 December 2004 by the Senate Web Administrator
© Commonwealth of Australia
Parliament of Australia Web Site
Privacy Statement
Images courtesy of AUSPIC
|
 |
