Representation

Choosing governments

Governments are made up of ministers who are in charge of the various government departments (health, police, education and so on) under the leadership of a prime minister (the Commonwealth), a premier (the States), or a chief minister (the Territories). The group of ministers is known as the ministry. A ministry constitutes a government which is referred to formally as the executive.

Ministers must be members of parliament and the ministry must retain the support of the house which has formed it. This is known as the Westminster system (after the place of meeting of the English parliament which first developed this way of governing) or the system of responsible government (since the ministers are responsible to the parliament).

The best known alternative to this system is the United States constitution under which the president, as head of government, is elected by the people and chooses ministers who are not members of the Congress. The executive and the legislature are firmly separated in the United States; in a Westminster system the executive is formed in the legislature.

Before there were political parties, ministries changed more regularly than they do now and sometimes without there being an election. The members of parliament would withdraw their support from a ministry; it would resign; and a new ministry would be formed. With strong party discipline, once a ministry is formed, it will be supported in office by the members who are of the same party as the ministers.

Governments usually change when a party loses an election and what was formerly the opposition party wins a majority of seats and forms a government.

Members of parliament of the same party (from both houses) meet regularly together in the party room. They elect their leader. If a party wins an election the leader becomes the prime minister. The leader of the largest party in opposition to the government becomes the leader of the opposition. Parties can change their leader at any time. If a prime minister is unpopular the party may replace him or her, with the party itself remaining in government.

In the Liberal Party the leader, on becoming prime minister, has the right to choose who will be the ministers. Usually the Liberal Party governs in coalition with the National Party whose leader will be given an important ministry and the position of deputy prime minister. The National Party leader is consulted by the prime minister on what ministries National Party members are to receive.

In the Labor Party ministers are elected by the Labor members in the party room. The prime minister allocates the ministers to the ministries.

Passing laws

In each house a bill passes through three stages which are called ‘readings’. At the first reading the bill is presented, usually now without explanation. The passing of a motion that the bill be read a first time merely puts it on the agenda. At the second reading the person proposing the bill (usually a minister) explains its purpose and how it will operate. Then a general debate follows. If the bill passes its second reading it is then considered clause by clause in committee. The committee is usually ‘of the whole’ (that is, all the members of the house) or it may be a smaller body. Debate is more informal. There are no set speeches and members can speak more than once. Debate is on the detail of each clause, not the principle of the bill. This is where amendments are introduced. The final stage is the third reading, usually a formality, but members opposed to the bill have a last chance to speak against it and those who don’t like what has happened in committee may now oppose it.

After the second reading a bill may be referred to a select committee specially constituted from the members of the house to examine and take evidence on this one measure. More commonly bills are referred to a standing committee of the house, a body which considers all bills within a particular policy area, say health and community welfare. Committees make their reports to the house and their recommendations can then be considered at the committee stage of the bill.

In a bicameral parliament each house has to agree to the amendments made by the other. If agreement cannot be reached the bill lapses. In the Commonwealth parliament and in some of the States upper houses cannot amend money and taxation bills.

In the Commonwealth parliament if the two houses cannot agree on a bill there is a deadlock provision for resolving the dispute. If the Senate rejects a bill or makes amendments not acceptable to the House of Representatives and does so again after a lapse of three months, the Senate can be dissolved along with the House of Representatives. This is a double dissolution and in the election which follows the membership of both houses is entirely reconstituted. Usually only half the Senate retires at each election. After a double dissolution election, if the Senate still rejects the bill, both houses sit together and the bill can be passed if it is supported by an absolute majority (a majority of the total membership, not simply of those present).

One of parliament’s chief functions is to ‘vote supply’ which means to agree to the government’s spending proposals. It also scrutinises the spending of the money which has been granted. It does this through a public accounts committee and the auditor general, an officer who reports to the parliament, not the government, on whether money has been properly spent.

The arrangement of parliaments

The seats or benches in the house are arranged in the form of a U, with Speaker or president at the top. On the Speaker’s right sit the ministers and members of the governing party. The ministers are on the front bench; all the other members supporting them are known as government backbenchers. The chief opposition party sits to the Speaker’s left. Again there are frontbenchers (the leading members of the party who will be ministers if the party wins office) and backbenchers. On the cross-benches at the base of the U sit minor parties and independents.

This seating arrangement means that government and opposition, prime minister and leader of the opposition, face each other across the chamber, which encourages an adversarial mode of proceeding. They are separated by a table on which documents of which the house takes official notice are placed or ‘tabled’.

The voting systems for parliaments

Except in Tasmania, for the lower houses each electorate returns one member and the voting system is preferential. With first-past-the-post voting a member may be elected with less than a majority support. Evatt may win 40 votes, Menzies 35 votes and Santamaria 25 votes. Evatt will be elected though he received only 40 votes out of a possible 100. Under a preferential system voters indicate not only their favoured candidate but their second-best candidate and so on right through the list. A number in every square is the instruction. If no candidate wins a majority (more than half the votes cast), preferences are considered. The candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and his or her preferences are distributed to the candidates still in the running. In the above example, Santamaria’s preferences would be distributed. If of these 25 votes, 20 went to Menzies and only 5 to Evatt, then the total votes gained by those two gentlemen would now be: Evatt 40 + 5 = 45; Menzies 35 + 20 = 55. Menzies would be elected though he obtained fewer first preference votes than Evatt. But most of those voting for Santamaria wanted Menzies as second-best, so overall Menzies had more support and deserves his win.

Proportional representation is used for the Senate and some State upper houses. Its basic principle is that the members returned for the different parties and groups should be in proportion to their support in the electorate. So if Liberals win 50 per cent of the vote, Labor 40 per cent and Democrats 10 per cent, Liberals should have 50 per cent of the parliamentary seats, Labor 40 per cent and Democrats 10 per cent. Obviously the system requires that people be voting for a number of members and not just one. In a normal Senate election six members are elected by the whole State voting in a single electorate. The same occurs for the upper houses in New South Wales and South Australia. In Western Australia members are elected from regions, some returning five and others seven members.

In Tasmania the usual pattern for electing the two houses is reversed. Proportional representation, the Hare Clark system, is used to elect its lower house. The electorates are the five electorates for the House of Representatives, returning five members each. The upper house has single-member electorates and preferential voting.

The Australian Capital Territory uses proportional representation for its Assembly election. The Northern Territory Assembly is elected like the State lower houses.

Preferential voting in single electorates usually results in one or other of the major parties winning the seats. Either Labor or Liberal in combination with National secures a majority and so forms a government. With proportional representation it is much harder for one party to secure a majority of the seats. Upper houses elected on this basis contain minor party members and independents who deny a government an automatic majority. This ensures that the upper house will be a true house of review.

The meetings of a cabinet are where the decisions of the executive government are taken. ‘To execute’ means simply to carry out, but the executive now does much more than administer the laws passed by parliament.

It decides what bills will be introduced into parliament. Theoretically any member may introduce a bill for a new law, but except in very rare circumstances only those bills introduced and backed by the government have any chance of becoming law. This is the effect of the government having a guaranteed majority in at least the lower house due to the strength of party discipline. This kills off bills coming from any other quarter: the opposition or minor parties. Unless the government controls both houses, it cannot be sure its bills will become law. It can be sure that no one else’s will.

On moral questions sometimes both major parties will agree to give their members a free vote. Then a law on abortion or euthanasia, for example, may be introduced by a backbencher and become law. This is called ‘a private member’s bill’.

Modern laws delegate much power to ministers which is exercised by the issuing of regulations. So ministers individually or meeting together as cabinet can vary laws by issuing new regulations. Sometimes if a government bill has been defeated in the upper house, the minister may announce that some of the changes it was going to make will be done instead by regulation.

Public service

In order that public servants could give impartial advice to ministers, and if necessary speak against their policies, they used to enjoy security in their job. The department remained the same and ministers came and went. Now the public service is run more like a business. Ministers appoint the people to be in charge of their departments and expect them to carry out their wishes. Senior public servants no longer enjoy security in their job.

Shadow cabinet

The courts

Governments (that is, the ministers) have to obey the law like everyone else. That goes without saying for their private actions; the more important principle is that in their governing they must also obey the law. If they don’t they can be taken to court and the court will order them to obey the law. This is the principle of the rule of law. The government has its own lawyers, the law officers, to advise on the legality of their actions.

The rule of law is a daily miracle. The government is subject to a higher power, the law. The judges, who interpret the law, are appointed by the government, but in order that they may be independent of the ministers they cannot be sacked by the government. They can be dismissed only by a vote of both houses of parliament. It is very rare for a judge to be dismissed.

Our legal system is part of the common law system which originated in England and is followed by many countries colonised by England, including the United States. In this system parts of the law have been developed by the judges, who are constantly adjusting and amending it. This part of the law is called common law and is distinct from statute law which is the law as passed by parliament.

In criminal trials the judges over the centuries have developed the rules to ensure a fair trial. The most important of these is that the accused is innocent until proved guilty. The jury system was also introduced by judges many centuries ago in England as the body which would determine guilt or innocence.

Parliament is the supreme law-making body. That is, statute law prevails over common law. Parliament can alter the common law and remove rights established by it. Some parliaments have changed the law on juries to allow for majority verdicts and to remove the jury from some trials.

The High Court, as its name suggests, is the highest court in the land. As well as interpreting the constitution it is the final court of appeal from other courts.

The governor-general and the governors are formally the head of the executive government. They appoint the ministers and the prime minister or premier. They meet with ministers in the Executive Council which formalises those decisions of cabinet which need to be put in legal form, as in the issuing of new regulations or the appointment of a judge. The governor-general and the governors here act on the advice of ministers, though they have the right to call for more information and query what the ministers are doing. Their signature is also required on a bill before it can become law. This is called the royal assent. Again, they sign the bill if they are advised to do so by ministers.

The practice of governor-general and governors acting on advice of ministers is a convention, not a law. In strict legal terms their powers are still extensive, and by convention sometimes they can use their powers without the advice of ministers or even against the advice of ministers. These are called the reserve powers. These include the right to dismiss a government which is acting illegally or unconstitutionally, to refuse an early election to a prime minister or premier who has lost majority support in the lower house, and to choose a prime minister where no one party has a clear majority in the house (if the prime minister so chosen could not acquire majority support, he or she would have to resign). In such situations the governor-general and the governors are the stabilisers and protectors of the system.