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Date:
24th June 2005

What is Democracy?

The Sydney Morning Herald ran a series of articles under the heading ‘Democracy’ last week, which seemed to indicate that there is a real crisis in the way that government operates.

The SMH chose to look at the issue by questioning the value of the work done by Parliamentary Committees. It asked, “What is the point of a committee if the government chooses to ignore them?” In drawing attention to the very poor rate of response by John Howard’s Federal Government, the SMH did the general public a favour. For the average person, who doesn’t spend a lot of time keeping up with those in power, this was useful information, but it is interesting to see their conclusion - the SMH seems to think that there is a problem with the committees!

What a strange angle! Let’s take a simple example from everyday life. If a mechanic tells you what’s wrong with your car, and you decide to ignore his advice, it does not mean that we do not need mechanics. Even if you don’t take the advice, it’s still useful to know what he thinks. If the car then goes wrong as indicated by the mechanic, then it might be time to revise the way you do things.

Understandably, the public thinks committees are a very costly business, but it seems much more reasonable to conclude that the government needs to start taking the advice that it’s paying for.

The reality is that it is not the Parliamentary Committees that the government is ignoring. Their inquiries are generally established in response to public pressure or interest. They seek input from the public, interest groups and experts, then develop recommendations to resolve the issue. The results are the best advice of many members of the public, government departments and experts in the field.

If we’re trying to weigh up the worth of a parliamentary committee then we should include the following benefits:

• They are one of the only ways that some information becomes available to the public and to most members of parliament.
  
  
• An inquiry is ‘news’ and they raise the public's awareness of the issues when the evidence goes public through the newspapers and other media.
  
  
• It should also be kept in mind that the only people who get paid extra to be on the committees are chairpersons of standing committees, who are all members of the Government. Members of "minor" parties and independents do not get paid extra to sit on committees.
  

Many issues have only been addressed because of the evidence that was made public in a parliamentary inquiry. I have instigated the inquiries into Child Protection Services, the NSW Mental health system, the underlying causes of the riot at Redfern and the situation at Campbelltown and Camden hospitals. Heads have rolled, budgets have increased, and important changes have been made. We haven’t been able to change everything but there is only so much you can do if the government is not required to implement the recommendations.

This work is a collaboration between the parliament and the public and it’s one of the few ways that people can have a say between elections. Currently, I am working (for no extra pay) on the very necessary Inquiries into Funerals, Dental Health and the Macquarie Fields riots.
These are issues of great social importance and the only way to get governments to do something is to look at the problems, analyse them, come up with solutions and shame the government into doing something about it. And that's what the committee process is all about.

If they really want to make things better they could try:

1. A different system for the parliament and the public to access information, then we might not need a Parliamentary Inquiry to get the information that they provide.

The Democrats, through myself and Andrew Murray (Federal Senate) have been calling for ‘Open Government’ on the New Zealand model for 4 years now. This is a proposal in which all information is public unless a special application is made to the Ombudsman to keep it secret. This is the exact opposite of what happens here in NSW, where all information is secret unless you do a Freedom of Information request, (and even then a lot of information is withheld for dubious reasons).

2. Calling for reform of Parliament so that the lower house is not totally controlled by the ruling clique (otherwise known as The Cabinet) of the dominant Party. This could be achieved by Proportional Representation where the number of seats in the lower house related more closely to the number of primary votes cast by the public.

As it is now, almost all the seat are held by the major parties and the 20-25% who vote for non-major parties do not get any seats, or any say. This is what the Clerk of the Federal Senate, Harry Evans, was talking about when he said that John Howard is an elected "monarch".

Yrs,
Arthur Chesterfield-Evans (ACE)