This limp, uninspiring election campaign is a sign our democracy isn’t working as well as it should. The voters’ preoccupation with the cost of living has been a gift to both major parties, allowing them to wave around a few small tax cuts and other sweeties while avoiding controversial measures to tackle harder problems.
The big two are claiming to want to get us “back on track” and “building Australia’s future” while saying and doing little about limiting climate change, reducing intergenerational unfairness (including unaffordable home ownership) and raising our stagnant standard of living.
The two parties have fought themselves to a standstill, where neither side is game to propose anything unpleasant – raising taxes, for instance – for fear of the scare campaign the other side would run.
What could we do to encourage politicians to try harder and show some courage? Well, John Daley, formerly a boss of the Grattan Institute, and Rachel Krust offer some good ideas in a report sponsored by the Susan McKinnon Foundation.
Their idea is to toughen up the institutions and arrangements that surround our federal politicians, putting more pressure on the pollies to get on with making real improvements. They want “a stronger parliament, a more independent public service, more independent advisory bodies and a competitive electoral system that rewards deep engagement with the whole community and pushes incumbents to do better”, Daley says.
They start with reducing political donations, which feed the perception – and the reality – that money is buying access and influence. Many of the donations come from industries which are highly regulated by the government. Gambling companies, for instance, contribute 10 per cent of the donations from industry despite accounting for just 1 per cent of the economy.
The cap on donations from industry bodies should be reduced from $1.6 million a year to $150,000 over the period between elections. The cap on spending by third parties (such as Clive Palmer) should be lowered from $11 million to $2 million. This would also apply to donations from “nominated entities” such as the Liberals’ Cormack Foundation and Climate 200.
The threshold for public disclosure of donations should be lowered from $5000 to $1000.
Daley and Krust say the limits on how much could be spent on campaigning that were agreed by the two major parties unfairly benefit nationwide political parties at the expense of independents by allowing the parties to buy advertising in marginal electorates which independents aren’t allowed to match.
Turning to the public service, the former Coalition government’s robo-debt scandal, in which senior public servants failed to stand up to their minister’s wish to do something unlawful and Barnaby Joyce’s admission that he fired a department secretary to get more compliant advice, tells us the public service has become too responsive to ministers and not independent enough in serving the long-term public interest.
Daley and Krust say we need legislation to require that department secretaries be appointed from a shortlist supplied by the Public Service Commission and the secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department.
Legislation should also limit the grounds on which a department secretary’s employment can be terminated.
Next, the authors want to curb a prime minister’s ability to call an early election. This gives the government an unfair advantage over its opponents because it can pick a date it thinks will work better for it as well as keeping its opponents guessing.
Speculation about early election dates creates uncertainty and distracts politicians and the media from focusing on policy issues.
The authors favour a fixed four-year term, but this would require a referendum. Three-year terms, however, could be made fixed terms by legislation, unless the government loses a confidence motion or is unable to pass supply bills to keep money flowing.
A further idea is to make civics education compulsory in the latter years of high school education.
It’s tempting to try to fix any and every problem by adding it to the school curriculum, but I think civics is a special case. People need to know how our political system works as part of their rights and responsibilities as citizens.
Testing shows that knowledge of civics is falling. Only 28 per cent of year 10 students were at the proficient standard last year – the worst result since testing began in 2004. Perhaps if young people knew more about how the system worked, they’d take more interest in election campaigns. And perhaps if they’d studied democracy, they’d value it as highly as the rest of us.
A further proposal by the authors is that independent members of parliament be given increased staff to help them review proposed legislation, particularly if they hold the balance of power.
Daley and Krust’s ideas are good and could give our politicians’ performance a shot in the arm. But the system as it is now is what makes life easier for the two major parties. Why would either Labor or the Coalition ever want to make such changes?
They wouldn’t. But that’s what makes the pair’s suggestions so timely. If either of the majors wins a majority of seats, those proposals are likely to go straight to the most unreachable shelf in the parliamentary library.
But there’s a high likelihood neither side will win enough seats to govern in its own right. In which case, one side or the other will need to gain the support of enough minor party and independent members to convince the governor-general it’s able to govern with stability.
So these are just the circumstances in which the crossbenchers will be well placed to bargain for their support and the authors’ wish list could come in handy.
I’ve never forgotten that NSW’s move to four-year fixed terms came as part of the bargaining with four independents after Nick Greiner’s Coalition government fell short of the numbers at an election in 1991.
Political miracles do sometimes happen.