The Liberal Party's Obsession over Mandates (Should Fred Nile be concerned?)

Since the Liberal Party has ascended to the dais of power in Australia, a considerable amount of chatter has popped up around the idea of ‘mandates’ and whether or not the Liberal Party has one in its possession. I have to admit, I find the whole concept quite interesting and confusing.

The argument that the Liberal Party seems to running goes something like this:

1.     Party X has supported policies P, R, Q over the last few years leading up to an election.

2.     Party X has won enough seats to form a Government in the Federal House of Representatives.

3.     Therefore, all the other parties should respect the ‘will of the people’ and allow Party X to implement policies P, R, & Q, unimpeded.

This argument seems to be advocating for a kind of ‘winner takes all’ practice, where the party that forms government is given free reign to implement all of their policies (or at-least their most ‘prominent’ policies). One issues I have with this perspective is that it seems to ignore the fact that there are a multitude of other elected representatives, who are not a part of the ‘ruling party’, but who were just as legitimately elected to represent their constituents. In fact, the Liberal Party has just spent the last three years denouncing the Labor Party for not strictly following the policies, which they brought to the 2010 election. Now it seems the Liberal Party are suggesting such ‘breaks with the public’s trust’ are the morally right thing to do.

Despite this concern, my strongest reaction has been one of confusion, as all this speculation over the existence of mandates seems entirely unnecessary. Why do we need to argue about these ill-defined and overly subjective conditions, under which a victorious Party can claim a mandate for certain policies? We already seem to have a very clear and simple test for whether or not a Government has a mandate to enact a certain policy, and that is, for the Government to attempt to have relevant legislation passed by both houses of the Federal Parliament. If you can get it passed, then you have a mandate for that policy. On the other hand, if the Australian people have elected representatives, who choose to block the passage of the legislation, then you don’t have a mandate.

Am I missing something here? Is this not how our system of governance was designed to function? If a Government feels very strongly that the people voted ‘wrong’, then they can always trigger a double dissolution and hope that people 'get it right' the next time. However, if you’re not willing to take that risk, then you should put your energy into effectively governing in the parliament, which you have been given, rather than speculating and whinging about mandates.

“Politics is about a lot more than winning and losing. I think politics at its best is about compromise, shades of grey, and about issues.” – Matt Taibbi

Federal Election 2013: My vote

Tomorrow we will be going to the polls to vote in the Australian Federal Election. We will each have to decide which party we want to throw our allotted 1-vote behind.

I think it is often very difficult to decide which party you want to support, especially when the two major parties seem indistinguishable.  For those who might be interested, I thought I would talk about how I decided where to send my vote.

1. I decided on the issue/s that were most important to me.

For me, the issue is ‘climate-change’. I care a great deal about other issues (e.g. LGBT rights, asylum seekers, welfare). However, I think that the magnitude of the potential hardship and suffering, which could be caused by unmitigated climate-change makes it the most worthy issue to base my vote on.

2. Find out the stances the different parties have on this issue.

a)     House of Representatives: It is most important that you find out the stances of the major parties, as they are more than likely going to be the ones that end up with your vote in the House of Representatives (unless there is a massive upset).

For my issue of climate-change, I decided that the parties were aligned with my views in the following order: The Greens>Labor>Lib/Nat. So this will be the order in which I will preference the parties in the House of Representatives.

b)     Senate: The senate works a bit differently, due to the fact that the seats here are allocated through a proportional system (rather than the ‘winner takes all’ HoR model). This allows many different minor parties to exist and gather support. Given the large number of parties, it is more likely that you will be able to find a party whose views (more or less) match your own, on your key issue/s. However, if (like the majority of Australians) you are going to vote above the line, then the party that you give your vote to (by voting '1' above the line), will decide your preferences for you. Therefore, it is important to investigate how that party has set-up their preferences. Otherwise, you could find your vote ending up with a party who you disagree with.

There are some great sites, which can show you how the different parties have directed their preferences flows (e.g. http://www.belowtheline.org.au).

In my case, I am voting below the line, to ensure that my vote goes exactly where I want it. I am voting for the future party first. In regards to climate-change policy, I think the Future Party has a firm understanding of the science, and a realistic understanding of our options to deal with it. They have proposed: supporting carbon pricing, supporting renewable & nuclear energy production, and exploring the available geo-engineering options to deal with any warming which occurs. Despite preferencing this party first, I am aware that my vote is not likely to stay with them, as a result I ensured that my vote would flow on to the other parties in a manner that reflects my values. I had a look at the default 'Future Party' preference flow and found it was quite different from what I wanted, so it is important not to just assume that a party you agree with on certain issues is going to preference your vote in the way that you would like. So, if you have the time, I think it can be well worth voting below the line to ensure that your vote actually ends up where you want it. You only get the chance to do this once every 3 years, so you may as well wring every drop of democracy out of the process that you can.

So there we go, that is how I have decided where my vote will be going on Saturday. I hope it has been of some help/interest.

“Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least” – Robert Byrne.

Would an Abbott government legalise gay marriage?

            Gay marriage is an issue which I feel has been gaining momentum over the last couple of years (at-least in the ‘Western’ political space). In-fact I think Victor Hugo’s suggestion that “One cannot resist an idea whose time has come” (http://bit.ly/ZPcUBk) is an apt description of the kind of momentum this idea currently possesses. In this post, I’m not so interested in arguing for why I think we should ‘succumb’ to this pressure and change the laws here in Australia. Instead, I would like to think realistically about how likely we are to see such a change here in the near future, particularly with the high possibility of an Abbott-led federal government being a reality come September.

Although recently Tony Abbott appears to have ‘toned down’ or ‘moderated’ many of his opinions, historically he is a politician who has not been afraid of voicing his quite conservative attitudes on various social issues (http://bit.ly/13DfISg). I think that in light of these kinds of comments many people believe that it would impossible for a government led by Tony Abbott to do something like legalise gay marriage, which is so counter to the ‘conservative agenda’. However, I would like to suggest that the idea that an Abbott-led Government could legalise gay marriage is not as unlikely as it might first appear.

My argument rests on two points. Firstly, I would like to suggest that if Abbott is forced to make a decision between his values and his power (like Malcolm Turnbull was forced to over the ETS); he is likely to choose power. Secondly, I propose that as a result of the current (and projected) community and parliamentary opinion on this issue, Abbott will be forced to make just such a decision.

My suggestion that if Tony is forced to choose between his values and power, then he will choose power is heavily influenced by the writings of the journalist David Marr. Marr wrote an essay last year (and has recently released a book), which look at Tony Abbott’s history (both political and personal) and provides some insight into what ‘makes the man tick’. One of the themes of Marr’s depiction of this history was that whenever Abbott was faced with a choice where he was asked to choose between his (conservative) values and his career (power), he tended to go with his career. I don’t have time to do into too much of the examples here, but if you want more evidence of this ‘trend’ I would encourage you to read Marr’s essay, or book (http://bit.ly/ZPeWS2, http://bit.ly/ZPf18c). Having said that, one prime example of this behaviour that I would like to pick out, is Abbott’s behaviour in regards to the ‘WorkChoices’ policy which was pursued by the Howard government. It has been suggested that Abbott argued strongly against this policy in that party room, as it would appear that this policy went against certain values which he held dear (http://bit.ly/ZPj9Ff). However, despite Abbott appearing to disagree with the policy on principle, once the Howard government adopted it as policy, Abbott put those values aside and staunchly defended it (against those who he essentially ‘agreed’) (http://bit.ly/ZPjpEv). I think that this (along with other examples of similar behaviour) shows that when placed in this kind of position, Abbott will ‘abandon’ his values in favour of attaining (or retaining) political power. Therefore, on this basis I would like to suggest that if Abbott was forced into a position where he felt that his political power would take a significant hit, by continuing his current strong stance against gay marriage, then he would be willing to revise his position. I’m not suggesting that Abbott would become a rainbow warrior, just that he might move to allow his party a conscience vote on the issue (as the party has done on similar issues in the past).

Having hopefully convinced you that given the right circumstances Abbott would change his current stance on this issue, I would now like to argue that Abbott is likely to be placed in just such a set of circumstances in the ‘near’ future. As I mentioned earlier, I feel that the push to legalise gay marriage has gained a lot of momentum (nationally and internationally) recently. I think this movement has been made particularly salient in Australia by the recent decision in New Zealand to move over to the more colourful side of the divide. Some people in Australia (and perhaps also in New Zealand) may have been quite surprised by this result, due to that fact that it is a ‘conservative’ government in-power over there at the moment. However, I think that in order to understand how this came to pass, it is important to remember that ‘conservative’ political parties (like many political parties) are quite a ‘broad church’ including people who hold a variety of different ideologies (with some of them being quite ‘non-conservative’). In the case of the Australian Liberal party, in regards to social issues much of the party is in the conservative/traditional ideology camp, however, there is a significant portion that would be more accurately identified as having a ‘libertarian’ ideology on these kinds of social issues. Those who are in the conservative camp would obviously be against the legalising of gay marriage. On the other hand, the libertarian ideology would encourage quite a different conclusion, due to the emphasis it places on encouraging individual freedoms (http://bit.ly/ZPgT0W).

 A natural result of this ideological split in the party is that when it comes to an issue like gay marriage, it would be expected that there would be a significant level of disagreement within the party over how they should vote. And this analysis does appear to be supported by the fact that a number of high profile (moderate/libertarian) Liberal Party MPs like Malcolm Turnbull (http://bit.ly/ZPhkZ9) and Barry O’ Farrell (http://bit.ly/ZPhrnl) have ‘come out’ in support of gay marriage. Historically, the Liberal party has dealt with these kinds of ideological divides by invoking a ‘conscience vote’, which allows its members to vote in the direction they want (rather than ‘toeing the party line’). Abbott has so far resisted calls to allow a conscience vote on this issue. This resistance is presumably motivated by his conservative values, and a belief that if MPs are allowed to vote according to their consciences, such a bill has a reasonable chance of success. Now, Abbott may currently be able to justify the party’s stance by suggesting that they need to hold to the position they presented at the last election (http://bit.ly/ZPi8gD). However, if over the next couple of years the current trend continues and support for legalising gay marriage continues to gain support in the community and the parliament, then I think it likely that Abbott will find himself at a familiar cross-road of having to choose between his values, and his political power. 

And I’m hoping that Abbott’s unwillingness to commit to extending the party’s current position beyond the next election (http://bit.ly/ZPi8gD), is a sign that old habits die hard.

The blog of Giselle and Cory

Hello,
This is a blog which Giselle and I have decided to start up. The basic aim of it is to provide a space where we can post our thoughts on various things. These could be on various political, religious, social issues, or perhaps even some posts centered on our individual areas of research (Cory- semantics/pragmatics of language; Giselle- alternative sexual interests). We wanted to create this space in order for us to express some of our thoughts in a public place, as well as help us practice writing out ideas in a clear manner (which is quite important in our current chosen career paths of academia).

We make no promises about post frequency, but, our current goal would be to post something substantial up at-least once a month.

We hope that some find our clamourings worth reading.