Alongside Australia’s fiscal deficit — currently estimated to be $184 billion by next year — the COVID-19 crisis has produced other equally profound deficits in our social and cultural institutions.
One that will be hard to fix is a large and growing governance deficit: governance, in the sense of the ways in which public policy is made and governments held to account for policy and delivery.
During the pandemic many institutional safeguards — cabinet, parliament, publication of government information — have been set aside.
Many have a long history, predating Australia’s nationhood, with origins in Westminster, European and American democratic thinking.
One of them is the idea of cabinet government. In the Westminster tradition, the prime minister is considered “first among equals”, not a supreme leader.
This tradition has been breaking down over recent years even in Westminster, with prime ministers in the UK, Canada and Australia increasingly adopting presidential-style approaches to governing on their own.
COVID-19 has not caused this trend — but it has accelerated it mightily. Cabinet is now almost a non-event in some states. Ministers other than, occasionally, a health minister or treasurer, are not engaged in decision-making on key policies for managing the pandemic.
You might say that’s fine — what would a transport, justice or agriculture minister know about how to handle COVID-19? This misses the key value of cabinet processes: they allow a diversity of views to be expressed, and can expose unanticipated flaws in policy.
The national cabinet exacerbates the problem. Premiers and chief ministers may have short notice about key papers to be discussed, and have to respond to propositions presented by the prime minister without extensive consultation. It promotes speedier decisions but leaves many voices unheard.
The process also gives Scott Morrison as prime minister far greater control over setting the national policy agenda than previous prime ministers have enjoyed.
This again is merely the continuation of a decades-long trend of centralisation of power in the PM’s office, but greatly accelerated.
Other key governance institutions have been weakened. We now have a precedent that a virus outbreak is a good reason for the federal parliament not to sit, which means ministers are not held accountable through parliamentary processes.
Although parliament’s question time can often seem like bad theatrics verging on melodrama, every now and then a question will hit home and reveal genuine problems in public policy or administration. Governance is poorer without it.
The pandemic is not likely to lead to a constitutional coup in Australia — we are not that far gone — but it has happened in Hungary.
Suspending parliament is dangerous because it could be a precedent used to do the same in future emergencies, whether another pandemic, natural disasters or (most worrying) threats to national security.
The history of coups worldwide tells us that security threats, real or concocted, can allow an authoritarian leader to suspend democracy. “For the duration of the threat” has a habit of becoming permanent.
Crikey has been vigilant in exposing other institutional breakdowns — governments hiding information (as with the COVID Commission), turning a blind eye to conflicts of interest, now par for the course for government appointees.
These deficits are hard to overcome. If institutions offer ministers, public servants or government appointees power without accountability or transparency, only the most ethical amongst them will decline the offer. Once they acquire such power most will fight hard to retain it.
There are solutions.
One would be for the opposition to agree to parliament meeting by video link. Although not as effective as parliament meeting in person, it would surely be better than not meeting at all. While there are still some parliamentary inquiries underway, they are not a substitute for the ability of the parliament to put questions directly to ministers.
Another would be for the government itself to confirm that current arrangements are temporary, and commit to restoring parliamentary processes and greater transparency as soon as possible. A commitment to holding normal estimates hearings after the October budget would be a good move.
It may come under internal pressure to do so. There are Coalition figures concerned about erosion of democratic institutions. They are well aware that the arguments in Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom can apply equally to centralised conservative governments as to socialist systems.
Just as authoritarianism has both left- and right-wing adherents, anti-authoritarian sentiment could also arise in a bipartisan fashion among parliamentarians: if only they were allowed to meet and interact.
I don’t think this state govt is your worry, try the feds and specifically Morrison.
This has been a worry of mine since the stage 4 lockdown in Victoria, it’s not hard to see those in control developing a liking for autonomy without consequence. The sheeple can be controlled, many will even like it. This sort of thing always begins with being told it’s for our own good. And this pandemic provides the perfect opportunity to make those claims. What happens after stage 4 will be telling.
It’s always the middle class that welcomes authoritarianism, to protect their (perceived) interests against hoi polloi whom they imagine will take away their, slim advantage.
Stephen, an interesting discussion but I worry about a few things you said and didn’t say. Firstly, States,& their Premiers, are not subservient to the federal government. When the Australian federation was being formed one of the issues, besides the separation of powers between the Executive, the judiciary and the legislature, was to have tensions on power between the States and the Feds (modelled on the USA system) to avoid ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’. I agree with you that the new COAG risks this benefit. But the new COAG more importantly will put more power in the hands of the executive arms of government and takes power from the legislatures. Legislatures will find it difficult to assert their right to oppose or refuse to legislate in accordance with the ‘national cabinet’.
I think you are wrong about a coup. We have already had one. We have a government that has won office on the back of unlawful expenditure and lawful but clearly wrong false and misleading election material. We have a federal government that believes the Constitution is a ‘normal convention’ that doesn’t apply in the current circumstances, and that it is not bound to spending public funds in accordance with Parliamentary appropriation laws. We have a government that avoids Parliamentary scrutiny and accountability. We are yet to see whether Morrison will avoid elections but I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes up with an excuse if the polls suggest he may not do well.
In respect of ‘serfdom’, I have no quibble, except to say that have been increasingly accelerating towards fuedal capitalism, that is most people effectively become indentured employees on very low wages with no option as social security is increasingly turned into ‘welfare’ and made mean.
Perfectly put.
But yet only one labour state has enacted a lockdown, complete with curfew. It’s the states we need to watch, not federal. Not that I disagree with many of your comments about the federal gov.
We have to be vigilant with all of them, & I agree the states have their share of anti democratic, anti-liberty and patronising of the citizenry (serfdomising?). What quickly comes to mind is NSW with their constraints on people exposing animal cruelty, political decisions allowing MDB water theft, and then the gobsmacking inconsistency of State governments prohibiting political gatherings, like BLM and Refugees, but allowing much larger Newscorp sports industry gatherings.
Aren’t feudalism and capitalism interchangeable terms that describe fascist systems based on inequality? where a small unelected group / owners of capital and their sales reps (politicians) determine whether you work or not, what work you do and what you are paid.
Given how they regard us as helots, I doubt that a handful of our parliamentarians even understand the concept of “primus inter pares” much less adhere to it.
The main concern of most of them being to whip out the baton in their knapsack.
One would suggest ‘the road to serfdom’ was the objective and has been achieved by salami tactics over decades where radical right libertarian ideology rules supreme over inconvenient details e.g. checks and balances of liberal democracy, balanced media, grounded evidence based policies, parties having breadth and depth of leadership, a society that questions real issues (vs. faux cultural issues)…..
At least Hungary and its citizens have a relatively enlightened and liberal EU with commensurate standards to fall back on for support; Australia has what, the US and to a lesser extent the UK?
Was going to say Drew that I see The Road to Serfdom as being much more likely to come from the authoritarian right than the socialist left.
The socialist left has all manner of evils associated with it, but seeing as how no society has really gone down the socialist road, only ever skipping straight to totalitarian communist regimes, we may never know whether socialism leads to authoritarian rule.
But we have much evidence that the neoliberal right see authoritarian rule as their end game.
It was in my opinion always a right wing and/or libertarian construct. Hayek’s fellow libertarian proponent Ayn Rand seemed to hold the same dogma as a true believer, till her twilight years when she was compelled to rely upon social security…..
Mere mercenaries to spread the libertarian and neo liberal message for 90%+ of the population on behalf of the top 10% whom expected socialists policies for themselves paid by others (and to a limited extent, including their voting constituency e.g. middle class welfare and minimum retirement income).
Chile in the 70s came close (a democratically elected socialist government) but it was ‘saved’ from any adverse outcomes going down that route by the US, which intervened to install the fascist dictator Pinochet.
The first 9/11 – Sept 11, 1973.
As DrK said earlier that year, “I don’t see why we should let a country go communist because of the irresponsibility of its electorate!”.
And of course, he didn’t.