There’s some critical comment at Tim Dunlop’s and wsacaucus.org about Beazley’s refusal to allow Labor MPs a conscience vote on the Private Members’ Bills on the immigration regime to be introduced by Petro Georgiou.
I think Beazley is right. Labor tradition is very much against conscience votes, and rightly so as the individual MPs are not regarded as Burkean independents but as delegates of the Party pledged to fight for its policy. The other difficulty is that if you start allowing them in the ALP you give free reign to Joe de Bruyn and the Catholic Right Laborites to claim them on all sorts of things which are against Labor policy. Some Labor MPs don’t support benefits for same-sex partners or Medicare benefits for termination of pregnancy. Why should their tender consciences be privileged over Labor policy and the opinion of a majority of Labor voters?
Beazley hasn’t said that Labor won’t support the bills - my understanding is that they’re quite close to Labor policy. I strongly suspect Labor will back Georgiou.
He’s also no doubt trying to ensure the focus stays on the Government - given the extreme difficulty the ALP has had in reconciling Left and Right views on mandatory detention. I’d personally be very happy if the ALP changed its stance on mandatory detention, but this is not the right political moment to open up that debate again. The Government has enormous problems with this issue - as Amanda Vanstone’s “kinder, gentler” case by case approach leads to all sorts of contradictions and inequities and as coverage in the media of immigration issues becomes much more humane and personalised. Beazley should do everything possible to ensure that the Government is held accountable for the inhumane outcomes of its policy, and avoid focussing on Labor divisions around the principle of mandatory detention.
Elsewhere: Tim Dunlop responds.
Amen to that, brother Bahnisch. The very idea of conscience voting on immigration is ridiculous—it’s not particularly justifiable when the homophobes in caucus demand it to vote against equalising age-of-consent laws at the State level. What next, demands for conscience voting on the Budget?
It’s a good thing this Labor thugocracy is out of power at the Federal level.
I have to disagree with you both on this one. The older I get, the more I believe party politics is not in the best interests of the public.
A prime example is the Liberal Party and Iraq. There is no way every federal member supported Howard on the party’s position but they supported it because they had to it. It’s this hypocrisy that really pisses me off.
Perhaps Beazley is mindful that he does need to keep things in perspective like this bloke here http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=9685
It’s easy to get all emotional about things but experienced pollies know the facts of the matter will bind them all in the end.
Ron - but that relates more to the lack of intraparty politics in the Liberal Party than party politics per se. It could be argued that party politics actually worked quite well over the Iraq War - with one major party supporting it and the other opposing it.
It’s very difficult to conceive of how a modern democracy could be governed without parties. A parliament of independents would be unworkable and in any case likely to be drawn from the upper echelons (consider the conservatism and elite status of the majority of independent members in the Tasmanian upper house). Like them or loathe them, we need political parties to aggregate opinion and provide democratic choice. The trick is to make them more internally democratic, and more responsive.
Y’know Evil Pee, it would probably be a more constructive use of everyone’s time, not least your own, if you just limited all your future comments to the one line, “Swedish lefty feminazis stole my sperm!” It’s not like we’ll miss out on any content or context.
A parliament of independents would be unworkable
I don’t see any reason why this should be so.
and in any case likely to be drawn from the upper echelons
Even if this were true, it would be no different from the current situation.
Well, EP, presuming that you still draw the Executive from Parliament, you would polarise the “independents” on the choice of a government. They’re likely to become less independent almost immediately for that reason alone.
Same thing happens in (much smaller) local councils where people are elected on a non-partisan basis.
And how could you govern at all if it was unpredictable on every issue whether you could pass legislation?
Come on, Ron, it’s a matter of standards. When a few MPs insist on their ‘conscience’ rights above the policies of their party, nobody except the individual MP gets to have any say in the vote. What gives individual MPs the right to get together to sink the policies of their parties, whose name and organisations they depended on for their election?
I think it’s fantastic that Georgiou and Moylan are shit-fighting it out in the Coalition party room. That’s because of what it implies for the future discipline of Government MPs.
Basically agree, Mark but I believe that the ALP should support the bills, on the basis that I too understand that they are substantially in agreement and not worry about “technical” niceties. There is no downside as far as I can see, and maintains max pressure on the government. Implementing existing policy, more or less, not re-opening it and no “conscience vote” precedent.
I heard Laurie Ferguson (shadow spokesman on immigration) on this yesterday morning on ABC local radio and he essentially confirmed the point about Labor policy. He did say that there were some technical issues. I have to say he was hopeless in the interview. I know, hard to believe that one doesn’t come across as caring and compassionate, or even convincing, on an issue like this and also when one is holding some aces, but there you go.
Agree with that, Gaby, and about Ferguson. He should go. This article really shows just how hopeless he is. It’s a real pity that Labor has a useless shadow in this vital area. I’ve been disappointed that Beazley hasn’t reshuffled.
Beazley may have been between a rock and a hard place in terms of being questioned about it and avoiding pre-empting caucus, Naomi, but yeah it’s not flash.
I’m not following the logic behind opposition to conscience votes. Labor Party tradition is fine, but what’s fundamentally wrong with allowing MPs to vote more closely in line with the views of their constituencies? Parties work as hold-alls for a vaguely defined set of ideals, but party-line votes diminish the accountability of parliamentarians to the poor bastards for whom they represented the least worst choice.
Mr Greenspan, the logic is that they tend not to listen to their consituencies on conscience votes but to their own personal moral values - ie on issues such as abortion, sexuality etc. In many cases, Parliamentarians seem to be out of step with a majority of Australians on such issues. They’re not elected on the basis of their moral excellence but as representatives of a party.
We can actually distinguish the “conscience vote” from crossing the floor on issues like immigration, but Howard’s attack on Liberal traditions of independence causes it to be framed in those terms.
Mark, without parties we would elect our local representatives on a different basis than we do now. The constituency would need to know the candidates’ stance on the issues such as the moral ones you mentioned - the way things happen now in most cases we don’t.
How many people would inform themselves on such matters, Ron? Would an individual independent candidate formulate policy governing the whole spectrum of government action?
It would also turn national elections into localised elections - there’d be no sense in which a national election would represent the will of the Australian people generally.
And there are the practical problems I’ve mentioned in response to EP’s comment above.
It’s a nice idea but it’s neither practical nor, I’d argue, democratic. We need parties but we also need to make them better and more responsive parties.
‘more responsive’, to the ordinary membership - on that I agree - and less of their decisions and actions based on spindoctors and polls.
Mandatory detention and the ALP is where I part company - they created it and they still support it (and if the be truth be known, in it’s current form with a touch more compassion).
Ron, I’m against mandatory detention as well, but I don’t think this is the time to reopen ALP wounds on it. If the focus is kept on the government, who are responsible for creating the dysfunctional DIMIA culture and all the horrors of the last few years, momentum will build for a shift in ALP policy.
What makes MPs immune to lobbying on issues of “conscience”? Do lobbyists even bother trying under the current system (with its many fine traditions)?
If we retain parties, which I agree we should, we need a voting system that allows significant minority opinions to be reflected in seats in the parliament. I’m not expert on this matter, but like NZ or Germany?
What makes MPs immune to lobbying on issues of “conscience”?
Nothing. Religious lobbies are usually very active in lobbying on moral questions.
A good example of the chaos and corruption that you can get from a Council of ostensible independents is the Tweed Heads Council which was sacked today:
Independents don’t have a lien on political morality.
I wish the ALP would wake up to the fact that while they might have introduced mandatory detention many years ago what HOward and his minions have done with it and all other immigration policies is an absolute horror and disgrace. Clearly the internal DIMIA culture is a complete shambles where human right s and dignity, even basic legality, no longer matters. DIMIA has been corupted, the country has been corrupted, gov’t has been corrupted. If Howard and his thugs get away with even this disgusting mess then the ALP has totally failed as an opposition and this country is down the chute.
Nice to know that somebody apart from me equates the shadow Cabinet’s policies, with our national sense of honour. Cool.
Nice strawman, Mark. Those Tweed Council people weren’t real independents, they were fake fronting for a group.
With real independents, you’d have to bribe each one individually to achieve a given level of corruption. With a party, you only need to bribe those in leadership positions.
How touchingly naive of you, EP, to have such faith in supposed “independents”.
“With real independents, you‚Äôd have to bribe each one individually to achieve a given level of corruption.”
I gather this is exactly what happens in the US Congress. It is precisely the LACK of party control that enables lobbyists to buy individual votes.
“With a party, you only need to bribe those in leadership positions.”
A political party in any democratic system is rarely beholden to its leader - the reverse usually applies. The party system imposes a strict discipline on the leader NOT to betray the principles of the party.
Show me a “genuine independent” and I’ll show you a political ingenue and/or incompetent who doesn’t understand the concept of a majority rule.
Go back to your hash-pipe dreams, you jaded hippy.
Nice rant, Fyodor, but lacking in substance.
It’s parties, not independents, that fail to understand the concept of majority rule. In a hierarchical party system, it is only necessary for 51% of party members in 51% of electorates to be beholden to a particular faction, and that faction then owns the party. Thus a small minority of voters can in effect control the government.
With independents, a similar scheme would require the cooperation of 51% of voters in 51% of electorates in order to work.
The Party is a handy mechanism for centralising power, and centralised power is the enemy of democracy.
Without parties, EP, who’d smash the Left?
I suspect you’d prefer it if everybody *else* were independent.
Without parties, there would be less of a Left to smash.
Independents can still work in a common cause.
EP, in Council elections you rarely get “real” independents. You often get National Party members on Councils in regional and rural Queensland purporting to be “independents”. The reason is that the thing has to be workable - in other words you need some commonality of belief and support for a Mayor to make anything happen. Exactly the same would happen if you had a Parliament of “independents”.
Most of the Independents in the Queensland Parliament over the last two terms are/have been former One Nation members.
The two genuine (and fairly conservative) Independents put Labor into office in 98 when there was a hung Parliament because they correctly saw that the ALP would be a much better government than the Nats. Same thing in Victoria after 99.
Be careful what you wish for.
Tell you what. You keep to ‘independence’, I’ll stay in my Party and we’ll see what happens.
I’m not ‘wishing for’ anything, I’m merely refuting the position of those who think a union-like thugocracy is a necessary part of government.
I wasn’t ranting, EP. I was delivering yet another lecture to the enthusiastically ignorant.
Any political system is designed to allocate power. Democracy is just one method of delivering centralised power, i.e. into the hands of the majority. The party system merely formalises a process inevitable in any political interaction, namely the alignment of interests into political alliances for the purposes of establishing control. People who refuse to align themselves politically - by definition - marginalise themselves from the political process.
Are you listening, Nic White?
There are a few rats in the Liberal ranks, I think. George “Ratty” Brandis was full of praise for Georgiou on lateline last night.