However, I think Hawker does a shocking job of making the case. Lets start with this howler: “The only time any party’s numbers grow these days is when they are being fertilised by a branch stacker seeking preselection”

Unless you’re the Greens for example, in which case your membership has qudrupled in the last seven years. If Family First chose to have a genuine membership structure I’d imagine they’d be growing too.

I understand that in France MPs actually have to resign from parliament to be in Cabinet. Strikes me as very strange, and I’ll admit I haven’t checked it, but the French Greens mourned the fact that they lost one of their handful of seats when Dominique Voynet became minister for the environment and regional development. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Voynet

If this is true, it would be worth exploring how well it has worked for France, rather than fiddling around with dodgy implementations by Rann and Blair.

Downer is as bad as Rice” was just a rebuttal of the notion that picking ministers from the parliamentary pool somehow made them more accountable to the public via the magic of democracy. It’s nice in theory, but I just don’t see it in practice.

Cautiously agree. But even in theory it has legs. A minister is answerable to her/his constituency and can be given the boot. Witness the trouble Malcolm Turnball almost had and the difficulties Brownwyn Pike most definitely had. It seems to me that it’s a question of the old dividing line between bureaucracy and government.
.
The American system has a monarch subject to a parliament, election and with a limited term. It’s arguably appropriate that s/he appoints the cabinet from wherever. I don’t think this is a good idea in the Westminister System. This is partially because I don’t think the American system is a good idea.
.
Dr Rice make work for the most obnoxious government around since Mao kicked the bucket but at least she’s got a brain and worked to get were she was. Downer?

Now he has to work out a trick policy issues, igts biting him on the bum. Daily flip flops and confusion from Mr Doorstop.

That’s making the rather optimistic assumption that the Labor and Liberal parties are interested in revitalising and democratising themselves!

Good point. Of course they’re not. I’d wager the level of control freakery runs proportionally very high in politics. From my small experience most of the backroom bunch spend most of their time trying to get around democracy. Which is an excellent reason for democracy in the first place.
.
If you had any of these people in power for life it’d be a very short while before jackboots n’ razor wire time.

Paulus, our constitution (s. 64) does require people to become either senators or HR reps within three months of becoming a Minister of state.

And “Dolly Downer was a wanker, but so is Condie Rice” wasn’t my argument for appointed ministers, “Downer is as bad as Rice” was just a rebuttal of the notion that picking ministers from the parliamentary pool somehow made them more accountable to the public via the magic of democracy. It’s nice in theory, but I just don’t see it in practice. My arguments for appointed ministers were a) that currently ministers are people who did what had to be done to get into parliament, but there are lots of potentially quite good ministers out there who aren’t prepared to get into the shit-fight that is party politics, and b) ministers also have to concentrate on campaigning, sometimes in their own marginal seat, and perhaps their time could be better spent on their portfolios.

Well, pardon me if I don’t think this is a devastating argument. Tricky questions can be answered by someone other than the Minister to whom they are directed — thus the PM can answer for the Minister if he wishes. And then give a one-word reply.

Governments can, and have in the past, treated Question Time with contempt. And the only people who will ever know about it are the 0.0001% of the population who watch it on the ABC.

“The basis of democracy is that our politicians are elected, not appointed.”

The basis of democracy is that our legislature is elected. There is no need under constitutional theory for the other two branches of government — the executive and the judiciary — to be elected.

And indeed our Constitution does not even mention the Cabinet, if I recall correctly — which suggests that the consitutional framers had no objection to a PM setting it up as he wishes.

Of course Condi would win a Senate seat if the Republicans had to find her one. But if the US president had to select their cabinet from either house, then those cabinet members could be grilled directly on governemnt decisions. As it is, the US cabinet, in my view, lacks accountability.

Amused and others: my argument was that ministerial appointment isn’t democratic in any real way currently anyway. People can vote out a minister if they’re hideous enough, but (usually) not a minister in a safe seat, and not if they don’t live in that minister’s electorate, and only if they’re willing to give up their vote for who should be in government (assuming they’re still happy with the government anyway). Ministers from the Senate or your local upper house are even harder to split out from their party, given the number of people who vote below the line. The only ministers that you can actually have a hope of campaigning against and voting out personally are in marginal seats - which presents a conflict of interest on where the minister’s time should be spent.

People vote for the party that they want in power, and the leader of that party appoints the ministry, taking talent, factional considerations and whatever else they consider pertinent into account. That’s the reality. If you want ministerial positions to be democratic then you have to elect them directly. Don’t kid yourself that ministers appointed the way they are now are any better than they would be if appointed in exactly the same fashion but without the requirement of being in parliament. I challenge anyone to find an appointed minister from overseas somewhere who honestly would not get elected if put into a safe seat or high order ticket position by their sponsoring party.

A basic qualification in economics ,for instance, should perhaps be a pre-requisite for a treasurer. I find it most strange that we are prepared to hand over a most important specialised job to an amateur whose main claim to fame is probably political savvy.

The basis of democracy is that our politicians are elected, not appointed. Ergo, I think that appointment of cabinet members is a bad idea. I agree with Amused.

I am surprised that anyone with even the vaguest of left liberal pretensions, can’t immediately see the grave problem this kind of chicanery represents.