The trouble is not the Westminster system in the ACT Legislative Assembly, as Kate Carnell suggests. The trouble is the calibre and actions of the people who have been elected to run it. True, it has improved since the first self-government election, but the letters, talk-back, opinion polls (though there have been no recent ones) and public meetings suggest there is little confidence in the people running the show.
This is not peculiar to the ACT. Indeed, one MLA cynically pointed out despite their much larger Parliaments, NSW and Victoria still have difficulty putting together a government of people you could trust to run a modest business, a medium-sized charity or a bush hospital, let alone a department of state.
The trouble in the ACT is that with only 17 members, even if our drongo-to-competent ratio is better than elsewhere, we still have a tiny number of people who can be trusted to put together policies and get a department to implement them.
Canberra has a further disadvantage. It stems from it being a public-service town. Fully half of the people who would otherwise be available for public office are roundly discouraged by the system from standing.
Under present rules public servants can stand and come back to their present jobs if they fail. However, if they go out for, say, one or two terms, they have to start from scratch to get back in. They can only apply for jobs advertised at large, not Gazette jobs.
More importantly, tough, the bureaucracy does not want to know people after they have stood for public office. It is bad enough federally. The ACT is regarded with more contempt. Why would any competent mid- to top-ranking public servant risk so much for so little? Superannuation changes, loss of security and perhaps moving to another electorate is “”a big ask”.
The same applies for the lobbying industry. People with known political-party affiliations get shunned in some quarters, though there are exceptions. Indeed, Paul Whalan has shown that a move from the Deputy Chief Ministership to a lobbying business is a step up the ladder, not down. He moved that way voluntarily. It should be the other way.
Carnell has a point in wanting to change some of the more ostentatious trappings of ministerial government. At least then the popular view would be “”community service”, rather than “”political self-serving”. However, the advantages to the ACT of having ministers accountable in the Westminster style to the House and thus the people is too great to change the whole system. So, too, is the advantage the ACT gets in having Ministers and the Chief Minister at Australian ministerial councils.
A further factor in not getting good candidates is the state of the major parties in the ACT. The Liberals have about 500 members and Labor only a couple of hundred more. It is a pitifully low membership. Part of that is due to a disdain for politics by the federal bureaucracy. That may be healthy in an Australia-wide context. In the ACT it has cut away a huge talent pool that we need to run our state and municipal government more effectively.
Some public servants have run the gauntlet and are in the Assembly now. But many more have surely been discouraged.
The difficult task is to knit the advantages of Westminster with an ethic that says seeking election to the ACT Legislative Assembly is a self-sacrificing, commendable, local-community-service action, not a toadying, slimy activity aimed at self-aggrandisement.
The next election will be an important one. It will determine whether the Hare Clark with Robson rotation is of any use in selecting better MLAs or whether the political parties will find a way to force the mass of the electorate into voting according to the party’s whim.
As it happens, there is the potential for some vigorous contests which could test incumbents severely.
For those who have not been following it the seats are as follows: the seven-member Molonglo in the centre; the five-member Brindabella based on Tuggeranong and the five-member Ginninderra based on Belconnen.
In Molonglo the Liberals have Carnell, Gary Humphries, Greg Cornwell and Lou Westende. They cannot all get a seat. Perhaps Westende will retire. Labor has Rosemary Follett, Terry Connolly, Bill Wood and David Lamont. It is unlikely they will all get a seat. Perhaps Bill Wood will move to Brindabella.
Ginninderra is wide open for some good new candidates. Unlike Molonglo, only one Minister is standing, Wayne Berry. The others are Speaker Roberta McRae and perhaps one of the lowest-profile MLAs, Ellnor Grassy. Labor will put up two more candidates. If they are good enough, they could easily unseat a sitting Labor MLA under Robson rotation.
The Liberals have no sitting members, though I understand Harold Hird and Lyle Dunne will stand. One Labor wag suggested that if that is all they can put up, they will be plenty of good Labor people anxious to run against them.
This, of course, this misunderstands the nature of the Robson rotation. The contest is as much between members of the same party as between members of opposing parties.
There is no party order of candidates on the ballot paper. One voter’s ballot paper will have McRae’s name at the top of the Labor list, another will have Grassby at the top, another Berry and another a new candidate. Each voter will have to pick their own order of preference. The party cannot do it for them. And voters cannot assume that the order of candidates they happen to get on their ballot paper is the same as the party’s order. In fact the chances are it won’t be.
The chance for new people to unseat sitting MLAs (and it seems higher in Ginninderra than elsewhere) might help overcome reluctance to enter political life in Canberra, because there would be no need (as in the other single-member state and federal elections) to stand in hopeless seats as an apprenticeship, or in the Senate to sit in the hopeless sixth position on a party list.
In the new ACT environment a Minister’s position is a two-edged sword. A ministry brings recognition. It also brings opprobrium. A voter can still vote Labor but vote against the Minister. Let’s take four examples.
Connolly. Name well known. Face on the box. No 1 in the voter’s box. Or: Still allows ACTION to run at a huge subsidy. Make him No 7 of the Labor candidates.
Berry. Stood up to the tobacco companies. I don’t want my kid to smoke. Tick him first. Or: Allowed left unions to wreck the police rescue squad. Restructured the TAB to cause public-sector bureaucratic atrophy. Wasted public money by putting a hospice miles away from a major hospital. Mucked up Connolly’s vain attempt to straighten out the ACTEW with better work practices. Give him No 5 in the Labor list and try new people ahead of him.
Wood. Thoughtful proponent of the arts and innovator in education. Put him first. Or: Polite listener to community groups but goes out and does precisely what his bureaucrats and developers want. Put him last, but I still want to vote Labor so put a back-bencher up higher, or try someone new.
Follett. Faced hard budgetary constraints with care and compassion. Difficult to see how she could have divided the cake better. Give her number one. Or: Wishy-washy, stand-for-nothing. Refuses to bite bullets on major budgetary blow-outs. Put her down the list.
And the same on the other side.
In Brindabella, the Liberals will get a choice. The party may list Tony De Domenico, Trevor Kaine and Bill Stefaniak, but the ballot paper will have the names in a different order. Voters will have to think.
De Domenico. Gutsy fighter for efficiency and a fair go for business. Tick him first. Or: Plotting, ambitious schemer and a disruption to party teamwork. Put him No 5 on the Liberal list.
Kaine. Mature, financially responsible leader. Or: Cantankerous back-bencher still with leadership ambition who has past his time and does not know it. Give someone else a run.
Stefaniak. Great bloke with junior rugby. Gutsy fighter for law and order. I don’t care what the party thinks, he goes first. Or: Dangerous interferer with civil liberties. Blabberer of ill-thought-out knee-jerk reactions. No thanks.
In Molonglo, Liberals might think: Carnell. Unifying consensus seeker above the petty name calling. Or: Hopelessly inexperienced naive idealist who will never get anything done.
The important point is that Canberrans accept that a Westminster-style self-government is here which will more profoundly affect our daily lives than what happens federally. And that we should take a detailed interest in what is happening because we have a voting system that enables us to be choosy.
Just as it is up to the MLAs to make Westminster work better. It is up to the voters to make an informed choice about which individuals should be MLAs.