The man who in 1988 ran one of the most successful “No” campaigns in Australian constitutional history, Peter Reith, wants to run a successful “”Yes” campaign.
The change he wants is direct democracy, or citizen’s initiative.
Under it, the people would get a direct say to propose a law or repeal an existing law in a referendum provide a threshold of signatures has been collected.
Reith, opposition spokesman on defence, is the first to acknowledge he does not have wide support among his parliamentary colleagues. They see it as a threat, or at minimum a signal that they might not be doing such a good job. However, he thinks that if they see widespread public support for it, they will support it.
Direct democracy has been derided in Australia because it has had support from some way-out groups and political loners. For example, ACT Abolish Self-Government MLA Dennis Stevenson supports it and has a Bill before the Assembly. But it is getting wider support from the political mainstream, including from the ALP’s Special Minister of State, Frank Walker.
Reith put out a “”Green Paper” on it on behalf of the coalition parties when he was shadow attorney-general in 1988. Since the election it has not been re-endorsed. Reith said yesterday that he was ambivalent about seeking its re-endorsement, preferring to seek direct public support which would then result in politicians support.
The ACT Liberal Opposition also has a DD proposal at the drafting stage. it is very likely to go through the Assembly in some form with support from the three independents. Reith thinks the ACT proposal will be a catalyst for the gradual introduction of DD in other states and federally.
Opponents of DD argue practicalities. How can you verify the signatures?
What if lunatics hijack the system a put up silly ideas that will cost a lot to defeat? Ordinary people have no idea about drafting laws; they will cause all sorts of complications and inconsistencies with existing laws. What if conditions change after the law is passed making it unworkable, unjust and so on? What if inconsistent proposals are put up? What about the cost?
Reith and other proponents have solid counter-arguments, the most pertinent being that DD works in more than 20 states of the US and several European countries.
Signatures can be verified by sampling; a suitably high threshold prevents lunatic proposals and referendums are generally held with ordinary elections thus cutting costs.
Reith proposes a system of a parliamentary committee hearing to air any proposal and even a system of advisory opinions from the Federal Court on legal matters.
As to the quality of laws ordinary people might put up, Reith, Professor Geoffrey Walker and others argue that under the present system Parliament often passes badly drafted laws with unintended consequences. Besides, a citizen’s initiative could easily get access to drafting help.
Philosophically, proponents of DD are republican (in the classic sense) and democratic. Sovereignty resides in the people.
Practically, the instances of DD referendums are of less importance than the fact that the possibility of having them is there. If a citizen’s initiative is allowed, politicians get a bit more careful about passing bad laws. A Government might be popular, but one of its agenda items might be detested by a majority. Under the present system, the Government can crash through with its unpopular agenda item. With citizen’s initiative, it would be more careful lest it have egg on its face after a referendum to repeal it.
Australians have a fairly poor opinion of their politicians. The 1988 Issues in Multicultural Australia Survey, for example, found that one three out of 10 voters thought the Government could be trusted to do the right thing. Only one in five through the Government knows what it is doing.
There seems to a circle of cynicism and apathy: voters cannot do anything about the incompetence and untrustworthiness of their politicians, so why care? Proponents of DD argue that if people feel they can do something, they have less cynicism in the process. Reith argues that the present representative system is good, but could be better with citizen’s initiative added to it.
“”It’s a great idea; it’s like all good ideas, it is simple as anything,” Reith said. “”But hardly anybody really knows anything about it. Once people understand they will be overwhelmingly in favour of the idea, but it will not happen over night. I want to see people talk about it and understand it.
Reith does not want to get bogged down in details, but he draws a common theme from the eight proposals that have been put forward in Australia: a threshold of 2-5 per cent of voters signatures; a majority of voters; and a referendum generally to be held at the next election.
At present he does not argue for constitutional referendums to be called on citizen’s initiative, but would not “”die in a ditch over it”.
He wants an informed and transparent process with the implications of any proposal well analysed before voting.
In Australia, citizen’s initiative had been Labor party policy until the 1960s. The factional system and Paul Keating’s strongly held view that political sovereignty comes from the floor of the House of Representatives make it unlikely that it will go back on the platform in the near future.
However, with increased education and communications, people are going to get more demanding and better informed on political issues. When that is combined with better communications, people are going to demand a more direct say _ more often than a vote every three years.
The alternative is to continue on with the good but imperfect system we have now, where we surrender all power to Parliament for three years with no recourse when politicians do dumb things and pass idiotic laws, which, alas, they often do.