Our school soccer referee brought an unorthodox sense of balance to friendly matches. If one side got too far ahead, he joined in, taking possession of the ball, racing up the field and passing to a player near the goal, his referee’s whistle silent in his mouth as the clearly off-side receiving player dropped the ball into the goal.
The other extreme is totally unrefereed games _ like backyard cricket. Unrefereed games are fine if the rules, otherwise they degenerate into boycotts and violence.
So to is Westminster politics. Suddenly something unexpected happens and someone says it is “”tippity runs” or “”over the fence is six and out”. Pandemonium breaks out.
After six years of orderly backyard cricket in Queensland, the unexpected has happened. After the election, it appears that an independent may hold the balance of power. The independent is an expressed conservative, but still independent. The Labor Premier might refuse to leave the crease. The Leader of the Opposition will demand the bat. What does the Governor (referee) do?
The normal rules is that the Governor should follow the Premier’s advice. But because the rules are not set out clearly, the referee is in a difficult position. If the Premier has been rejected by the people and refuses to resign, should the Governor accept the Premier’s advice. What if the Premier advises another election immediately _ in the hope that the people having taught him a lesson will vote him back?
In Queensland, the Governor would be entitled to reject the advice. This is because in 1977, when Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Premier, the Parliament changed the law to say the Governor could dismiss the Premier and any Ministers without being subject to anyone’s direction and that the Governor could seek advice from any quarter. That was shortly after the 1975 dismissal and Sir Joh wanted to cast retrospective legitimacy on the action of the Governor-General in listening to the Chief Justice and then dismissing the Whit l am Government.
It means the Governor has a range of options in the event of a hung Parliament: call a new election; call on the Leader of the Opposition to form a Government; allow the existing Premier to continue until Parliament decides otherwise bearing in mind the Premier can delay the first parliamentary sitting for some time; or allow the Premier to continue as a caretaker Premier, instituting no new poicies and making no new appointments until Parliament has voted confidence in him or her.
A similar situation happened in Tasmania in 1989. The Liberal Premier, Robin Gray, won only 17 of the 35 seats. Initially, he wanted a new election which the Governor refused. Gray then advised the Governor to appoint him head of a minority Government, which he did. Only when the Parliament voted against Gray did he resign.
There is now enough precedent in Australian backyard Westminster cricket to say that it is proper that Governor should not order an immediate fresh election on the advice of a defeated Premier; that he should insist on Parliament meeting (if necessary calling it himself) after an election, even if the continuing Premier stays in office until Parliament votes. However, there is nothing that makes this a black-and-white rule.
The present Queensland position crops up in the Republican debate. In the Federal sphere, how should a president handle it? It is the hung Parliament after an election; the Prime Minister’s ill-defined power to advise an early election or double dissolution; and disputes between Houses (when the Senate knocks back Supply) that make for the backyard cricket of Australian politics.
How much easier to have the ACT situation where it is set down that in a set time after each election the Parliament must meet, first electing a Speaker and then electing and Chief Minister, and the election is always held on the third Saturday in February every third year. If we had that federally and abolished the Senate’s power to block Supply and money Bills, the need for the referee would be lessened.
There would be no fear that the President would enter the game like my maths teacher, and it would not matter much if the President was elected directly by the people or indirectly by the Parliament.