As the nation contemplates life beyond the Coalition, it becomes possible to imagine a retreat from over-powerful government, writes Jack Waterford.
I very much doubt that Scott Morrison could turn what he has done to good and honest government from a strong negative into a plus before the election. But he might be able to do a thing or two to establish and put into legislation some new principles of government that could act as a handicap on over-powerful government in the future.
The pandemic, for example, has aggravated a long-term tendency of ministers — at federal or state level — to govern by regulation and by media release, rather than by legislation debated at length in the parliament. More and more acts of parliament do not contain the general policy by which the will of the parliament will be carried out, but leave it to bureaucrats to fill out the details in way that significantly alter human rights and duties without ever having been discussed by legislators. In other cases, those responsible for delegated legislation have further sub-delegated it, making the law — because it is all law — ever less accountable to public opinion.
It may well be that a crisis, such as the pandemic, or an imagined crisis, such as Islamist terrorism or the much-anticipated but little-prepared-for war with China, justify a certain flexibility and capacity to act quickly in the national or the public interest. But as such crises recede, it is time to review and re-evaluate the need for such anti-democratic measures. It is time that the powers of the legislature were used to bring some of the ever-increasing powers of executive government to heel.
Victoria has just adopted new national emergency laws, after an extensive review of shortcomings in the way it shifted and changed, and adopted new peremptory powers during the Covid crisis. Its government’s attempt to systematise, and make more regular and accountable, existing legislation was used to confect a panic among some people in Victoria that the legislation was some sort of power-grab, rather than a relaxation of controls. There were gatherings of extreme right-wingers, anti-vaxxers, and people who thought that any coercive controls — such as the requirement to wear masks — were inspired by Satan and Marx in the interests of one-world government and the removal of their much-treasured American Bill of Rights freedoms.
Some Liberals, believing they were accurately sniffing the wind, declared themselves in favour of freedoms rather than controls, persuasion rather than coercion, and opponents of the intrinsic tendency of Labor governments to be bossy. But the opinion polls suggest that Daniel Andrews is more popular than ever, and that he would romp home with an increased majority were an election held tomorrow. But it is possible, if unlikely, that Morrison, and even his Coalition rival Peter Dutton, could shed their own public reputations for being strongly authoritarian and keen on punishment models, and become the architects of a more relaxed, less despotic, autocratic and imperious style of government. That might involve some quick rebranding of some of their more draconian laws — particularly in the national security domain — and the passage of some exemplary legislation focused on showing a commitment to the rule of law, openness, accountability, and due process. Perhaps hard to do, given their personalities, but intended to give some substance to the pretence that they are the true liberals.
Can Morrison reinvent himself and sell it to the electorate? By now probably not, but he has nothing to lose.
There are, of course, many audiences for such transformations, including the electorate at large. Most voters have already made up their minds about the direction they will take. But there is a particular group of voters that ought to be constantly in Morrison’s mind if he is to have the slightest chance. This involves the new breed of independents, some already elected and some standing in vulnerable Liberal seats. They are mostly women. Slurs by the government notwithstanding, they are mostly conservative by disposition on economic matters, but liberal on social matters. In a different world they might be moderate Liberals, but many have despaired of the way that moderate liberals in the Morrison government have accepted lowest-common-denominator politics, ready for example to have their views on climate change subordinated to the views and vetoes of Barnaby Joyce. For most of these independents the big focus is on the restoration of proper government, including the creation of an ICAC.
Thirty years ago, Malcolm Fraser, who, were he alive would be voting for one of these liberal independents, said that his most important achievement in government had been the implementation of FOI legislation. One of Morrison’s achievements, with the help of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, has been to render FOI virtually null and void.
Morrison will always have as his monument, for good and for ill, his being at the helm during the pandemic and the ensuing recession. For some things he deserves praise, but his achievement is so mixed with mismanagement, meanness of spirit, lying and marketing bullshit that many of the good bits will forever be discounted. Likewise what could be — if he wants it — reform of substance to the way parliament operates as a workplace, and deals with harassment and sexual assault — will be lasting memorials only if he is wholehearted about it. He must, in short, suppress that constant instinct to do nothing that could possibly give any comfort to his critics or his enemies, or to those on the other side of the culture wars.
Morrison has few votes to garner on the extreme right of politics, or even among conservative Christian constituencies. But he has a lot of ground to make up in the centre of politics, not least in responding to the loud discontent of women, much of which has become focused on him.
In setting out to make big action on this as one of his things, he could be generous of spirit — even if it is against his instinct. He would be mostly setting onerous standards for others, rather than checks or handicaps on his own powers or discretions.
Over the next few months, it would be perfectly possible for Morrison and the government to become even more unpopular with women, or (if as he and many in the Coalition think) women of a certain type over issues of their safety, and their rights in the political workplace. But if he was of generous spirit, even in addressing some of the matters he has dealt with inadequately, he would not be creating much in the ways of fresh crosses for, or limitations on his style of government. No doubt he continues to hope for another miracle and re-election. But he is also a cold hard realist, and must calculate that another transformation — into the decent Australian horrified by abuse of women and determined to stop it — could only do his image good. Whether with his place in history. Or his reputation, now and in the future, among men as much as women. Or even as a leader fighting the election.
John Waterford AM, better known as Jack Waterford, is an Australian journalist and commentator.
Contributions to Pearls and Irritations
Your contribution will fund quality independent comment and analysis in Pearls and Irritations
Contribute
