How is the parliament dependent on the executive for
enacting laws? Do you think it has a positive or a negative
effect on the proposed law?
Answers
The relationship between the Executive and the Parliament is the buckle which joins a system of government. It determines the character of national politics, the role of key public institutions, and the balance between government and the broader political system. In Australia, the reluctance of our founders to make explicit the relationship between Ministers and the Parliament has allowed disciplined political parties to thrive and has facilitated Executive dominance. Power has become skewed in the Executive's favour, replacing the Parliament as the primary forum for decision making with the party room. The folly at the heart of the founders' blueprint for the Australian system of government was the presumption that 'responsible government' would exist despite warnings of impending party consolidation. Today's system of party, rather than parliamentary, government is the result of gaps left in the Commonwealth Constitution.
This paper explores the implications of this folly for the Commonwealth Constitution. The argument of the paper follows the conventional wisdom: that the Executive dominates and controls the Parliament as a consequence of a disciplined two-party system.
The founders debated at length theoretical and operational concerns such as the composition of the Executive, alternative federal models, the election of Ministers, and, importantly, notions of responsible government. Yet because they failed to heed warnings that parliamentary government would become party government, the founders relied on untenable transplanted conventions about accountability through independent parliamentary votes and the compulsion that Ministers must be, or become within three months, a member of either House. The founders hoped conventions would reconcile the hybrid British and American model of Australian government. This paper explores how this decision was taken, and the consequences which emerged after the first decade of Federation.
Since 1910 there have been occasional flickers of hope for a revival of Parliament as a more significant part of the political system, often centring on the role of the Senate or a growing scope for committee input. We examine these trends and current proposals for reform, but remain pessimistic the overall balance will much change. While the Commonwealth Constitution remains ambiguous about the role of the Executive, and the Executive controls the means for reform, the architecture of 1901 will remain.
Though aware of the risk of 'party government', the constitutional founders underestimated the extent to which parties and, by extension the Executive, would dominate the Commonwealth Parliament. Though considered at the Convention debates, delegates nonetheless crafted constitutional arrangements that made traditional responsible government (however shadowy the definition) reliant on independent votes, moving coalitions of interests, and on a Senate as the defender of state, rather than party, interests. For those seeking to establish responsible government in Australia, these were not wise assumptions for the coming century.