By Max Lane
On March 13 Australians will brave the gauntlet of How to Vote leaflets to cast a vote which will decide which of the major parties will become the government. They will not, however, be deciding who rules Australia.
Although housed in a $1.5 billion building with all the mod cons, including elaborate computerised information systems and a private loo and bathroom for every member, parliament is hardly the real "seat of government". Of course, after the votes are counted and the preferences distributed, the party with a majority in the House of Representatives will form the Cabinet and become the "government". But the House of Representatives itself is essentially a rubber stamp.
The concept of parliament being a "rubber stamp" is usually associated with the politics of Third World dictatorships. But the Australian House of Representatives also qualifies. We can ask, for example, how many laws — drafted by the Cabinet in consultation with a coterie of unelected and anonymous senior bureaucrats and business members of a range of advisory committees — has the House of Representatives ever rejected? The answer: nil. How many laws have members of the House of Representatives successfully initiated: nil. How many major bills has the House of Representatives ever significantly amended: nil.
And in any case, Australian law, including the constitution, actively prohibits parliament making laws and deciding policy on a whole range of policy areas. The parliament may not, for example, pass laws deciding what, how much or how any of the major products or services are produced by industry and business. The parliament, which, according to the theory pumped into kids at school, is supposed to pass laws managing the economy, is not even allowed to see the figures from inside big business.
The real function of parliament is to provide an arena where the politicians — the professional, career "representatives" — can play to the audience. Slanging matches, disruptive tactics, "dramatic" votes are all important techniques to try to convince us — the audience — that they are making real decisions.
To help them in this charade there is the Third Floor Senate Wing — the abode of the parliamentary press gallery. Equipped with in-house television and radio studios provided to the giant media corporations at cut-rate rentals, the press gallery dutifully treats the goings on with proper seriousness, reporting the latest tactical manoeuvres and interviewing the parliamentary stars or "reviewing" their performances. Thus they develop the combined talents of sports commentators and showbiz reporters.
But do they tell us about the top bureaucrats who provide the policy options, develop position papers, and who are not elected and remain in position no matter what happens? Do they investigate for us the decisions made in government? Who was on the advisory boards developing new policies and laws? Which professional lobby groups have been working on ministers and bureaucrats? No, none of this for us — it seems we are fated to get the circus but, more and more, without the bread.
Some in the smaller parliamentary parties — the Democrats in Canberra and the Greens in Tasmania — while critical of a lot of what goes on in parliament, ask people to put their hopes in gaining the "balance of power" in the Senate. In Tasmania, the Greens even had, they thought, the balance of power in the lower house of the state parliament.
It is true that the Democrats, Greens and independents in the Senate have been able to ameliorate the impact of a few bills and stall others. But it is an illusion to imagine that there is any "balance of power" to be exercised in an institution that has no real power. The presence of the Democrats and Greens in parliament hasn't stopped the introduction of enterprise bargaining or the continuation of uranium mining or the shift of the taxation burden from big business to wage earners.
In the short term, this is because the two parties of big business, the ALP and Liberal-National, maintain a majority and can ensure that the policies worked out in the board rooms and interdepartmental committee meeting rooms continue to get the rubber stamp. In the long term, the real question is whether parliament can ever exercise real power.
Of course, if progressive independents or Greens or Democrats can ameliorate some policies, they should. Anything that can lessen the impact of the austerity programs and sacrifice of the environment for profits should be done.
In the end, however, our own history and that of other societies shows again and again that it is only when people organise strong campaigns outside parliament, on the streets and in the workplace, that real changes can be won.
The campaigns to bring the troops home from Vietnam and to save the Franklin are well-known recent examples. On the other hand, the compromises that led the Tasmanian Greens into the Greens-Labor Accord, only led to a drop in the Greens' popularity. The Tasmanian Greens thought they would be able to exercise real power, but the real government just used them as a cover for its policies.
Campaigns that bring masses of people together, that threaten to radicalise people further, that can disrupt the profit-grabbing activities of big business and the administration of government based on the easy acquiescence of the population — this is the way to win change. Getting people into parliament can be useful if it is part of such campaigns, if the main role of the progressive in parliament is to help build these campaigns.
Progressive people in parliament must understand that it is the organised masses in the street and the workplace that exercise the wer".
A parliamentary opposition is something to be feared by big business and the ruling parties only if they know it is the real voice of an opposition on the streets and in the factories, offices and shops. What we need to do now is start building that opposition — as the first step to building a movement that can also start to discuss what we want replace this rubber stamp parliament with.