What does the public think about the system? There is an extensive international literature which includes data on Australia that documents the decline in citizen trust (e.g. Dalton, 2004; Stoker, 2006). Recent data also shows that Australians maintain high levels of ‘satisfaction with the democracy’ with Australian results only second to those of Denmark (McAlister, 2007). Of course it is unclear whether this reflects an underlying faith in government, (for example a primarily normative orientation broadly consistent with a utilitarian political culture) or a judgment about the current structure. I have always been attracted by Peter Bowers (thoroughly utilitarian) reading of our national psyche: 'There is an ephemeral timelessness about the desire of Australians for the ideal party that will govern Australia fairly and wisely for all Australians. Australian politics are driven by a perverse romanticism that few Australians are willing to admit because it runs counter to the preferred national persona of treating all things political with an arid cynicism better suited to a race that has lived in a hard dry country for two hundred years' (Sydney Morning Herald, 10 March 1990). In the same spirit perhaps, Greg Craven is credited with proposing that Australians are radical about only one thing: that their politicians be moderate (cited by Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 2007, p. 15).

When it comes to politicians, public distrust and cynicism is plain. Federal members of Parliament rank twenty-first and State members twenty-second on the Morgan list of 29 professions as ranked by trustworthiness. Split ticket voting is an indicator of caution amongst electors. While the numbers fluctuate, in recent years up to 25% of the electorate has voted for different parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives. In other words, many Australians like divided government. Further, political parties are themselves increasingly unpopular. In 2001, 76% of Australians indicated they did not think parties care about what people think and in 2004, 70%. In 1993 only 56% held this view. In 1998, 67% of respondents indicated that they think that people in government look after themselves. In 2001 this increased to 68% but declined to 61% in 2004. Similarly, in 1998, 82% said government was run for a few big groups. This declined to 74% in 2001 and 67% in 2004.

The collapse of visceral voter loyalty to one or other of the major parties is also evident. Between 1967 and 1997, the number of Australians without a party identification increased from roughly two percent to around 17%. Further, the number acknowledging only weak identification has increased from 23% in 1967 to around 36% in 1996, 34% in 2001 and 32% in 2004. Thus, between 50 and 60% of the electorate have no — or only weak — identification with one or other of the major parties. High levels of party identification were formerly regarded as the sheet anchor of the Australian political system (e.g. Aitkin, 1977). The erosion in party identification has also diminished the symbolic power of party names. The collapse of party identification means the party ‘brand’ is no longer sufficient by itself to evoke a loyal response from most voters. This is a particularly significant trend if party names are relied on as a primary cue for citizen attitudes.

A deeper symptom of misalignment between the formal system and the surrounding community is associated with representational patterns. The formal political system is based on two major parties. For many years these two parties effectively reflected a social reality. Some locate the sources of citizen party identifications in economic circumstances (e.g. Gollan, 1960) and some in cultural and religious orientations (e.g. Brett, 2003). Whatever its source, the notion that a broad cleavage divided Australian society and that this was reflected in the two major parties was widely accepted. As I have argued elsewhere, the contemporary diversity of Australian society, reflected in the proliferation of interest groups and social movements, is arguably the single most important change in the character of post war domestic politics (Marsh 1995, Chapter 2).

Nine major social movements emerged in the 1970s. These championed the environment and rights for women, gays, indigenous Australians, consumers, ethnic Australians and animals. They promoted peace and third world issues. Finally, advocates for the ‘new right’ have also exerted a powerful influence on political, business and media elites. This has been based on think tanks rather than mass mobilisation. They have generally championed atomised individuals as the only salient political unit.

These diverse groups variously encouraged the formation of other groups, whether in imitation (e.g. the republican movement) or to defend the status quo (anti-abortion movement; monarchists) or to further liberalise the policy agenda (e.g. euthanasia, drugs). Together these developments signify a new diversity in citizen identities (e.g. gender, ethnicity, environmentalism). They mostly augment, and sometimes displace, older class-based cleavages. A linear, left–right continuum was once an apt image of the electoral spectrum. In contemporary Australian society, a kaleidoscope seems a more apt metaphor. This image conveys the diversity and fluidity of political attachments that now characterises the Australian community.

Indeed, it is hard to overstate the degree to which Australia has become a group-based community. The array of organised actors on any issue is legion. These groups vary enormously in size, budgets, political skills, organisational sophistication and campaigning capacities. But the major ones are as effectively organised as the major political parties.

As a consequence, activists no longer have strong allegiance to one or other party and the way that issues are introduced onto the national stage has shifted. It has largely ceased to be an internal process dominated by major party organisations. Party forums are not the principal arenas for activists. Internal processes do not provide the medium for testing the acceptability of proposals or for seeding opinion formation. The initiative has moved elsewhere. Public opinion has been influenced through public campaigns by activists and through the resultant media attention. This has been used to pressure the parliamentary leadership of the major parties to adopt new agendas. The success of these campaigns has significantly widened the national political debate and raised the importance of public opinion formation.

The emergence of an array of interest groups and social movements in the post-1960s period is important because these organisations are durable. They both represent and sustain particular interests and positions — and they seek to persuade the undecided. The space between the major parties and the community is now filled by organisations with political nous and media skills and with a demonstrated capacity to shape opinion on particular issues.

Some commentators have decried or downplayed this development. They have claimed there is a mute but underlying ‘silent majority’. Or they claim a minority has established a code of ‘political correctness’ that has staunched the expression of dissent. Or they claim public debate has been taken over by a ‘new class’ of self-interested individuals in the pay of the state. But the image of the Australian community as a vast silent majority with a noisy fringe of pressure groups is wrong. Talk of a ‘new class’ as some alien sectional minority who have subverted the public interest in favour of their selfish and unrepresentative concern is wrong. The idea that Australian society has been taken over by a politically correct discourse to the exclusion of a more authentic and unified Australian voice is wrong.

These images may be useful rhetorical ploys in the political game but they do not reflect reality. The pluralisation of Australian society is the fundamental fact — and unless political leaders can persuade us to jettison some of our varied aspirations, it is here to stay. It is evident in values and social attitudes, between regions and community groupings and at the level of organised political action.

Yet these groups lack access to the formal policy-making system. There is no institutional machinery that allows the system to routinely reach out to groups and assess their views. Further, on any issue some will be opposed (the immediate ‘losers’), some will gain and others will be undecided depending on how the issue is framed. The formal system lacks routine capacities to bring these last two groups into the consultative process, to create space for redefining the issue, for initiating the formation of coalitions and for engaging in other actions that might better integrate the social base and the formal policy-making system. Let us explore some of the consequences.

To understand the way the policy-making system actually works, recall some of its formal premises. One fundamental premise concerns the role of elections. These are assumed to deliver an unqualified mandate to the winning party. The doctrine of ministerial responsibility and the architecture of political-bureaucratic relations derive from this premise. The political authority gathered through an election victory is generally assumed to be sufficient to underwrite executive decision-making. This is also the premise behind Bernard Crick’s description of the adversarial political system as tantamount to a continuing election campaign. Of course, in practice, this is less than absolute. For example, many years ago Robert McKenzie described the actual role of interest groups in words that continue to be relevant:

Indeed, as discussed in the previous section, interests have multiplied in recent years, far beyond their incidence when these words were penned. In the process, they have fractured the former almost absolute mobilising role of the major parties. However, assumptions about executive authority have not assimilated this development. They remain unchanged as the examples we will shortly review attest. In brief, the incentive structure in the formal system implies that any need to build power for a particular decision can be sufficiently handled by a prime minister or individual ministers on an ad hoc basis (e.g. gun control, GST).^[2] There is no need for an additional phase in the policy system that would oblige ministers to routinely engage with affected interests before final decisions are taken by Cabinet. There is no need for a phase that would routinely engage the broader public without committing the government’s prestige. There is no need for the addition of a routine process that would allow governments to trial arguments and evidence and gain intelligence about community and interest group views. There is no need for a phase where processes of coalition-building might be initiated. There is no need for what Michael Keating has elsewhere described as a contemplative phase (Keating, 2004, p. 154).

How does the experience of the Howard government illuminate this need? Its defeat challenges a variety of assumptions about the way the system works. One concerns the relationship between policy-making and political strategies. Prime Minister Howard gained a reputation for his tactical cunning and shrewdness. Surely victory in four election campaigns attests to high political skills? But these victories were often based on populist tactics and opportunism or on the spending that good times allowed. Only one election was fought on a contested policy agenda — that involving the GST in 1998. All the others substantially included ‘wedge’ or ‘dog whistle’ tactics and played on populist themes, most egregiously in the case of the Tampa episode. Howard was also adept at exploiting leadership weaknesses in his opponents.

Some may wish that politics could occupy a more elevated plane but in the context of a convergence in agendas between the major parties, a populist turn seems inevitable (e.g. Mair, 2002; Marquand, 2004). In this context, the 2007 election is of especial interest. The accession of Kevin Rudd to the Labor leadership in December 2006 was followed by an immediate lift in Opposition standing in the opinion polls. Further, Rudd adopted a very low political profile — carefully avoiding potential wedge issues. Thus many of the tactics that Howard had used so successfully against his earlier opponents were unavailable. And fortune delivered no fresh wedge opportunities.

So policy came into focus. Here the Howard government was forced to acknowledge the considerable gap between the positions that it had championed and public opinion. From late 2006, it backtracked on not one or two but on at least seven quite fundamental issues: education, management of the Murray Darling basin, indigenous reconciliation, refugees, broadband, WorkChoices, and climate change. Of course prime ministers must always be ready to trim for an election. But this represented a wholesale repudiation of announced past positions and attitudes across a wide and fundamental range of issues. This was an unambiguous example of politics driving policy. But what did these U-turns say for the government’s previously stated views? Were they wrong? And what is the public to think? Are political leaders’ complete chameleons or hypocrites? Do the merits of issues have nothing to do with their determination?

It is instructive to revisit the policy development processes that had been associated with these issues. WorkChoices is the most notable example. This issue was not discussed in the 2004 campaign. Shortly after his election victory, Howard set his department to work canvassing options for change. These were discussed in Cabinet. We now know that there was a considerable divergence amongst ministers about the severity of the measures (The Australian, 27/11/2007, p 7). The Workplace Relations Amendment (WorkChoices) Bill 2005 was introduced to the House of Representatives on 2 November, 2005. It was a complex piece of legislation amounting to 762 pages. It went to the Senate on 10 November and was finally passed on 2 December. In sum, 11 days of parliamentary time (House six and Senate five) had been devoted to debate and most of this was grandstanding rather than detailed discussion. At no point were affected interests — business, contractors, trade unions for example — drawn into the conversation. The government lacked a basic understanding of interest group and community views. Interests and the broader community were not engaged in a conversation about needs and options. There was no contemplative phase. There was, rather, only private deliberation and public announcement. Thereafter the policy was ‘merchandised’ to the electorate through a $55 million advertising campaign (Argy, 2007). The union movement responded with its effective Your Rights at Work’ campaign. Notably, this was based on sustained grass roots mobilisation as well as advertisements (Sydney Morning Herald, 17-18/11/2007, p30). This forced the government to change ministers (Hockey replaced Andrews in late January 2007) and culminated in a major policy U-turn early in 2007. The former policy was effectively gutted (Wooden, 2007). A further $61 million advertising campaign was launched to merchandise the new approach. Would earlier disclosure of intent and options have produced a different outcome? Of course, the government might have thought such disclosure would have provided ammunition to its opponents. No doubt it also assumed that its right of decision was licensed by the 2004 election. In the event this proved to be a false assumption, with (from its perspective) disastrous consequences.

The other examples of policy U-turns involve issues that were perhaps not so profoundly damaging politically. But they do involve policy development processes that parallel those we have just reviewed. Take indigenous affairs. The government’s intervention in the Northern Territory in July 2007 involved land rights and the permit system for communities as well as domestic violence, access to alcohol and sexual abuse. But these measures were introduced with no advance consultation with indigenous leaders and without the preparation of broader public opinion. Yet, as far back as 1999 a report entitled Violence in Indigenous Communities had been prepared for the Department by Dr Paul Memmott. This was not released by the then minister (Vanstone) until 2001. The government did not seek to seed a wider discussion about policy options. Meanwhile, ATSIC had been addressing these questions, although how effectively is unclear. In the event, ATSIC’s funding was cut by $460 million in the first Howard budget. Thereafter funding was progressively cut until its abolition was announced in April 2004. Prime Minister Howard’s position on indigenous issues was publicly clear. He condemned the so-called ‘black arm band’ view of indigenous history in Parliament on October 30, 1996, and again in the Sir Robert Menzies Lecture, which he delivered on 18 November of the same year. On May 26, 1997, Prime Minister Howard repeated this argument at the Reconciliation Convention marking the thirtieth anniversary of the referendum. This theme continued to dominate his public remarks until his adoption of the new narrative of practical reconciliation in March 2000 (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 2000).

In 2003, the indigenous leader Mick Dodson spoke forcefully at the National Press Club about violence, alcoholism and sexual abuse (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June 2007, p. 35). Nothing happened. An inter-governmental summit on violence and child abuse was held in 2006. This pointed to the cost and blame shifting that characterised federal-territory and state relations. Nothing happened again. There had thus been discussion of the problem of alcohol and sexual abuse at a technical level for at least eight years. The Little Children are Sacred report supervened. It was tabled in the Northern Territory legislature in June 2007. The federal government’s response was announced in August 2007 as a national emergency, three months prior to the election. Whilst firm evidence is unavailable, it is hard to believe there would not have been some community scepticism about the government’s motives.

Climate change reflects a similar pattern of announcements without any prior contemplative phase. Two key events here involved the government’s response to the Kyoto decision and the publication of an energy White Paper in 2004. The preparation of this document commenced in 2003 and followed the familiar pattern. The government called for submissions and attracted 33 responses. These were considered in private — then a report went to Cabinet and the White Paper was announced in Parliament on 15 June 2004. On this occasion there was a parliamentary committee hearing which had no apparent influence. But we know from other accounts that industry representatives enjoyed privileged access to the policy-making process and met with ministers in private (Pearse, 2005, cited in Hamilton, 2007). The government’s position was projected through ministerial statements and policy announcements.

Meanwhile, the States had progressively moved to develop emissions trading schemes. Perhaps responding to the Stern Report and An Inconvenient Truth and the change in public mood that they seemingly stimulated, Prime Minister Howard appointed a Task Force on 30 November 2006 to look at a national scheme. This group took submissions in private from affected interests. Its conclusions provided the basis for a Cabinet submission. This was considered in mid 2007 and the government decision endorsing a scheme (but postponing any decision about targets) was announced in June 2007 (Sydney Morning Herald, 5 June 2007). In September 2007, with an election campaign pending this decision was reversed. At the same time the pronouncement against mandatory renewable energy targets in the 2004 White Paper, Securing Australia’s Energy Future, was also reversed. Again, the government seemingly lacked early intelligence about the development of public opinion and lacked any detailed capacity to communicate its views to a wider public during its earlier years in office.

Two other illustrations of broadly similar policy development processes are provided by policy announcements on the Murray Darling Basin and education. In relation to the Murray Darling Basin this policy issue first entered the agenda around 1992 when the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement was established. Implementation was in the hands of the Murray Darling Basin Commission. Not surprisingly, this 25 member body proved incapable of coming to grips with the issue. It was subsequently joined by a host of special purpose authorities: Riverbank, the National Water Commission, Water for Rivers, catchments management authorities, The Living Murray. At least two other programs were announced: the Achieving Sustainable Groundwater Entitlement program and the National Water Initiative. Another consultative round between the Commonwealth and the States occurred in 2002. According to Ross Gittins, National Party pressure meant one key option was never considered — that is allowing city buyers into the market for Murray water (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 2007). Another issue that was proved too politically contentious was the over-allocation of water rights by New South Wales compared to the under-allocation by Victoria. It is worth noting no official enquiry ever directly addressed these issues and no distinctively political enquiry mechanism existed for addressing the federal-state and state-state issues in a sustained way. Grandstanding between the States and the Commonwealth dominated the public conversation.

Education is the only policy area that slightly qualifies the above picture. The government cut funding in its first budget in 1996. In January 1997 it established the West Review. This was a standard approach to policy investigation. Consultations amounted to soliciting the views of affected interests. The enquiry reported. The department and the Cabinet decided. The resulting ministerial statement was a squib. In the second Howard government, Minister Kemp sought to introduce a voucher like system in higher education. But his Cabinet submission was leaked in 1999 and the idea never got off the ground. Note Kemp’s approach. He assumed the right way to introduce a radical initiative was to take a paper to Cabinet and if successful announce a change. This conforms to the formal norms of the system. But no part of that process involved the engagement of public and interest group opinion. Yet how could such a change be contemplated without intelligence about reactions and about the compromises that might have been necessary to gain support for the proposal. In the third Howard government, Minister Nelson went some way down this path in the consultations he lead in the development of the review Higher Education at the Crossroads. In April 2002 a discussion paper was released. It attracted 355 responses. Between June and September six papers on key issues were released. This elicited a further 373 submissions. Nelson also held directly or commissioned 48 forums covering all States. The government’s response was announced 13 May 2003 as part of the Budget. Thereafter Nelson engaged the Democrats and modified some proposals to ensure their support. This exercise moved policy development closer to the ‘contemplative phase’ envisaged by Keating. But it involved the minister directly. It was a very time consuming process. The results of the review were not publicly available for comment before final decisions were taken and there was barely any reach beyond immediate stakeholders into broader public views.

The foregoing examples illustrate the very deep failings in present policy-making arrangements. There were failings of intelligence, communication and mobilisation. These were not the result of lapses by individual ministers. They reflect the false assumptions about political authority that are embedded in current policy-making processes. They reflect the enhanced political power of organised interests and the absence of effective integrating infrastructure. Effective in this context refers to the ability to develop and/or accommodate views, to construct coalitions and, if necessary jettison, adapt or build institutions. They also reflect the acute limitations of the media as a primary link between the government and the broader community.

Of course in the recent past public understanding of government policy stances has mostly not been a primary factor in political strategies or campaigns. Tacit bipartisanship has been an important, albeit top-down, driver of policy change. But general public perceptions of competence in relation to the economy and national security have been primary. Wedge tactics, populism and leadership appeal have also featured prominently. But when these ephemera were unavailable policy issues came into focus. When this occurred, the dysfunctional character of present policy-making arrangements can be clearly seen.