How might a contemplative phase be introduced to the present policy-making structure? For guidance we might turn to the political architecture that characterised the first decade of the twentieth century. Between 1901 and 1909 three parties, Protectionist, Free Traders and Labor, competed for public support. No party won an outright parliamentary majority. Elections produced a Parliament composed of members whose aspirations and attitudes diverged widely. Without a majority party in Parliament, governments were created and unmade according to their ability to gather majority support for their programs and for particular measures. They were also required to obtain majorities in two chambers. This brought into focus the political mechanisms available for building backbench and inter-house support both for governments and for individual measures.
This more fluid political context required a contemplative phase in the policy-making process. This involved parliamentary capacity for an initial assessment of strategic issues. This offers perhaps the most vivid contrast between the pattern of policy-making in the two-party period, and that in the more plural political world that preceded it. In the two-party period, the primary task of strategic political inquiry has been intellectual ‘expert’ investigation of a complex new issue to recommend what should be done. Examples are the Campbell Report on financial deregulation, or the McClure Report on the welfare system or the Hogan Report on nursing home financing. The government, having established these inquiries, assumed its prior electoral victory gave it sufficient authority to implement the findings, should it agree with them.
The situation was different in the more plural world of 1901 to 1909. The diversity of the Australian community was then mirrored in the existence of three parties. Contested strategic issues were introduced in Parliament before the parties had announced their firm policy stances. This allowed a process of intellectual analysis, political and public exchange and learning. Through this process, political authority sufficient to permit their resolution was mobilised. Indeed, the two tasks of refining analysis and mobilising consent overlapped. Parliamentary inquiries represented a key step. We can see this in operation in the parliamentary enquiries that occurred. Over this nine-year period, 17 select committees and royal commissions were established. MPs dominated most of these inquiries. Fourteen of the 17 inquiries began as parliamentary select committees and were later converted to royal commissions. This was only because the life of a select committee was limited to the parliamentary session in which it was established.
Of the 14 parliamentary inquiries, eleven offer the remarkable spectacle of MPs engaged on major strategic investigations that went to the heart of policy-making and administration. The first major category of enquiries involved those concerned with the strategic agenda. Enquiries occurred at key stages from the point that an issue emerged on the political agenda to the determination of legislation. Seven of the eleven inquiries concerned issues at the frontier of the political agenda: the tariff, the desirability of nationalisation of the tobacco cartel, the need for Australian control of shipping services, federal old age pensions, access to press cable services, Papua, and the future of ‘New Protection’ following the High Court rejection of the arrangement proposed in 1907.
By far the most significant inquiry in scale, duration and impact was that into the tariff. This was first suggested by the radical Protectionist, Sir Isaac Isaacs, in October 1904 and was established by the Free Trade Prime Minister George Reid in December 1904. The group of eight MPs consisted of three Free Traders, three Protectionists and two Labor members, with two representatives each from New South Wales and Victoria and one from each other state. The inquiry commenced in 1905 and concluded in the middle of 1907. At the outset, it surveyed virtually all significant Australian manufacturers and importers to identify tariff anomalies, local capacity, cost obstacles, special factors and so forth. This covered 2801 establishments. Evidence was gathered over the two years 1905 and 1906. The inquiry held sittings in all capital cities and major provincial centres. In total 211 sittings were held and 618 witnesses examined. Over 3,000 pages of oral evidence were printed. The oral and written evidence offers a unique and comprehensive account of Australian industrial capacity and of the barriers and vicissitudes to which it was subject on account of the scale of domestic markets and the vigour of international competition. The Commission produced 46 individual reports on the various tariff heads. The significance of this inquiry lies not so much in the findings, perhaps predictable given the rival ideologies, but in the immense research, outreach and mobilisation effort that the inquiry represented.
Contested legislation was the second major area of strategic policy-making to which parliamentary inquiries made a particular contribution. The Bonus for Manufactures Bill 1904 was a Protectionist initiative resisted by a strong faction of their erstwhile Labor supporters on the grounds that local iron production would prohibitively boost upstream costs. By contrast, the Navigation Bill 1906, sponsored by the Reid–McLean government stumbled on Labor insistence on Australian crews and special conditions for coastal trade. These were both extensive inquiries that produced divided reports. Neither issue was finally resolved before 1909. Parliamentary inquiries as a vehicle for investigating contested legislation represented a role for Parliament and MPs that has only recently been revived (e.g. GST inquiries).
Finally, two inquiries involved oversight of major government activities: review of electoral administration in 1904 and the Post Office review in 1908–1909. The Post Office review was almost on the scale of the tariff inquiry. It involved a comprehensive assessment of this key federal agency. A minority (Labor) report opposed the restriction of female occupations to typing, telegraphy and monitoring!
To discount these inquiries because their recommendations were not wholly bipartisan or not accepted by the government is to misperceive the role and contribution of parliamentary inquiries in a pluralised political environment. In this more fluid political context, parliamentarians played much more prominent roles in agenda setting and issue refinement.[3] Their judgements were critical to advance of these issues through the policy development process. Parliamentary inquiries brought interested and expert opinion, including departmental opinion, before MPs and a wider public. The inquiries acted as a ‘forcing device’ engaging stakeholders in a process of advocacy and (reciprocal) social learning. At the outset, different groups might have perceived themselves to be winners or losers or just interested parties. Through a process of public inquiry, all participants gained understanding about other perspectives and concerns and the opportunity thus opened up to develop more encompassing approaches.
The fact that Parliament was the setting for this process, that parliamentary opinion influenced the outcome and that votes on the floor of Parliament counted, was vital for its impact on interest groups, departments and ministers. Further, parliamentary inquiries on strategic issues, matters that were more or less outside the immediate partisan contest, required MPs to seek common ground and, where this proved elusive, at least to isolate points of difference. The whole process occurred in the public domain with evidence sessions published and available for scrutiny and review. Particularly on strategic issues, such inquiries provided opportunities for departmental officers to be cross-examined in public and departmental opinion to be disclosed.
In sum, in renewing the link between the Australian community and the formal policy-making system, there is only one institution in the political structure with the necessary formal standing and authority. This is the Parliament. It is the only institution capable of playing a pivotal or keystone role. It is the only institution capable of achieving an immediate, comprehensive and direct impact on interest-group and official opinion and through this development, broader public opinion. It provides the only institutional setting where the scope for explicit consensus between partisans can could be explored and expressed. Committees are the right institutions to introduce new strategic issues to the political agenda and to engage interest groups and the broader community in the consideration of these issues. This is for example, the role they can play in the United States Senate, the Chamber on which our own Senate was modelled. The House of Commons has also considerably strengthened its Select Committee system in recent years. Whilst not matching fully the ‘contemplative’ role envisaged here, enquires have become an important adjunct to official policy-making processes. Committee roles are far more developed than those of their counterparts in Australia.
The proposal I advocate would involve parliamentary arrangements specially focused on the long term. These would be outside the immediate direct authority of the government and the immediate influence of the major policy departments such as Treasury, Defence, and Prime Minister and Cabinet. This would be a virtue. Deliberation could occur without commitment of the government. Yet committees with standing in the policy development process would attract interest, media and public attention. They can provide a forum where official, novel, sectional and deviant or marginal opinions can be voiced. Bureaucrats, ministers, interest groups and independent experts can appear on an equal footing. Finally, through its varied processes and deliberations, Parliament can seed the formation of broader public opinion. The theatre of Parliament creates the cameo dramas that communicate the significance of issues to a broader public. This is now mainly fostered through rituals such as Question Time and Urgency Motions that have lost their original purpose. The political drama needs to be refashioned to contribute positively to the development of sectional and public opinion.
To amplify Parliament’s standing in the broader political structure, its committees need to have enhanced roles and powers. The present parliamentary committee system is inappropriately structured; committees are insufficiently focused. The committee system would need to be reworked. The present committees work on a shoestring. The incentives for committee work are weak; those with ministerial ambitions may be fearful of taking an independent line. Finally, the use of latent parliamentary powers, particularly in the Senate, to gain attention for committee findings and recommendations is hugely underdeveloped.
Why might committees, working as routine participants in policy-making processes, make the contributions foreshadowed in this chapter? The theoretical base for these proposals can only be mentioned in passing. Recent scholarly work has accorded critically important roles to ideas. These are the foundation for policy adaptation and change. Institutional theory provides the relevant theoretical paradigm. One strand of institutional theory, historical institutionalism, focuses on continuities and a more recent branch, constructivist institutionalism, focuses on policy change and adaptation (e.g. Hay, 2006; Blyth, 2002; Crouch, 2005; D. Marsh et al, 1999). Some noted scholars might qualify this rough summary (e.g. Hall, 2007; Streeck and Thelen, 2005). These arguments continue. In a constructivist perspective however, ideas function as political solvents and catalysts in a number of specific ways. In a medium term perspective, ideas can mediate adaptive institutional development. Mark Blyth has enumerated the five ways that ideas facilitate this outcome (2002, pp. 36-40). First, in periods of crisis ideas reduce uncertainty. Second, following uncertainty reduction, ideas make collective action and coalition building possible. Third, in the struggle over existing institutions, ideas are weapons. Fourth, following the de-legitimation of existing institutions, new ideas act as institutional blueprints. Fifth, following institutional construction, ideas make institutional stability possible.
Elsewhere, and building on Lindblom’s work on partisan mutual adjustment, I have discussed the ways ideas also facilitate more immediate accommodation between protagonists (1995, pp. 217-219). Agreement is of course one possibility, but in politics often a rare ground for accommodation. A second ground might involve issue redefinition as a concern is re-framed in more encompassing terms. Third, accommodation may be achieved through commitment to a later review to check that promised outcomes have been realised. Fourth, accommodation might be based on procedural acceptance — I do not agree with the result but I accept that the process is fair. Finally, consent might be elicited through compensation or log rolling. The formal political and policy-making system to provides the setting in which ideas perform these integrative tasks. The present Australian policy-making structure needs to be developed to allow ideas to do their work of accommodation and integration. They can mediate policy adaptation and change and — what is the same thing — they can create a better alignment between the social base of the policy-making system and the formal structure.