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A Guide to Government and Law in Australia John Hirst Discovering Democracy – A

A Guide to Government and Law in Australia John Hirst Discovering Democracy – A Guide to Government and Law in Australia was funded by the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education, T raining and Youth Affairs under the Discovering Democracy program. Published by Curriculum Corporation PO Box 177 Carlton South VIC 3053 T el: (03) 9207 9600 Fax: (03) 9639 1616 Email: sales@curriculum.edu.au Website: http://www.curriculum.edu.au © Commonwealth of Australia, 1998 Available under licence from Curriculum Corporation. Discovering Democracy – A Guide to Government and Law in Australia is Commonwealth copyright. It may be reproduced in whole or in part by teachers for classroom use only. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and copyright should be addressed to Curriculum Corporation. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education, T raining and Youth Affairs. ISBN: 1 86366 431 9 SCIS cataloguing-in-publication data: 947160 Full bibliographic details are available from Curriculum Corporation. Series design by Philip Campbell T ypesetting by The Modern Art Production Group Discovering Democracy logo design by Miller Street Studio Printed in Australia by Impact Printing Cover images: Members of the 1998 Constitutional Convention, Old Parliament House, Canberra. Courtesy AUSPIC Detail from Members of the Australasian Federation Conference, Melbourne, 1890. Courtesy National Library of Australia Other cover photography by John Gollings and Philip Campbell Preface In 1999 a new program of civics and citizenship education, Discovering Democracy, will be operating in Australian schools. This book is designed for Australian citizens of all sorts as a painless introduction to the government and law of their country. This is not a textbook. I have not always hidden my own views, but where they are plain the reader will also find views different from my own. The book will still have served its purpose if readers quarrel with it. Needless to say, the views expressed here have no official sanction. At the end of the book there is a summary account of today’s governmental system. How it came to be this way is explained in the main text. Readers seeking information on a particular point may well find it treated in both parts of the book; the index will guide them to the relevant pages. I am indebted to my colleagues from the Civics Education Group for encouraging me to write the book and giving me their criticisms of it. I am particularly grateful for the support and advice of Stuart Macintyre, whose report Whereas the People launched the program to reinvigorate civics and citizenship education. Dr David Kemp, the minister responsible for the civics and citizenship program, has been a constant source of encouragement. John Hirst Chair, Civics Education Group iii Preface iii Who Rules? 1 Monarchy 3 Constitutional monarchy 7 Democracy 15 Australian democracy 20 Australian parties 27 The Australian Nation 35 Nation making 37 Constitution making 44 What sort of nation? 50 Who is the nation? 55 Law and Rights 63 Common law 66 English law in Australia 72 Constitutional law 79 Human rights 84 Citizens 91 Reference Section 95 How the system works 95 Australian federal democracy: a chart 105 Links to Discovering Democracy School Materials Project 107 Further reading 109 Index 111 1 Who Rules? How much do you believe in democracy? The ancient Greeks who invented democracy really did believe in it. In their democracies the citizens themselves gathered in huge open-air meetings to pass laws and decide policy on everything, from taxation to the conduct of wars. They did not simply vote for a government every three or four years; they were the government. They held their meetings every nine days, and more often if required. Of course in our large societies it would be impossible for the citizens to meet together in one place. The Greeks managed this because their societies were tiny and most adults were not citizens. Women were not citizens, nor were slaves who did most of the work, nor were migrants. Democracy was a club for native-born, free men. Still it was a very large number of male citi- zens who were eligible to come to meetings. At Athens, where democracy operated in the fourth and fifth centuries BC, there were over 20,000 citizens. An important meeting could only begin when 6,000 showed up. What a crazy idea to make a crowd into a government! Surely the real deci- sions were made elsewhere. No. Wouldn’t different people show up to each meeting? Yes. Wouldn’t meetings change their minds? Yes. Wouldn’t citizens be swept away by emotion? Yes, sometimes. And yet this system of govern- ment lasted for almost two hundred years. It did work. The citizens of Athens were committed to making it work. It came to an end because Athens and the other tiny Greek states were incor- porated in 338 BC into an empire run by Philip of Macedon and then his son, Alexander the Great. Later, all of Greece became part of an even larger empire, the Roman Empire. Democracy was snuffed out and did not re- appear for two thousand years. The ancient Greeks would not call our system a democracy. Democracy means literally rule by the people. Our citizens don’t rule; they elect other people – politicians – to rule. Greek democracy is called direct democracy; ours is representative democracy. Since the number of our citizens is so large, we have to persist with electing representatives, but we could make our sys- tem more like Athenian democracy. We could allow citizens a more direct and regular say in governing. If a certain number of citizens wanted a new law or if they objected to a law that parliament had passed, the issue could be settled by the people voting at a referendum. With new communications technology, it will get easier and cheaper to take the opinions of the people. Greek democracy Direct versus representative democracy Who Rules? 2 But would this improve our system of government? What if the people should vote against taxation and in favour of more government services? If Australians had had the power to overturn laws, the great migration pro- gram after World War II might never have begun. Could it be that our politicians are more responsible, less prejudiced and more far-sighted than the people? Is it better not to have too much democracy? The Greek philosophers from whom we learn a good deal about Greek democracy were opponents of it. They saw the people as fickle, ignorant and selfish. How could giving everyone a vote produce justice and good govern- ment, which require wisdom and experience? If you want a shoe mended, you ask a shoemaker; if you want to steer a ship, you find a pilot; if you want to govern, any T om, Dick or Harry will do. The idea’s absurd. Since most of the people are poor, democracy will become an oppressive system: the poor will use it to rob the rich, to everyone’s cost. The philosopher Plato considered government such an expert craft that he suggested a small group of people needed to be chosen for the job. Most people are of limited capacity and are fit only to be workers and to be governed. The few good people must be carefully educated to be rulers. They must not have personal possessions and their children must be taken from them. Justice can only come from detachment. It will never come from the hurly-burly of democracy. Plato’s pupil Aristotle was also an opponent of democracy, but his method of determining what was good government was not to draw up schemes for perfect states. Instead he looked at governments as they actually operated. He divided the Greek states into three categories: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Each had their virtues, but each tended to degenerate: monarchy into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and democracy into mob rule. He thought a mixed government, which combined the three methods and guarded against their failings, would be best. Our system is a mixture. It was not developed according to democratic prin- ciples. At no stage was it designed in order to give the people the maximum possible say. We have added a democratic element – giving every citizen a vote for parliament – to a much older system. Some say that is why it has worked so well. Some of the best things about our system – individual rights, fair trial, a government that has to obey the law – were established well before everyone was allowed to vote. These principles of individual rights and a limited government are called lib- eral principles. Our democracy is a liberal democracy. Those who are content with it fear that more democracy might endanger its liberal elements. If the citizens ruled directly they might be careless about the rights of minorities or Weaknesses of direct democracy Plato’s rulers Aristotle’s mixed system Liberal democracy Monarchy 3 not be too fussy about how they got things done; they wouldn’t want governmental power to be limited. Other people say that if we uploads/S4/ guide-gment-law.pdf