Have I missed the point of Democracy?
I thought I understood the point of a representative democracy, but a number of recent debates in our parliament have puzzled me. In particular the whooptydo over J'Ho's recent attempt to legislate for all asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat to be processed offshore. There has been quite the bitter spitting match between the Liberal politicians supporting the PM's approach and the ones wanting to coddle the sad little refugees.
These bleeding heart upper case L Liberals have been denounced by their party for having different opinions, being prepared to voice them and standing up for what they believe. And it seems that J'Ho is not prepared to allow a nasty old "conscience" vote on the issue. Is that because politicians are not supposed to have consciences?
That there is even a special type of vote called a conscience vote, shouldn't public representatives ALWAYS vote with both their conscience and the needs of their constituents in mind? That's what I thought the point of representative democracy was.
Let's go to our friends at Wikipedia for a definition shall we, just to see if indeed I have it wrong.
Representative democracy is a form of democracy founded on the exercise of popular sovereignty by the people's elected representatives. It is a theory of civics in which voters choose (in free, secret, multi-party elections) representatives to act in their interests, but not as their proxies-i.e., not necessarily according to their voters' wishes, but with enough authority to exercise initiative in the face of changing circumstances.
Hmm - not seeing anything there where it says "must bow to the wishes of the party" or be a "bumboy" to J'Ho's resurgent Menzies era policies. I.e. getting back to the good old days of "white Australia" - keeping the darkies at a solid arms distance on good old Nauru.
I am not going to get too far into the policy itself, what interests me is the Liberal Governments urgent need to gag debate, their capacity to engage in attack politics within their own ranks to attempt to quell descent.
The argument seems to go something like this - these "rebel" backbenchers/senators are hijacking the majority riles foundation of democracy by arguing. This small number of decenters are forcing their opinion onto the government and by extension the people of Australia.
The thing is that their position is part of a majority, that's why the defeated it in Parliment; it's just not the majority that makes up government. And the federal opposition and the minor party politicians are ALSO elected representatives and have a responsibility to find the best answers for Australia and Australians
It seems that the expectation is that people will vote along party lines apart from in exceptional circumstances. But is that actually the best for the community? Or is it just the most effective way to control the government and to guarantee election? And that then begs the question what are our politicians governing for, what is their motivation.
Our monkey brains pretty much guarantee that we will always battle against self interest. Our government is supposed to have checks and balances that make it less likely that the power held by government officials will be to be abused and that if it is, that such abuses will be caught and punished. By crushing debate, it seems that some of these checks and balances are being diverted.
We are living in a time when rigorous, honest debate seems to have become a thing of the past. Spin is replacing opinion, and attack politics are replacing recognition that any debate has two sides to it.
I don't want my elected represented to avoid argument and disagreement, and I am able to forgive mistakes and uncertainty. I just want them to-do their best in an open and honest fashion.
