The Isolated Political Class
Finding the Heart of the Nation
If you ever thought that politicians are out of touch, then you’re not alone. There is mounting evidence that Australia’s political class is increasingly isolated from the citizens it serves.
This has occurred in an era of crisis management when combatting bushfires and Coronavirus requires sufficient levels of trust in politicians to establish a single source of truth that enables citizens to follow advice.
The gap between how Australians perceive their politicians and political institutions and how they would like their democracy to be has widened to such a degree that we need to pause, and reflect on what our political system needs to do to adapt to the realities of 21st-century governance.
Amongst Australians, trust in people in government (25 per cent), federal government (30 per cent), government ministers (23 per cent), members of parliament (21 per cent), and political parties (20 per cent) is at an all-time low.1
Honesty and integrity are qualities that Australian citizens highly prize in politics but we can also report that 89 per cent of citizens have a negative view of the standards of honesty and integrity held by politicians.2 Despite 28 years of economic growth, Australia is characterised as a ‘distrusted country' and sits below the median satisfaction rating when compared with other advanced industrial democracies.3
The demonisation of young Australians for engaging in climate protest, the absence of the Prime Minister at the early stages of the bushfire crisis, wrangling over the leadership of the National party and the emergence of the “Sports rorts” scandal – all at a time of national emergency – have served to further erode public trust and heighten the need for a moral
compass to guide our national politics.
However, the moral disconnect between the political class and the Australian citizenry is only one part of this story. Academics and political commentators alike, bemoan the inability of Australia's increasingly isolated political class to grapple with policy fundamentals and to facilitate collaborative problem-solving across the federation.4
In this article, we explore recent survey data comparing the fundamental differences between politicians' and citizens' views on the value of democracy, the decline of public trust, and the reforms that each group would like to see.5
Democratic malaise and renewal
We have a great deal of evidence from citizens about the failings of Australian democracy and the need for reform.6 But how do politicians view the trust divide and how do their views compare with the citizenry?
We set out to answer this question in an attitudinal survey of federal politicians, which we designed with the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. It was conducted in January and February 2019, prior to the Federal election, and completed by 98 out of a possible 226 respondents (43.36 per cent).
Our sample (see Figure 1) is admittedly skewed towards women and Labor and crossbench respondents but we have a strong, if imperfect, expression of voice from elite-level politicians. And because of earlier research we can compare the responses of politicians to those of citizens.7
The survey is framed by an understanding of the critical role of politicians and political parties in Australian democracy. In theory, political parties can perform three sets of overlapping and reinforcing functions in a democratic political system – governance, community linkage and integrity roles.
In terms of their governance role: they support the recruitment, selection and development of political leaders
The moral disconnect between the political class and the Australian citizenry is only one part of this story.
for government; formulate viable policy agendas and frame political choices; and form governments or, when not in power, hold governments accountable.
The community linkage role involves expressing broad values and ideological positions to capture the wider concerns of citizens and educating citizens about political issues. Traditionally (and prior to the era of the party machine) this role would also include supporting the recruitment, selection and development of local political leaders.
And, probably most significantly, political parties are guardians of liberal democratic norms and values responsible for upholding the highest standards of conduct in public life. 8
This is termed the ‘integrity' role and it plays a crucial role in linking national and local politics, and maintaining trust between government and citizen.
Australia's democratic arrangements
Let's start with a finding you might have guessed. Australia's federal politicians are more satisfied (61%) with the way democracy works than their fellow citizens (41%). Yet here is a perhaps more surprising finding: politicians are sufficiently concerned about the evidence of a trust divide between citizens and politicians to be in favour of a substantial program of reform.
As Figure 2 shows, parliamentarians and the general public share a common sense of what they “like” about Australia's democratic system, such as “free and fair elections”, and “compulsory voting”. In contrast, citizens are more appreciative of “freedom of speech” while parliamentarians extol the virtue of the political system in enabling citizens to exercise their right to political participation.
Political parties can perform three sets of overlapping and reinforcing functions in a democratic political system – governance, community linkage and integrity roles.
The blame game – trust in politics
When asked to explain the loss of trust in politics (see Figure 3), parliamentarians focus on the lack of public understanding of how government works. They also point to the disproportionate power of minority representatives in decision-making, particularly in
Politicians recognise that they are not discharging their community-linkage role very well; which they perceive as a product of the constraints of the party machine.
the Senate.
Citizens' focus was on “not being able to hold politicians to account for broken promises”, politicians “not dealing with the issues that really matter”, and the disproportionate power of big business or trade unions in decision-making.
However, they do have a shared concern with what they perceive as the conflict-driven, adversarial nature of party politics and the media focusing too much on “personalities and not enough on policy”. Parliamentarians consider concerns related to media misrepresentation, and the pressure of the media cycle, to be the major weakness in Australian democratic practice.
In sum, Australian citizens simply don't like the democratic politics and incivility of the Federal Parliament. In contrast, politicians blame the citizenry, the media, the party machine and the operating constraints arising from the three-year electoral cycle for democratic malaise.
What federal government does well
Our survey evidence suggests that politicians recognise that they are not discharging their community-linkage role very well, which they perceive as a product of the constraints of the party machine. There is also some concern over integrity issues but this tends to focus on either the negative power of trade unions or business elites (depending on their party affiliation) and their ability to rort the system and the need to regulate campaign expenditure and political donations.
They have much greater confidence in their ability to deliver effective governance. This runs contrary to the survey evidence which shows that there is very limited public confidence in the ability of the Commonwealth government to deliver core tasks or address big public policy issues.9
Reforms politicians would like to see (and those they reject)
Unlike Australian citizens, the majority of parliamentarians are against:
• the right to recall an MP for a new election if they fail to provide effective representation during the parliamentary term (72%)
• performance review for politicians (72%)
• greater use of citizen juries based on the criminal jury system (64%). Parliamentarians have less desire to open up the system to direct influence from the public, preferring to make the representative system more outwardlooking and accountable. This is reflected in strong support for:
• ordinary party members and voters having more say in choosing party leaders and election candidates (49%)
• less voting on party lines based on manifesto promises and more free votes (46%).
When we asked parliamentarians what other reforms they would like to see, the responses highlighted a strong desire for improved publiclyfunded civics education to help foster the political literacy of the Australian electorate, and formal electorate public forums to ensure parliamentarians remain responsive to the interests of their constituents. Notably there was little-to-no reference of the need for Indigenous recognition or an Australian republic.
On balance, the preference of the political class is to adjust and strengthen the way that representative democracy works in very traditional ways: to make parties better at performing their three roles in providing community linkages, effective governance and democratic integrity.
However, there remains compelling evidence in support of the view held by 75 per cent of Australian citizens that “people in government look after themselves”10 and this was clearly demonstrated by the recent “Sports rorts” scandal.
The erosion of political integrity
The Morrison government's handling of the sports grants scheme contained a great deal of reinforcement for public disdain over how politicians conduct themselves. In this instance, according to an Auditor-general investigation, a minister made decisions on the allocation of grants not on the objective assessment available to her, but in pursuit of political advantage.
When this was called out by the independent watchdog, the government dug in to justify the actions. Eventually the minister resigned – but the reason given was a relatively minor aspect, rather than the substance of the matter, which was the rorting. Along the way, the federal public service's most senior bureaucrat was dragged into an overtly political exercise, leaving him in a compromised position.
The Community Sport Infrastructure Grant program was announced in August 2018, funded with just under $30 million (which eventually was increased to $100 million). It was to focus on “upgrading facilities that help build participation in physical activity, community partnerships and inclusiveness”. Applications for grants were invited. Sport Australia
Parliamentarians have less desire to open up the system to direct influence from the public, preferring to make the representative system more outward-looking and accountable.
was to make recommendations, while decisions rested with then sports minister Bridget Mckenzie.
In early 2020, the Auditor-general produced a scathing report on the decision making by Mckenzie (who was also deputy leader of the Nationals).11
In essence, the report said the minister had overridden the priority list of Sport Australia to skew the grants to seats the Coalition was prioritising. Moreover, the closer the 2019 election came, the greater the skew. In round one, 41 per cent of the grants approved were not on the list endorsed by Sport Australia; in rounds two and three, this rose to 70 per cent and 73 per cent respectively.
The Audit report said: “There was evidence of distribution bias in the award of grant funding. … The award of funding reflected the approach documented by the Minister's Office of focusing on ‘marginal' electorates held by the Coalition as well as those electorates held by other parties or independent members that were to be ‘targeted' by the Coalition at the 2019 election”.
The Auditor-general also put a question mark over whether Mckenzie actually had the legal authority to make decisions on the grants (subsequently Attorney-general Christian Porter rejected these doubts, in unreleased legal advice).
Opposition calls for Mckenzie's resignation intensified when it was
Ministers must declare and register their personal interests.
revealed in the media that she had not declared her membership of the Wangaratta Clay Target Club, which had received funding. Morrison referred the Audit report and the non-disclosure to Philip Gaetjens, secretary of his department, to report on whether Mckenzie had breached ministerial standards.
Two sections of the Statement of Ministerial Standards were relevant. 12
The statement says: “Ministers must declare and register their personal interests, including but not limited to pecuniary interests, as required by the Parliament from time to time. Ministers must also comply with any additional requirements for declarations of interests to the Prime Minister as may be determined by the Prime Minister, and notify the Prime Minister of any significant change in their private interests within 28 days of its occurrence.” It also says “ministers must observe fairness in making official decisions … taking proper account of the merits of the matter”.
Meanwhile Morrison and his ministers adopted two principal lines of defence: that all the projects funded were “eligible” (it subsequently emerged that technically this was not correct), and that politicians (rather than bureaucrats) were in touch with their communities' needs. Morrison highlighted his own experience as social services minister, saying he had had to rectify the work of bureaucrats after some “wonderful community organisations” were defunded.
As the resumption of parliament approached, the political pressure to dispatch Mckenzie, who now held the agriculture portfolio, intensified, with her fate hanging on the Gaetjens report. But she could not be axed on the issue of substance, because that would contradict what Morrison had been arguing.
The Gaetjens report found no basis for the suggestion political considerations were the primary determining factor in the grants allocation. But he did find Mckenzie had breached the ministerial standards by failing to declare her membership of the Wangaratta club and another organisation.
Mckenzie resigned, which had the unintended consequence of triggering an unsuccessful attempt by Barnaby Joyce to topple the Nationals leader
Mckenzie resigned, which had the unintended consequence of triggering an unsuccessful attempt by Barnaby Joyce to topple the Nationals leader Michael Mccormack.
The poor behaviour of politicians has become culturally embedded in the practices of the political class despite the existence of party codes of conduct.
Michael Mccormack. Mccormack survived the challenge, but faced the threat of ongoing destabilisation and speculation that he would not lead the Nationals to the next election.
One interesting wrinkle in the affair was that it pitted the Auditor-general against the head of the public service, in their conflicting assessments of Mckenzie's decision making. Giving evidence to the Senate inquiry into the affair, the Audit Office stuck to its guns. The government refused to release the Gaetjens' report but, in a submission to the Senate inquiry Gaetjens – who based his investigation on information from Sport Australia, Mckenzie and her staff – outlined his reasoning for his very different conclusion.13
While the government's handling of the affair was egregious, the public service also took a hit. A former secretary of the Prime Minister's department, Michael Keating, attacked Gaetjens: “It would seem on the evidence that Gaetjens has produced a report whose only purpose was to get the Government off a political hook.”14
Inevitably, the sports affair saw attention turn to other programs, with questions raised about the degree to which political skewing and ad hoc decision making was systemic.
The government accepted a recommendation from the Auditor-General's report that it amend the Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines “to require that the advising, decision-making and reporting requirements applying to situations where a minister approves grant funding be extended to apply to corporate Commonwealth entities in situations where a minister, rather than the corporate entity, is the decisionmaker”. This would bring “a single framework” to situations where the minister decided grants in programs.
The government's handling of the sports affair showed disdain for principles that should govern the allocation of public money. Accepting the Auditor-general's version of what happened, there was a clear partisan
element in how the grants were decided (including the Prime Minister's Office making direct representations, though not always successfully).
When this was exposed, the government at first tried to bluff its way through. If Morrison had been in a stronger political position – his standing had been eroded by poor handling of the bushfire crisis – Mckenzie probably would have survived. In the end, what cost Mckenzie her cabinet position was closer to a doctrine of “political expediency” than one of “ministerial responsibility”.
The Mckenzie affair rekindled memories of the “sports rorts” that led to Labor minister, Ros Kelly quitting the frontbench in 1994. That was a reminder “rorting” has a long history. But it is also true the Mckenzie case came against the background of historically high public distrust and cynicism, reflected partly in the widespread sentiment among political insiders, media and members of the public that this is “the way governments do things”.
Connecting-up – finding common ground
The message from our sample of politicians is that reform is as much about improving existing democratic practices as designing new ways of doing democracy. As a case in point, the “Sports rorts” case shows that the poor behaviour of politicians has become culturally embedded in the practices of the political class despite the existence of party codes of conduct and Westminster conventions of ministerial responsibility.
It also shows that democracy is an idea that relies on human practice; no surprise then that Australian citizens should be so disappointed with their democratic politics.
The reform agendas of citizens and politicians do not entirely match up, but there is a degree of alignment that provides some common ground. Both embrace reforms aimed at improving representative democracy and local accountability and provide hope for enhancing the integrity of government through regulation of campaign expenditure and political donations and some support for a federal ICAC.
Changes backed both by many citizens and politicians could lead the way to a wider and more radical reform process. After all, the future of our democracy could rest on it. As A.C. Grayling writes, the “political history of what we call the ‘Western liberal democracies' is the history of the development and application of a compromise aimed at resolving the dilemma of democracy—of finding a way to locate the ultimate source of political authority in democratic assent, without democracy collapsing into mob rule or being hijacked by an oligarchy”.
15 Representative democracy provided such a compromise in the era of modernity but now it rests on the political class connecting-up better with the citizenry and providing enough public participation to keep the political class honest.