Welcome to The Friday Fight, our new weekly debate series where two writers make their case on a hotly contested topic.
Today’s question: should Labor ditch its caucus rules? The party’s internal machinations were thrown into the spotlight when WA Senator Fatima Payman last month crossed the floor to support a Greens-backed motion to “recognise the state of Palestine”. At the time she was indefinitely suspended for breaching caucus solidarity.
In the affirmative corner we have Rachel Withers, former editor of The Politics. Arguing in the negative is Crikey’s political editor Bernard Keane.
Democracy requires a lot of compromise, by everyone (except if you’re a fossil fuel company, but that’s another story). Compromise by governments trying to get legislation passed. Compromise by political parties in how they operate internally and how they handle diversity of opinions. Compromise by voters in how much of a role they have in major decisions.
Internal operations are a particular challenge for the major political parties. As you may have noticed, small political parties are particularly prone to fracturing: the Democrats lasted two political generations but eventually broke apart. Clive Palmer’s parties (remember Jacqui Lambie started as a Palmer senator) flew apart like grenades. One Nation sees regular departures from its ranks. Even the Greens, a party unusually unified over several political generations, shed Lidia Thorpe.
Big parties can invest in institutional structures to resist the strains of ego and ideology that split smaller parties. Factions, whether formal or informal, are one mechanism. In the case of Labor, factions are formalised and, when things are working relatively smoothly, allow for a distribution of political spoils and a resolution of internal policy conflict.
Labor’s requirement that MPs and senators abide by caucus decisions and vote in Parliament accordingly is another such mechanism.
While it’s been presented as an unwanted hangover from when Labor was a clutch of shearers meeting under a Queensland gum tree, the justification advanced by Labor advocates for the binding caucus vote is simple and modern: no MP or senator would be in Parliament unless they had appeared on a ballot paper with “Labor” next to their name. Accordingly, agreeing to be bound by decisions of the parliamentary party recognises that they are elected for their party, rather than any personal electoral appeal.
But what about voters? The binding vote is actually more democratic than allowing MPs and senators to cross the floor whenever they like. For voters, what you see with Labor is what you get — your Labor MP won’t cross the floor and vote against the party’s policy. For voters who care about particular issues that feature in Labor’s platform, this offers certainty that their will expressed at the ballot box will translate into action by the MP they voted for.
For the great majority of voters, who are disengaged and relatively uninterested in politics, it makes a democratic choice easier — if you vote for Labor, you get Labor, not someone who can choose to deviate from Labor policies. If you want Labor’s policies, you vote for them and you’ll get them.
That said, the case of Fatima Payman is an interesting one, because she’s not defying party policy — quite the opposite. Recognition of Palestine is Labor policy, but one as yet not implemented. Payman thus managed the near-unique feat of crossing the floor while still voting in support of Labor policy — one of the reasons senior Labor figures initially decided to go easy on her.
Necessarily, the binding vote demands compromises and exceptions. There are scenarios when it is simply inappropriate. The local government development application process is a good case where binding votes are not merely inappropriate but potentially encourage corruption. NSW Labor has long banned binding votes by Labor local councillors on development applications and the NSW ICAC has warned against them.
And then there are conscience votes — a compromise mechanism that is as much about avoiding embarrassment as about salving tender consciences on moral issues. In 2011 Labor changed its policy to allow a conscience vote on marriage equality — seen as a triumph for supporters like Penny Wong. In 2015, Bill Shorten, facing what would have been a successful push by marriage equality advocates to change Labor policy to support it, engineered a compromise that allowed a conscience vote for two more parliamentary terms, before policy would change. A conscience vote went from being a way for marriage equality advocates to express themselves to a way for social conservatives in the party to express themselves — but only until 2019.
As an exemption mechanism, the conscience vote is compromised and messy and can expose hypocrisy by its adherents, but it’s necessary.
Dumping the binding vote has superficial appeal — in an age of individualism, why should our elected representatives be subjected to a century-old collectivist rule? But if it’s appealing to politicians as a way to demonstrate their diversity of views, it offers little for voters for whom binding votes provide some insurance that their vote ends up reflected in Parliament. And that’s democracy, compromised and all.
Should Labor ditch its caucus rules? Who do you think won the debate? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
