The mistake of the mandate

In the days when I was much younger and ( perhaps) more naive, a University lecturer reminded me that the Westminster system is not about mandates.
"We elect people to govern, not to implement a narrow raft of policies" he would say ( or words to that effect ).
He was not saying, I suggest, that politicians should be  allowed to make a swathe of promises and then not be held to account; but rather that we, the electorate, should pay attention to the tenor of the discussion rather than the minutiae.
We are not electing people to implement piddling little policies. that would be far too small,  but to govern according to clearly articulated principles.  This is of course easier said than done.
We, the electorate,  by and large have allowed ourselves to be seduced by minutiae...make my tax go down, stop the boats, free beer for all...
Rather than demanding that our politicians GOVERN according to PRINCIPLE.

The reason why the narrow mandate is a mistake, is that we actually discover there is not one but  a number of mandates (plural)....[housing, infrastructure, security, States' rights, increased wealth, closed borders, care for refugees, better education, military expenditure, lower taxes, improved health care, indigenous rights, marriage equality, law and order, water quality, a republic, farmers' rights, housing costs...... you get the idea...and I could go on]

Thinking back to the last election ( which was close... almost too close) all of these things and more were aired.

The electorate votes, I would say, not for one of these issues . But for the Team it believed most closely approximated most of their views in principle.
Some would hold that border control and lower taxes were what they held to be important. Others that water quality and military expenditure, law and order and marriage equality were what suited them.
We could go on and realise that some of us want part of this agenda and others want a different part.

This is NOT a mandate, this is an accomodation to a way of thinking.

So it is not appropriate or accurate to say that if I happen to have been elected, then everyone agrees with everything I said.
It is not even accurate to say that all those who voted for me ( and in this case it was barely 50%) were agreeing about the things that I was proposing.

There was no mandate for anything.
There was rather permission to govern.
Do not use the Mandate Argument to say...I cannot do this. Rather take the cudgels and govern.
Nothing would seem to be black and white, it is rather an invitation to enter into the mêlée of proper discussion.
Not applying the arbitrary mandates, but rather the principles that engender good government.

I fear that the "mandate argument" is the excuse of the craven to not declare themselves.

I do not believe that this wafer-thin government had a mandate for a plebiscite. If anything the reaction of the Houses shows that they clearly don't.

Get on and govern! You do not have a mandate for a plebiscite. And possibly not for much else either!
Get on and govern ...and realise the art of the possible......which after all according to many luminaries (Including J W Howard) is what politics is all about.

The plebiscite

In democracies, by definition, plebiscites must be almost always:  deceitful, deceptive, manipulative & unhelpful

 In a democracy we delegate responsibility to our elected representatives...occasionally we have a Referendum...when matters are so great that it is good to get whole-community consensus
Plebiscites, it seems to me, are when our elected representatives are so weak-kneed that they lack the courage and conviction to do what they were elected to do.
To not be too cynical, it is the sort of thing our Lords and Masters ( for they are largely male) do when they are too lily livered to actually make a decision...God forbid that they might actually declare their hands!

Sooooo....the dilemma we now face in the Parliament which looks increasingly hung is this:

• Turnbull has declared that there will be a Plebiscite  before the end of the year
• Shorten, whilst not committed  to a Plebiscite, suggests that there should be resolution of this issue within 100 days

What it seems to me.....neither of these luminaries rate this issue as primary within their present HUNG PARLIAMENT scenario

Even more importantly, neither Shorten nor Turnbull, can actually effect their agenda...

So my, SAD,  suggestion is that the expectation about Marriage Equality is not going to be addressed by either Turnbull or Shorten...they will both have their reasons.

None of them will resonate with people on either side.

I suspect it will make Australians seem like Luddites. The people of a generation  a hundred years or more ago!

Unbelievable and yet strangely believable!

Choking on one's muesli, I had to laugh to hear Malcolm Turnbull say that the task for the incoming Labor Government was to not blame the previous Government for the financial mess that it inherited.
This is rich coming from a party which continued, up until it was removed from power, to blame the governments of Hawke and Keating for over a decade after those Labor governments set up the financial structures which allowed the Liberals to capitalise on a deregulated environment which they themselves had failed to establish. This despite having been in power for most of the four decades from the 40s to the 80s.
I think the electorate at the last election found this all wore a bit thin, at what point would the Howard Government actually take responsibility for having got somethings wrong as well as taking the (often unwarranted) credit for having got things right?
Turnbull is right, in a way, the Rudd government will need to accept responsibility for what they do. But give them a break...it has only been weeks since they took over!

Not feeling very afraid

An interesting campaign (which is presumably based on some research) against Peter Garret. Today's press says how the senior mobsters, Downer and Costello et al, are warning the electorate to be 'afraid, be very afraid' of Peter Garrett. The imputation being that some how he has an hidden agenda which has not yet been declared which is going to turn the country upside down if and when they get elected.
Well I don't feel particularly afraid. Indeed most Garrett aficionados want him to have done more, but there is a political reality about this that has to be faced. Attractive to people because of his greener credentials, some could well be afraid that he will be decidedly more attractive to younger voters than Malcolm Turnbull. Younger voters think the green stuff matters!!! I don't think the stuffy older set (on either side) have got this through their incredibly thick heads.
So yes, Downer and Costello should feel afraid; but I don't!

Appointing successors

One of the (perhaps few) things I have learnt in my fifty odd years is to be cautious about appointing one's successor. [a lesson to be learnt in a neighbouring diocese]

Not, might I add, being cautious about who one might appoint. But to be careful to not enter into the process of influencing those whose responsibility it is to actually do the choosing.

This is advice I feel should be offered to Prime Minister Howard. In fact, should have  been offered long ago. It no doubt was, but it should have been adhered to.

Now forgive me, but we live in a democracy don't we? And a democracy does not require a line of succession, or nepotism, or even favouritism...it requires that those designated to elect should elect who they see fit.

So it has always been inappropriate for the Liberal Party to say that Peter Costello is the next leader, and if they are in government then the next PM. While this may (for some) have expressed a factional reality/deal/arrangement or whatsoe'er...ancient advice would suggest that you should not count your votes before they are cast.

So it is not surprising that the ambitious Mr Turnbull is coy about whether Costello will succeed, even if he is a little more reticent today (here). 

Personally were I Treasurer Pete I wouldn't trust anyone to guarantee the succession, least of all Malcolm, Tony or Alexander. Perhaps wee Johnny knew this all along and is chirruping in his glee

Gobbledegook

The Greens are accusing Peter Garrett of talking gobbledegook over the Tasmanian Pulp Mill (here). Now this is going to happen to him increasingly up and until his party gets into power.
So two predictions are:

1. That if (by some slim chance) Labor don't win then Garrett will jump ship because he won't really be able to bring any real influence to bear from long-term Opposition. (It will be interesting to see what Turnbull does if he is consigned to Opposition for similar sorts of reasons).
   
2. If he gets into a Government, then he had better start effecting some real political clout in the environmental debate or the Greens' critique will indeed be seen to be true. I would imagine if he just becomes a stooge then (again) he will jump ship because his whole raison-d'-etre will collapse underneath him...and I would like to think that his integrity won't be able to bear that

So, to the Greens it needs to be said, you need to be patient with Garrett.
The sad reality of politics is that not every battle can be fought at each and every opportunity. If, however, when he gets some real power he then doesn't do anything...then he should be hammered