Page 2480 - Week 07 - Monday, 15 August 2022
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responsible? We take our guidelines from what happens up on the hill. Go to the PM and C Cabinet Handbook, under, “Cabinet conventions and principles”:
A Westminster-style Cabinet is defined by adherence to the principles of collective responsibility and Cabinet solidarity. These principles are the binding devices that ensure the unity of purpose of the Government and underpin the formulation of consistent policy advice.
That is Ms Lee’s point.
Under “Collective responsibility”, the handbook says:
It ensures that the Government is collectively accountable and responsible to the Parliament and to the people of Australia
Under “Cabinet solidarity” it says:
The member from cabinet must publicly support all government decisions made in cabinet:
Members of the Cabinet must publicly support all Government decisions made in the Cabinet …
This is the point up on the hill. The PM and C handbook continues:
It is the Prime Minister’s role as Chair of the Cabinet, where necessary, to enforce Cabinet solidarity.
I think that is what has happened here. Fundamentally, it is the Chief Minister’s job. He has been elected to do this job. To make sure that this executive, this government, actually works, is effective and behaves in accordance with Westminster principles. He has failed.
Queensland has a parliament not dissimilar to ours; it does not have an upper house. The Queensland Parliament fact sheet on the principles of cabinet states:
By convention, two fundamental principles of the Westminster system are observed in the operation of Cabinet: collective ministerial responsibility and individual ministerial responsibility.
The fact sheet says:
If a Minister is unable publicly to support a Cabinet decision, the proper course is for that Minister to resign from Cabinet.
That is the proper course. That is actually what should have happened here!
If the Greens want to stand for something as well, then they should not be hobbling together with the Labor Party to come up with this circumvented process. If you believe in this—if you are a Greens Party, if you are the radicals that you say you are,
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