Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3798 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

the sepulchral quiet of the commissar's office. Under the democratic tradition and vision, politicians are there to represent particular points of view, and endorse particular causes, in the hope of securing sufficient electoral support. If the system works, then they will be motivated thereby to make the compromises required for effective government-otherwise they must lose out at the polls-and to make sure at the same time that their opponents are exposed to the sort of critique and debate that will ensure accountability.

(Extension of time granted.)

But the system is not designed to work only so far as the politicians endorse effectiveness and accountability and tailor their behaviour towards those ends: only so far as the politicians are relatively saintly. It is designed to work so that even if the politicians remain completely obsessed with their own electoral success, still effectiveness and accountability will materialise as an unintended side-effect.

But the fact that the political system is designed to work in this way-the fact that it generates effective and accountable government in the same side-effect way that markets generates competitive pricing and public sports generate entertainment-itself raises a problem. It means that the system is susceptible to a certain instability, so far as it puts the participating politicians in deeply adversarial relations with one another.

This is the point I was seeking to get to after that long discourse, so I beg your pardon, but I think it is important and it is food for thought for us. This is the point of what I was trying to say:

In most familiar incarnations, however, democratic political systems have a solution to this problem. They ensure that there are regular occasions, many of them ceremonial in character, when the participants are forced out of their adversarial roles and celebrate the system from the outside, as a cooperative, functioning reality. This happens in many regimes with the opening of parliament, with the reception in parliament of visiting dignitaries, and on those occasions where all are required to pay deference to the flag.

The last problem that I would like to signal in the ACT is the absence of routines and occasions whereby the politicians in our local hurly burly are ever brought together to see and celebrate the reality and success of the system as a whole. Of necessity politics gives rise to slights and resentments, grievances and grudges, and if a political system is to work in a smooth and stable manner-if politicians are not to become just rats in the ranks-then there must be room for a sort of ceremonial reconciliation when the players collectively acknowledge that together they are serving a fine and good end.

I see lots of the hurly-burly in ACT politics, but I see little or none of this sort of reconciliation and celebration.

I think Mr Moore was commenting on the level of hurly-burly in ACT politics. I acknowledge it. At times I think many of us have found the behaviour in this place unpleasant. I read into the Hansard these comments of Mr Pettit, because he makes some suggestions about what he sees from the outside as a potential resolution of the problem of the hurly-burly, particularly in a very small parliament where there are only 17 of us.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .