By Canadian standards, last week's change of leadership in
Australia was shockingly swift. Kevin Rudd entered a caucus meeting
as leader of his Labour party and prime minister; he emerged as
neither. Compare that with the long psycho-dramas of Paul Martin
versus Jean Chretien, and then Stephane Dion versus Michael
Ignatieff.
Australia's new Labour leader and PM, Julia Gillard, begins her new
duties vividly aware that, in Australia at least, MPs are not
nobodies. MPs there can make and break a prime minister. It's a
lesson Canadian members of Parliament ought to study.
Neither Canadians nor Australians vote directly for a prime
minister. Both countries' parliamentary systems are based on
Britain's, in which, in theory, a prime minister is chosen on the
basis that he or she can command the support of a majority in
Parliament; in practice this usually means the leader of the party
with the most MPs gets the job.
Traditionally, each "parliamentary party" -- that is, the caucus of
a party, in power or in opposition -- has the right to dispatch its
leader at will. That's what happened to Rudd and to Britain's
Margaret Thatcher, who despite a long and successful leadership
found herself steered along briskly to the exit in 1990.
Canadian MPs have less power in this regard. In 1919 Liberals
seized on the death of Sir Wilfrid Laurier to convert a policy
convention he had called into a leadership convention. Since then,
every Canadian federal party has built elaborate rules for
"consultation" through huge conventions or party balloting. This is,
in theory, "more democratic." But in practice, a leader chosen by
the party rank and file -- that might be badly uninformed -- is no
longer just the "prime" minister, first among equals. Armoured
against caucus unrest, our PMs grow increasingly powerful, like U.S.
presidents but with more legislative clout. After Jean Chretien took
the country and his own caucus by surprise in 1997 by committing
Canada to the Kyoto Protocol, one expert said our PM is "perhaps the
most unchecked head of government among the democracies." Former
clerk of the Privy Council Gordon Robertson told the Ottawa Citizen,
"Our concentration of power is greater than in any other government
with a federal cabinet system."
Should our MPs have more say in the selection -- and rejection --
of their party leader?
Kevin Rudd might not think so, but that system might well be
preferable to one where even the party can't control the leader.
As Artie Johnson would say: "Interesting. Verrrrrrry Interesting."
WFDS
No comments:
Post a Comment