Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
caucus. Rudd attempted to centralise and control so many decisions that he was
unable to effectively undertake the business of government. Key policy issues were
left to drift and his colleagues began seeking the advice and help of his deputy, Julia
Gillard. Ultimately, Rudd lost the confidence of his party room and was replaced,
partially on the grounds that he was not running an effective Cabinet government.
Rudd failed to use Cabinet as a robust and consultative forum.
Executive government and accountability
Governance relies on delegation. In a (semi-)parliamentary democracy we can
conceptualise delegation as shown in Figure 1. This is a simple model of delegation;
the delegation of the authority to act passes from one principal (e.g. voters) to their
agent (e.g. parliament). Functioning accountability measures are what distinguishes
democracy from non-democratic forms of governance.
However, as we have already discovered, the actual practice of executive governance
in Australia is more complicated. Agency problems arise across the chain of
delegation. One of these problems may relate to a difference of preferences between
principals and their agents; what voters want and what parliament legislates may be
very different.
Theotherproblemistheresultofalackofinformationonthepartofthe
principal. This problem of information comes in two forms. The first is adverse
selection, which relates directly to the quality of representation. Voters may not
have access to enough information or the capacity to choose the representatives
that will serve their interests best. Arguably, political parties, which act as interest
aggregators, have helped resolve the issue of adverse selection by organising around
a party label, which gives citizens ideological shortcuts to help them vote.
The second is moral hazard, where the principal lacks the means or information
to keep their agents accountable and diligent. Party discipline has significantly
diluted the ability of parliament to keep the executive accountable, particularly
whenanissueisnotcentraltothesurvivalofthegovernment.However,Australia’s
strong Senate, and its powerful committee system, does provide a legislative
mechanism for executive accountability. 22
Agency problems also play out at other stages of the chain of delegation. As
we discussed above, the calculations a prime minister must make when selecting
her Cabinet may not reflect her preferences, and ministers must work with a civil
service that they are not always able to select.
As we have seen, prime ministers and ministers have developed new institutions
– PMC and politically appointed staff – to help them to solve delegation problems
between the prime minister and ministers, and between ministers and the bureaucracy.
However, these new institutions have also complicated the chain of delegation
22 Strøm, Muller and Bergman 2003.
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