Abbott's plebiscite call a serious misjudgment

THERE is no established practice in Australian national politics for plebiscites to determine policy issues for the obvious reason they are a bad idea that advances neither democracy, good government nor sound public policy.

The plebiscite on the carbon tax proposed by Tony Abbott is not smart politics. It does not assist Abbott's cause or his standing. It suggests the Coalition needs stunts, not sound argument, to buttress its case. It will give Julia Gillard hope the Liberal Party campaign, sooner or later, will run out of political gas. It is a mistake for the Liberal Party to propose "government by plebiscite". This violates the practice and philosophy espoused by its former leader, John Howard. It defies the principles of representative democracy that have served Australia well. There is one certainty: the notion is inconsistent with the principles of conservatism that Abbott is supposed to uphold.

It suggests, in fact, that Abbott may be the most radical leader in Liberal Party history in his instinctive resort to populist tactics and invoking popular ballots, a contrast with his stereotype as an old fogey infatuated by the Queen and by God and mired in rigid traditionalism. Leader of the House Anthony Albanese damned Abbott yesterday as a "reactionary", yet this misses the bigger point that Abbott's pragmatism can border on recklessness and that he will abandon parliamentary and policy norms that obstruct the pursuit of his goals.

Plebiscites are the road to bad policy in the name of people power. Consider. Should we have had a referendum to launch the post-war immigration program, to abolish the White Australia Policy, to remove the tariff, to move away from centralised wage fixation, to deregulate interest rates, to introduce the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, to float the dollar, to embrace a native title system, to introduce a GST and to accept Indo-Chinese refugees in the 1980s? Each of these 10 policies has been instrumental in improving our society and economy. It is likely none of them would have passed a plebiscite at the time.

The power of the negative in politics is on the rise; witness Labor's campaign against Howard's Work Choices and Abbott's campaign against Kevin Rudd's carbon scheme and now Gillard's scheme. Don't think it is an accident that two of the most lethal negative campaigns in history have occurred in the past five years. It is getting harder to pass reform measures that Australia needs to succeed in the globalised world.

The policy plebiscite undercuts the high practice of Westminster politics Australia-style where politicians govern for a three-year term, make their decisions for better or worse, and accept the public's judgment at the next poll.

It is a measure of Coalition politics today that Abbott's carbon tax plebiscite is widely seen as a stunt, not just outside but also inside the Coalition.

When outgoing senator Steve Fielding, after meeting the Opposition Leader and hearing his case, repudiates it as a "stunt", then Abbott is scraping the bottom of the barrell. The absurdity of the idea is obvious at once. While Abbott said his intent was to "let the people decide", he refused to agree he would abandon his own opposition to the tax if any carbon tax plebiscite was carried. In short, he doesn't take his own proposal seriously. It may have been mildly interesting if Abbott had said he was ready to fall into line with the result. No such concession.

He did, however, demand from Labor the standard he refused to apply to himself -- that Gillard act on the vote. Indeed, Abbott said if the vote went against the tax then it would be "politically impossible" for Labor to proceed.

This highlights another defect: a plebiscite is non-binding. It is a government-sponsored and paid for national opinion poll whose authority derives from that fact. If parliament passed Abbott's bill then Gillard would be obliged to hold the plebiscite that Labor voted against. But Gillard would have no legal obligation to implement the outcome of the vote.

The bizarre feature of this situation is an opposition leader trying to impose a plebiscite upon a government, a ploy possible only because of Labor's minority status. Ultimately, it cannot work. The crossbenches that sustain Gillard cannot betray their own judgment and the government they put into office by indulging such a plebiscite because it comes close to a vote of no confidence.

The point, of course, is the bill was not introduced with any hope of success. It is a media event. It is to reinforce the "Gillard as liar" brand. It is proof, again, of the defining insiders-outsiders gulf that splits Australia. Among insiders, Abbott's bill is a stunt; among outsiders it is a valid exposure of Gillard's broken election pledge not to have carbon tax. Abbott knows this issue may terminate Gillard's career.

There have been only three past plebiscites and Malcolm Fraser's 1977 sampling of opinion on the national song (Advance Australia Fair won) illustrates the real value of the mechanism.

But plebiscites can be dangerous when truly divisive issues are unwisely removed from the representative democracy framework. Australian history affords the ultimate exhibit in the lost conscription plebiscites of 1916 and 1917 put by William Morris Hughes.

Anybody who thinks the carbon tax issue is a threat to Australia's unity can relax. It wilts beside the shattering trauma unleashed by the 1916 reference to the people. Convinced it was a time for duty, sacrifice and saving Australia, Hughes, a conscriptionist, was unable to carry his party and the Senate resorted instead to a plebiscite as the sledgehammer to smash Labor into bowing before his iron will. With 2.3 million people voting, Hughes lost by a narrow 72,000 votes with the states equally divided three-three but NSW decisive for the no case.

Sensing defeat, he wrote before the vote: "To me it seems quite hopeless to mend the broken pot. It is now apparent that there are elements in the Labor Party with which I have nothing in common, which in fact I hate and distrust." So the great split came; the recriminations lived for decades.

The debate about plebiscites and their history in Australia highlights the true value of elections in resolving such issues. Abbott is right to say the people must decide the carbon issue. They will. That will happen at the next election and that is the best way. If the public thinks Gillard has betrayed its trust on the carbon tax, it will vote accordingly.

Remember, the reason for Labor's polling collapse is because, last term, when it should have taken its carbon scheme to an election, it declined. That would have decided the issue in 2010. By retreating and then reviving the policy, Labor has postponed that judgment to the next election when the voters, if Abbott is believed, will be even more angry.