Australian Politics Papers A-K

Malcolm Alexander
Griffith University

The 'Small World' of Australian company directors

Abstract:

Networks of acquaintanceship and personal contact among the managers and directors of large companies have the potential to foster community identity and cohesion among the ‘corporate elite’, national ‘business leaders’ or ‘capitalist class'. Such identity and cohesion, or its lack, can be an important factor in the development of business-government relations. This paper examines the network of personal contacts, created by interlocking directorates, among all board members of the Top 500 publicly listed Australian companies. In the past it has been difficulty to analyse such sparse networks, however recent advances in our understanding of the 'small world' phenomenon and the application of random graph theory to large networks provide new tools to measure the connectivity and density of large networks of this type. The paper analyses the 'small world' of Australian company directors in 1976 and 1996 with some reference to the U.S. network of 1996. These comparisons suggest that the personal network of directors is less prominent in Australia than the US but remains as closely connected in 1996 as in 1976 despite an increase in the numbers of people drawn into the network.

Introduction:

Business elite studies, inter-corporate networks and the network of personal contacts among company directors

The study of business-government relations involves an imbalance of information. On the government side we know a great deal about the organisation of policy advising machineries, within both state bureaucracies and parties. Also, avenues of discussion and decision-making are, to a large extent, public. On the business side there are no comparable structures. Policy advice is generated by a range of industry and ‘peak employer’ bodies. There are few mechanisms for coherent and decisive debate about issues nor clear avenues of discussion and decision-making. Individual firms, industry associations and employer associations all lobby for their own interests on any given issue and attempt to ‘get the ear’ of the most relevant decision makers.

Despite the lack of overt organisation most theorists hold that it possible to speak of a ‘business’ view on economic and social issues. For some it arises from the embedded structural power of business to which the state responds despite the lack of overt business organisation . In this view the state is drawn into providing de facto forums of business class organisation. Alternate theories recognise various degree of business class or business community agency. Perhaps the most explicit recognition of overt agency is power elite theory. Power elite theories, still usefully exemplified by C.W. Mills classic work, claim that consensus among business, government and other elites arises from the homogeneity of social origins, professional training and career networks among the members of these elites .

Australian sociologists and political scientists have studied business from this range of perspectives. In the 1960s Sol Encel provided a good account of the power elite of that era . In the 1970s Bob Connell provided a more sophisticated theory that stressed the closeness of political and big business leaderships but also gave a prominent role to the media using Gramscian notions of organic intellectuals and hegemony . Higley and others carried out an extensive survey of Australian elites in 1974 but their theoretical defence of elites troubled Australian audiences and there was virtually no subsequent work of this kind. At the end of the 1980s McEachern outlined the inner circles of business leaders who were influential in the Hawke years. An account of media glorification of business leaders in the 1990s that continues the Gramscian aspects of Connell’s approach is contained in Graeme Turner’s book, Making it National . However there has been little Australian work in the direct tradition of C.W. Mills and William Domhoff.

A general sympathy with structuralist approaches in sociology in this country means that analyses of business power in Australia emphasise the size and power of the large corporations more than the internal organisation and agency of the business elite. This tendency toward structuralist theory has important implications for the conceptualisation and handling of information about corporate elites and interlocking directorships. From the structuralist perspective, research studies of company managers and directors look at multiple directorship holders just as ‘interlockers’; people who create linkages between corporations. Seen primarily as ‘bearers’ of these structural relations, analysis of personal attributes or personal relations is a secondary exercise. The analysis of interlocking is, in the first instance, simply about networks among corporations, or groups of corporations .

However, elite studies of business leaders and network studies of interlocking directorates begin from the same information base; lists of the directors and managers of major corporations. Both sets of researchers select a population of large companies and then make a census of all persons on the boards of these companies. That they analyse this information in different ways creates an impression of distinct research traditions. On the one side, elite studies focus on the population of persons, what is the average age and gender, what is their background, what are the principal clubs or associations to which they belong etc.? Network studies of interlocking directorates disregard most of this personal information. They shift the material to find those directors who have two or more positions. They then reconstitute this basic information as a set of linkages, a network, between the companies of the original selection set. Corporate power structure research and network based studies do, however, allow for an intermediate form of elite study. High levels of multiple directorship holding, i.e. personal participation in the inter-corporate network, are taken to measure a person’s centrality. The population of ‘big linkers’ (persons with four or more directorships) or ‘network specialists’ is then studied with traditional survey and interview techniques .

A consequence of this methodological division of labour is that the expertise of social network analysis is almost never applied to study the network of contacts among company directors that arises from boardrooms as meeting places. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the research literature. There are, however, practical and theoretical reasons for the division of labour described above. The practical reasons relate to the difficulty of dealing with the very large networks of individuals that these datasets entail. There are, typically, some 2,500 or 3,000 persons in the datasets and it is only recent advances in microcomputer capabilities that permit analysis of such large networks. The theoretical difficulties come from the conceptual differences between studying small, relatively complete networks, the principal terrain of social network analysis, and the large, sparse networks typical of interlocking directorate data. The computing difficulties need no further comment however the theoretical sections of this paper deal with the theoretical and conceptual issues.

The small world of company directors: Network connectivity and structure

The networks of personal contacts among company directors generated by board memberships are very sparse. Traditional social network analysis has developed mostly in small group settings. The directors’ networks of personal contact are so sparse that the techniques and theory of social network analysis have little immediate application to these networks. Thus, for instance, most social network theorists see relative density, the number of ties made between persons as a proportion of all possible ties, as a fundamental feature of networks. In the case of directorship networks this measure is very small, usually only a fraction of one percent. With indicators of such extreme values, insights from traditional social network analysis seem to have little relevance to these directorship networks.

Recent discussions in network analysis have opened new approaches to the conceptualisation and measurement of large, sparse networks. These discussions arose partly from the need to study very large networks such as the internet. Other innovations were stimulated by graph theory, the mathematical basis of network analysis, particularly advances in the theory of random graphs. Another impetus has been a renewed interest in understanding the dynamics of the ‘small world phenomena’.

The impact of this new thinking is to shift the conceptual idea of networks away from a concern with density towards a concern with connectivity. Connectivity is an attribute of the whole network. It reflects its sparseness or density, the basic concept of social network analysis. However, whereas the traditional concept of density sets as its benchmark the situation where every person in the population is directly connected to every other person in that population, connectivity simply requires that every person have some point of connection to the network. Network connectivity and density are only loosely related. They converge only at the extremes. The maximally dense network where all persons are directly connected to every other person is, of course, fully connected. At the other extreme there are only two possible forms of the minimally dense, fully connected network. In between these extremes however connectivity and density can come in many combinations.

Its two minimal forms, the tree and the star illustrate the idea of connectivity. Any population (of size N) requires a minimum of N-1 ties to connect all its members. The connections can be made in two configurations.

Network Example 1. Network Example 2.
4 Points, Star Configuration 4 Points, Tree Configuration

Both these populations are fully connected. Every point is drawn into the network. They achieve full connectivity with only three lines (N-1) compared to the six lines (N(N-1)/2) that are possible among four points. Thus we have connectivity although these are not dense networks.

Connectivity is an attribute of the network itself. It has not an attribute of the points. In order to measure the impact of connectivity at the level of the point (the person) we use the idea of average geodesic distance. The geodesic distance between any two points in a network is the shortest number of steps needed to get from one point to another. For each point we count the number of steps between it and every other point. We then average this total by the number of points reached from that point. This provides the average geodesic distance for that point. The average distance for the network is the average of these point averages. Calculations of average distance for Examples 1 and 2 are given in Table One.

Network Example 1. Star Configuration Example 2: Tree Configuration

The tree and the star also illustrate a key point about network structure, its degree of centralization. Although both networks have the same number of points and lines, the star is more centralised structure. In the star configuration no point is more than two steps away from any other point. In the tree configuration, by contrast, the points at the end of the tree are two steps away from each other. Because of this difference the average distance in the star configuration is less than the average distance in the tree configuration. In the star configuration the three outer points are at distance two from each other but each of them is one step away from the central point. The central point is only one step away from the other three points. The average distance in the star network is 1.5 whereas the average distance in the tree network is 1.66.

A concern with the connectivity of networks, rather than density, allows us to integrate important insights from two other areas of theoretical discussion and mathematical inquiry; random graph theory and discussion of the ‘small world’ phenomena.

Random graph theory takes the number of lines (or connections) in a network, as compared to the number of points (or people), as the key ratio when thinking about connectivity. Random graph theory provides important insights into the random probabilities of connectivity in a network for a given ratio of lines and points. It investigates the patterns of connectivity that can be expected as more lines are added to a network with a given number of points. Random graph theory predicts that increases in connectivity are not simple incremental. There are distinct, although approximate, thresholds. As the number of lines passes half the number of points, a random distribution of these lines will tend toward the creation of one central, large component and a number of isolates. Random graph theory thus provides a way of comparing patterns of connectivity found in real life networks to patterns that can be expected to arise randomly. Nearly all studies of interlocking directorships find inter-corporate networks built around one single large component . Random graph theory suggests that this is the expected pattern given that the number of lines generated by interlocking directorates is usually more than half of the number of corporations selected.

The discussion of networks and the ‘small world phenomena’ comes from sociological and experimental studies. The classic statement of this phenomena was made by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s . He suggested that chains of acquaintanceship would allow a message to reach a particular person through a chain of intermediary steps. He tested this idea by asking a population of randomly selected persons to forward a message to someone who might know the target person of the message. A significant number of messages reached their targets and Milgram calculated that the average number of intermediaries used was around about 6.

The idea that there are just six intermediate steps between any two persons chosen at random from the U.S. population has caught the public imagination through the phrase ‘six degrees of separation’. The phrase was popularised by a Broadway play, now a movie, by John Guare. The basic principles of the small world theory have been further popularised by the movie buffs’ game ‘six degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon’ in which players seek to find the series of co-appearances that link a pair of movie actors. The game takes its name from the fact that Kevin Bacon is the most central person in the network of co-appearances. In a short article in Nature Steven Strogatz, a professor of theoretical applied mechanics and Duncan Watts proposed a mathematical model that explained how the combination of densely connected groups with just a few connecting links can produce a wide network of connections. A more elaborate account of the model is available in Watts .

These popular ideas link the concepts of connectivity (being in the network) and distance (the number of steps between two points). They reduce an immensely complicated and vast structure to a simple and tangible piece of personal experience. What they fail to publicise is the actual chances of making linkages. If one considers that each step in the chain of connections involves one choice out of a large number of possibilities, say 100, then the a successful connection at six degrees of separation is one path out of a possible one trillion paths. From this perspective six degrees of separation is a long, long social distance. Studies of acquaintanceship usually regard links of distance two, ‘friends of friends’, as the practical limit of individuals reachable network. This makes intuitive sense. We can see how this limitation operates in the case of the star and the tree illustrated earlier. While everyone in the star configuration is a friend of a friend (albeit the same friend), the persons on the ends of the tree formation are not friends of a friend.

Is it possible to give an absolute meaning to these measures of distance? We can take six degrees of separation as an outer limit, the average distance we can expect to find among the general population. At the other extreme the average distance within the star configuration represents the minimum distance for connectivity. Although small networks can connect at average distance less than two, as in the two examples, the average distance approximates to 2 for any relatively large network. In absolute terms, therefore, average distance varies between 2 and 6. However, due to the multiplier effects noted above this is a geometric scale, akin to the Richter scale.

The small world theory and the debate and ideas it has generated give social substance to the network concepts of connectivity and distance outlined earlier. The possibility of making a connection to any other person in the world through six or so intermediaries is intriguing despite the extreme probabilities involved. The importance of connections at distance two, friends of friends, suggests a related measure of network connectivity however. In settings where we know, or can estimate, the total number of people in a network, the proportion of people falling within the distance 2 of an actor (their acquaintanceship network) indicates the scope and reach of that person’s network. Thus, average distance and the average acquaintanceship network are, together, good indicators of the connectivity of an inter-personal network.

In summary, the small world of company directors can be understood as the network of personal connections created by direct acquaintanceships in boardrooms facilitated by the potential contacts (‘friends of friends’) available through board interlocks. The basic measures of connectivity in this acquaintanceship network are the average distance between persons and the proportion of persons falling within distance two of the average member of the network. But these are crude aggregate measures. Just as the same statistical mean may have various skewed or even bimodal distributions behind it, there may be different network structures behind these aggregate measures. In this paper we will also investigate one of these structural measures, the centralization of the network.

Small Worlds: Australian company directors 1976 and 1996

In this section we report findings from a comparison of the personal networks, created by board memberships, among the directors of Australia’s top 250 companies in 1976 and 1996. The population for analysis was initially taken as the directors of all 250 companies. When we analyse the connections among them, however, the population in the network reduces to those persons sitting on a board with a director who interlocks with another board in the main component of the network. The effective population of the small world comparison is, thus, a sub-population of the initial population. We present information about the small world of connections among this sub-population. We count the number of direct and second degree (‘friends of friends’) contacts of each person and the average distance between a person and any other person in the network.

In summary, the changes between 1976 and 1996 show that the small world of Australian company directors has become more inclusive, there are a greater number of people drawn into the network in 1996 as compared with the earlier year. Despite the increase in population the ‘small world’ of 1996 is even ‘smaller’ (ie more connected) than that of 1976 when viewed from the perspective of an individual participant. The average distance between people is less and the number of contacts at distance one and two increases both absolutely and as a proportion of the total contacts available in the network.

The population of companies for each year comprises the top 200 non-financial companies, determined by revenue and the top 50 financial companies, determined by assets. These populations were identified using the criteria used in international studies of the 1970s . Information for the companies of 1996 was taken from the annual listing of the Top 1,000 Corporates made by Business Review Weekly. This list covers privately held companies, (including subsidiaries of foreign companies), cooperatives and government-owned enterprises as well as the publicly listed companies for whom information is freely available through stock exchange sources. The initial population of companies for 1976 covered the same range of companies identified from a variety of sources including stock exchange yearbooks, (particularly Jobsons Yearbooks), and a range of business directories.

The directors of companies were identified from annual reports and business directories. The principal source of information for 1996 was the Business Who’s Who of Australia, now compiled and published by Dunn and Bradstreet. The principal source of directors’ information for 1976 was Jobsons Yearbook and, for unlisted companies, the Key Business Directory, also published by Dunn and Bradstreet. Additional reference was made to the Kompass business directory of that year. For both samples the names of all directors were cross-checked and any identical names were investigated more closely to confirm whether or not it was the same person sitting on two or more boards.

The lists of positions were read into the social network analysis program, UCINET . The affiliations command produced the matrix of connections between persons. The distance command then calculated the shortest distance (the geodesic) between all persons of the initial population. The total number of persons that any individual connects to is the size of the component they are in so that all persons in the main component had the same number of total connections. This sub-population of persons in the main component was then analysed for average distance and number of contacts. We were also able to calculate the centralization of the main component.

The first finding was that the sub-population of persons included in the main component was substantially bigger in 1996 than in 1976. The main component of connections is, effectively, the network. Everyone in the main component is, potentially, reachable by anyone else in that component. In 1976 this network covered a population of 982 directors. In 1996 it covered a population of 1162 directors, an increase of 18.3%.

If there are more people to be connected, one might assume that it is harder to make links between them and, as a consequence, the ‘small world’ or each participant, their connectedness to other persons in the network would be less. That is to say, the average distance between persons would increase. In fact, we find a decrease in this measure. The average distance between persons in 1976 was 4.78 steps. In 1996 this has decreased to 4.34 steps. This is a decrease of 9.3%. The small world phenomenon is stronger although the population it covers is larger.

A similar finding applies to the scope of person’s contacts. On average participants in the network in 1976 had 9.76 direct contacts. In 1996 the average number of direct contacts increases to 10.31, an increase of 5.6%. The greatest change occurs however in the number of indirect contacts for the average participant. In 1976 the combined number of direct and second degree contacts was 50.85. In 1996 it was 63.34, an increase of 24.6%.

A feature of a network is the most central person in the network. Who are the Kevin Bacons of the Australian corporate world in 1976 and 1996? The usual measure of centrality for this purpose is the person with the largest number of direct contacts. In social network terms this is the point with the highest degree. Table Two gives all persons with degree greater than 40 in both years. There are fewer people in 1976 but the degree of the top person, Richard Law-Smith is significantly greater than that of the top person, Nick Greiner, in 1996.

The final step of analysis is to consider is the centralization of each network. Centralization is a characteristic of the network itself, not of points in the network. The measurement of network centralization proposed by Freeman and implemented in UCINET measures the extent to which the network configuration resembles the star configuration described earlier. The higerh the index the more closely the network under examination approximates a star. Using this measure of network centralization we obtain a value of 5.5% for 1976 and 3.7% for 1996.

This is a surprising result. The earlier indicators show that the ‘small world’ phenomenon is more evident in 1996 than 1976. Both the average degree and the average number of contacts at first and second degree of separation have increased. Commensurate with these facts the average distance between persons lessened. One would expect that these greater ‘efficiencies’ in the connectivity of the larger network would be a result of greater centralization. This result suggests that there are other forms of structural efficiency beside network centralization available in these networks of boardroom contacts.

Summary of findings and discussion

This paper has examined the network of personal connections among company directors in Australia that arises through their position as members of a company board. The presence of interlocking directors on boards means that even those directors who do not have multiple directorships have the potential to contact directors on other boards as ‘friends of friends’. The ‘small world’ created by these contacts can be measured through the average distance between persons in the network and the scope of contacts they have.

The network among company directors in Australia in 1976 and 1996 has grown in size. It draws in a larger population of directors in 1996 than it did in 1976. At the same time, however, the ‘small world’ of connectivity within that network has become smaller. The average distance between persons has decreased and the number of contacts at distance one and distance two has increased. Surprisingly, however, this increase in connectivity has not been associated with greater network centralization. On the contrary, the network centralization in 1996 is less than in 1976.

The Australian figures need also to be compared with overseas networks. At this stage we do not have comparisons on all the measures presented here. However, a preliminary analysis of the personal networks in the U.S. suggests that the average distance in this network is much less than in Australia. It is only 2.68 in 1996 as compared to the average distance of 4.34 in Australia. This is very significant difference given the multiplier effect associated with average distance. Much of the difference may relate to the way our populations are identified. The top 250 companies in the U.S. are a much smaller part of the business world in that country than are the top 250 companies in Australia. On the other hand the difference is consistent with previous studies of interlocking. It is likely, therefore, that networking among company directors in the U.S. is stronger than in Australia and that the ‘small world’ of connections among them is significantly denser.

The interest in examining these ‘small worlds’ of connectivity among company directors was motivated by a concern to understand the dynamics of the business side of the equation involved in government-business relations in Australia. This paper has described ways to understand the networks of connectivity that are created within sparse networks. These sparse networks can contribute to the feeling of a ‘small world’ even among fairly large populations. We would suggest that there is a tangible and meaningful ‘small world’ created by the networks of interlocking and contacts among Australia’s company directors. That world has remained in place in the 1990s even though the population of people it includes has increased significantly. But the degree of connection within the Australian ‘small world’ still appears to be fairly loose. In comparative terms it is significantly less than the connectivity of the U.S. network.

This difference suggests that the internal mechanisms for generating business consensus in Australia will differ from those of the U.S. In the U.S. ‘peak organisations’ such as the Business Roundtable (the U.S. precursor of the Business Council of Australia) operate in parallel to the boardroom networks of business leaders. In Australia, by contrast, they may be the only effective game in town.

Jeff Archer

UNE

Defining Rural Australia: Sources of Political Backlash in Contemporary Australian Politics

Abstract

This paper considers the use of the term ‘rural’ in Australian popular and political discourse. It is important to see how stereotypical and ill-informed views about the nature of the rural can influence public discourse on vital questions of regional policy and service delivery. The electoral backlash from rural and regional Australia, along with the rise of rural independents and the One Nation party, can also be analysed through this perspective.

Australian debates about rural identity and national identity are longstanding and unresolved. Rural stereotypes include such figures as the rodeo cowboy, the country music star and the outback adventurer. Inland and coastal images are considered, along with views of the rural as agricultural, as pastoral, as remote, as old economy, and as heritage. In particular, the creation of rural identity and rural stereotype is analysed through an examination of exhibits in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach.

Introduction

One aspect of the current debate about the future of rural Australia is the way that decision-makers, policy-makers, and regulation makers, especially in government, perceive rural Australia (Archer, 2000). This paper considers some of the uses of the term ‘rural’ in Australian popular and political discourse. In particular, the creation of rural identity and rural stereotype is analysed through the presentation of a popular rural stereotype in the exhibits in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach. It is important to consider if stereotypical and ill informed views about the nature of the rural can influence public discourse on vital questions of regional policy and service delivery. The electoral backlash from rural and regional Australia, along with the rise of rural independents and the One Nation Party, can also be analysed through this perspective.

Australian debates about rural identity and national identity are longstanding and unresolved. The stereotypical rural person is depicted in either positive or negative ways, often in oppositional ideological frameworks. To their admirers, and in the self-perceptions of people living outside the major cities, emphasis is placed on the noble and moral community values or countrymindeness that they often believe to be the hallmarks of an authentic Australia. To their urban-based detractors they are more likely to be seen as unsophisticated, racist, environmentally unsound, rustic rednecks. The nostalgia for the bush as a positive stereotype has its alternative reading by those who see rodeos, country music and line dancing as an aberration, imported from the cowboy country of the USA, and regard them as deeply politically regressive activities. These two stereotypes portray the inhabitants of non-metropolitan Australia as either as the salt of the earth or as the agent of salination. These stereotypes paint a very simplistic picture. They are actually the same stereotype viewed from different ends of an ideological spectrum.

This division is very similar to the division in the two main readings of European settlement. One version of Australian national identity perceives the global intruder as the enemy. In this interpretation of Australian history, the culture of the migrant oppressor is embedded in the history of invasion. Alternatively, in a different reading of migration, the pioneer tradition of settlement is drawn on in the politics of settler nationalism, for example in the populism of Pauline Hanson. In particular, Hanson’s world view draws on one of the most potent foundation myths of white settler 'democracy' in Australia, in which notions of equality, representation, rights and justice are all based on exclusions of other peoples (Kane, 1997, 117-131, Thompson, 1994, 22-47).

Consider a few examples of this rural stereotype. Rural people are frequently presented as slow thinking and moving, but open-hearted and naïve when compared with their city cousins (Astley, 1999, 241). Rural stereotypes include such figures as the rodeo cowboy, the country music star and the outback adventurer. Inland Australia is rural in this view. Coastal Australia has a different story associated with tourism and retirement. Unlike most of inland Australia, the coastal strip has been seen as having overwhelmingly positive and desirable stereotypical qualities. Inland Australian rural is more often depicted as agricultural, pastoral, remote, and obsolete. It is therefore seen as part of the old economy.

Media institutions such as the ABC and News Limited habitually use rural as a euphemism for agricultural. The ABC, for example, through its long-running regional radio broadcast, Australia All Over, or ‘Maca on a Sunday Morning’, constructs a version of rural Australia that is nostalgic, remote and wild, and one that claims to evoke the real or authentic Australian identity. On 15^th July, 2001, for example, the host of this show played country music and the ballads of Banjo Patterson, laced together with stories about such topics as wild birds in wild places, the rodeo at Fitzroy Crossing (where lost traditions are regretted because the bull riders now wear crash helmets), outback tourism, wartime knitting, and bush recipes. This is a heritage version of rural inland Australia. Its most famous depiction is found in Longreach. The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre at Longreach demonstrates what Umberto Eco calls the hyperreality (that is, the quality of being even more authentic than the merely authentic) of an allegedly authentic rural Australia (Eco, 1987).

Longreach

Longreach in western Queensland is 700 kilometres from the coast on the Tropic of Capricorn. Many travellers to this remote town use the Spirit of the Outback train, with its folksy Captain Starlight’s Lounge, the Stockman’s Bar, and the Tucker Box Dining Car. Travellers may also visit the iconic Black Stump at Blackall or stop at Barcaldine to see the Tree of Knowledge Monument celebrating the rural workers of the west who helped to found the Australian Labor movement in 1891. Others fly to Longreach airport where the Qantas Founders’ Outback museum celebrates the birth of Qantas airlines. Coach and car travellers to the north-west of Longreach also take in the so-called Matilda country around Winton. Here tourism is based on tales of explorers and the origins of Australia’s national song, Waltzing Matilda. Around Longreach tourists can visit Oakley Homestead to witness authentic Brahman cattle and Merino sheep, Boree and Coolibah trees.

According to the Hall of Fame Fact Sheet, (October, 1999) the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre was inspired by the American Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. The air-conditioned three thousand square metres of display area was designed by Feiko Bouman using timber, stone and corrugated iron. It resembles a fallen series of silos or gigantic water tanks. The founders believed that, while the heroes of the "wild west" shaped the "fortitude of the American character" … , " the exploits of the quiet Australian bushman" on the Australian "great and colourful frontier" have not been sufficient eulogised. The initial project was conceived by stockman and artist, Hugh Sawrey. It was to be a memorial to the pioneers of the Australian outback and a record of the heritage of rural Australia. Apart from a major museum and an art collection it now aims to maintain "a research library of outback literature and artistic expression pertaining to inland Australia’s past present and future and encourage the reprinting of lost Australian works".

The Hall of Fame was developed by a private company supported by National Party politician, Bob Katter Senior, art patron, author and grazier, Dame Mary Durack, riding boots and clothing magnate, R.M Williams, Longreach grazier and local government leader, James Walker and many others. Sites including Albury, Rockhampton and Cloncurry were considered before Walker supplied the land for the site and steered the project to his own town. The Queen opened the museum in 1988. It cost $12.5 million dollars to build. The Hall has been a major tourist attraction ever since, attracting a total of around a million visitors. According to the Chief Executive Officer, Peter Andrews (interview with author 29.10.99), most of the tourists are mature aged Australians, mostly self-driven, with less than one-fifth arriving by air. More than half of the visitors come from Queensland, and over a third come from NSW, with only 2.5% of the total coming from overseas. Of the overseas tourists, most come from either the UK or from the settler societies of Canada, USA and New Zealand. Only a handful of tourists come from Asian countries, and these are mostly journalists on working trips. One visitor came overland by camel across the Tropic from Western Australia. Given the huge and varied Queensland coastal tourist industry, the bulk of the visitors to the Hall of Fame come from a very homogenous cultural background.

The museum celebrates the rural as predominantly the pastoral, although the frontier experiences of mining are also accepted alongside the stories of outback sheep and cattle droving. Viewing areas glimpse the grounds where Comet and Southern Cross windmills stand erect. Inside, a major exhibit rejoices in the commercial opportunities provided in arid country by the bores of the Great Artesian Basin. The world of Lawson and Patterson is accepted as if they agreed on the splendour of all things outback, and as if it could all be eulogised as a story of struggle, manhood and sacrifice amidst sensational sunsets. True, pioneer women are honoured for their key supporting and nurturing role, but country towns are largely absent from the story, apart from the stories of agricultural shows (including the popular freak shows) and rodeos.

Manhood is central to this story. It is celebrated as a product of the harsh environment. One caption reads:

"The history and the environment of the Australian male have put into his bloodstream a feeling for games and competitive sport which seems to be necessary for his fulfilment. When Australia was a pioneering community involved in conflict with a land and a climate where victories were never certain and seldom easy, games or contests in which a bloke had a chance to win were … compensation for the dispiriting setbacks and failures … "

The first exhibits introduce the visitor to the ancient continent and to the first Europeans. These form a preamble to displays depicting the nineteenth and twentieth century pioneer experience of stockmen, weddings, funerals and drought. Another caption tells us:

Museum exhibits include the items that make up the assumed rural heritage. These include: the explorers; a hawker’s wagon; the drover’s camp; life in the saddle; a poetry recital; mustering; bushcraft; the saddler’s shop; the blacksmith’s forge; the golden fleece (an idealised shearing shed); gold miners; and advances in communication (including camels, paddle-steamers, posts and telegraphs and aviation). In other displays bushfires, floods, droughts, dust storms and cyclones, along with plagues of mice, locusts, and rabbits are all represented. The library has many volumes dealing with the explorers, bushrangers, station life, the beef empires, and even the bush tucker man. The viewing finishes at the gift shop with its Akubras, branded clothing, and outback reading material. Souvenirs of the Hall of Fame are sold alongside videos of kangaroos, military history, Outback Magazine (with its stories on campdrafts, horses, and 4-wheel drives), audios of Mary Durack’s fiction, James Walker’s 1999 autobiography (un-ironically titled, A Rewarding Life), and John Williamson’s songs.

Representations of Indigenous Australians are not absent from the museum, but they appear from a narrow non-Indigenous perspective as emblematic stockmen (Matt Savage, Aboriginal Boss Drover), or on the fringes of the mid-nineteenth century settlement (Nellie from the Black Camp), and there are some central desert paintings (Bush Banana Dreaming by Eunice Napangardi, for instance). Aboriginal artefacts are evident alongside exhibits of explorers and convicts. The message in most of these representations is that the heritage to be celebrated by the tourists has no place for Indigenous Australians, except as either part of an unchanging and primitive pre-European settlement or as a minor part of a harsh but cooperative pioneer settlement. Surprisingly, one volume is available in the Gift Shop that opens up a very different narrative. Pamela Lukin Watson’s (1998) volume tells stories of what Henry Reynolds (1990) has called the other side of the frontier, looking at Aboriginal dispossession and decimation in the area around Longreach in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Presumably the word legend in the book’s title was sufficiently distracting and the content was therefore not registered.

One map in the Hall of Fame tells the story of the northward and westward movement of the frontier, with its self-conscious gesture to the equivalent American version of the assumed taming of a continent. This map has a near mirror image in a map exhibit at the Rockhampton Dreamtime Museum. The Rockhampton map, at what is claimed to be Australia’s largest Aboriginal cultural centre, is located far to the east of Longreach. It shows, from an entirely oppositional perspective, the northward and westward movement of invasion and dispossession that opened up the great Queensland pastoral stations.

Political Implications

The 2001 election may well be decided in regional and rural Australia. The future of the National Party in fending off challenges from One Nation and rural independents will be of great interest to political analysts. The Nationals are now attempting to run local election campaigns to distance themselves from their Coalition partners and to fend off the challenges of independents such as renegade Bob Katter Junior, in the seat of Kennedy (Sydney Morning Herald, 14-15.7.01, 3). Party leader John Anderson, however, still seems to consider that the challenges to traditional party loyalty in rural Australia can be explained by the breakdown in family values (Sunday, Channel 9 TV, 22.7.01).

The problems of regional and rural Australia are well documented. The debate about alleged rural and regional disadvantage has received enormous publicity in the period leading up to the 2001 Federal Election. The 1999 Regional Australia Summit advocated 247 "strategies" and a 2000 parliamentary committee made 91 recommendations (National Farmers Federation, 2001) to overcome distortions arising from government regulation or policy. These include: progressive income tax, given the volatile income patterns of many rural areas; capital gains tax exemptions, on residential property for example; service level disparities; and many externalities in areas such as the environment. While, arguably, these may cause such distortions, so do grants commission payments, microeconomic reform and competition policy. The funding of superannuation may also be seen to have caused an exodus of savings from rural Australia.

The outcomes of the growing divide are also clear. Australians continue to flock to the suburbs of the largest cities and high growth coastal zones such as the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast, while inland Australia grows more slowly or depopulates (Australian, 4.7.01. p.6). In some areas, Broken Hill for example, the rate of depopulation is dramatic. One should not confuse depopulation with disadvantage. In many outer suburban areas of Brisbane and Sydney for example, there is rapid population increase accompanied by significant patterns of disadvantage. However, in many rural and regional areas disadvantage and depopulation are joined together in a vicious circle of decline. In Australia the rural economy has changed so much in the past twenty-five years that it is now almost unrecognisable. Competition policy and privatisation of state services, alongside the decline of commercial banking and other services, have transformed the rural economy. ^{Most notably, the economic and trading base of Australia has changed greatly over the past century and this has impacted on the structure of agriculture. Since the early 1970s, the policy framework for dealing with regional Australia has} changed greatly. Competition policy, for example, may have lead to some efficiencies, and it may even have reduced some prices, but many have been excluded from its benefits, especially in rural areas where it does not necessarily improve the quality of life for all that are affected by it.

There is no easy way to fix this problem. The short term remedies considered by competing party policies in 2001 are unlikely to have any sustained effect, and other remedies, such as new tax zones, will be of advantage to the rich in deprived areas, but will not necessarily halt the disadvantage to entire regions. Enterprise zones or funded regional economic initiatives have the bad publicity of ‘picking losers’, but may repay more serious scrutiny using models developed in the European Union and The United States. In France, for example, the value of agricultural production is justified partly in terms of heritage protection of traditional ways of life. Regional policy is thus directly linked with heritage. In Australia the link is not so clear, and the Commonwealth Government Regional Policy, if it exists at all, is much harder to understand. Arguably Australian regional policy consists only of a series of programs that may be applied for, and a series of expenditure items in areas such as health, education roads and railways that are not coordinated in any clear way. Indeed, there are no agreed definitions of regions (apart from Tasmania and the Northern Territory) and there are certainly no clearly established links between policy outcomes and defined Australian regions.

In this wider debate it is useful to distinguish between the politics of the pork barrel, and the serious systemic debate about redressing rural disadvantage, and promoting regional growth. Ironically, it is the loss of the former public regulatory role of government in areas such as finance, tariffs, and public sector management that has provoked ad hoc use of short-term financial incentives by government in many areas such as the Centenary of Federation Fund and the National Heritage Trust. Arguably, these have little long-term or widespread contribution to make to the disadvantage of rural and regional Australia. Indeed, this is an example of the wider crucial distinction between the planned, sustained, long-term commitment to recurrent expenditure in public services and the short-term one-off expenditure that undermines equitable public service provision. This distinction allows us to consider the failure of elected politicians to deal with the long-term policy debate, and it further presents us with the means to identify reasons for widespread, unprecedented, electoral volatility that arises from disaffection with politicians, and with the activity of politics.

While perceptions of a democratic deficit are responsible for a problem of legitimacy in many contemporary liberal-democratic states, in Australia stereotypical perceptions of the rural may further alienate some voters from all the major parties and from the National Party in particular. How is the rural represented in current Australian political discourse? Let me briefly discuss some examples. Since 1987 the Australian Government’s Rural Book has purported to provide a guide to Commonwealth Government services and programs for people who live away from the capital cities. Most of the information summarises Federal government services for all Australians in health, education, transport, support for migrants. Yet when the term rural is addressed, as in rural industries, it is placed in the context of regional and remote, and overwhelmingly it privileges the agricultural sector.

Even the Commonwealth Government’s Programme for Services to Rural and Regional Communities tends to ignore any town with a population of more than 3000. It provides some Centrelink access points to small and remote places where all service provision is a major problem. Similarly, the Commonwealth Government’s Rural Plan concentrates on the development of rural industries, narrowly defined. This view of the rural even more clearly marked in the use of the term rural in publications such as the Rural Vision Magazine, put out by the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (2001).

This emphasis on the rural that concentrates on its remote and agricultural aspects is found, for instance, in the Ministerial Budget Statement (2001-2002) by National Party leader and Minister of Transport and Regional Services and National Party leader, John Anderson (2001), and in the associated ‘Budget Papers. Highlights for 2001-02’. These papers relate to a range of departmental initiatives. It includes items that are to be provided for all Australians, but some initiatives are addressed to the rural population specifically. My edited list of these projects includes the following:

Agriculture - Advancing Australia Package; the Regional Health Strategy; the Networking the Nation Programme; the Regional Equalisation Plan; the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy; the Regional Solutions and Rural Transaction Centre Programmes; the region-specific structural adjustment measures such as the dairy package, the Centenary of Federation Fund; the Working Credit initiative for rural workers in seasonal jobs such as harvest work; the Agricultural Development Partnerships Programme for structural adjustment targeted to specific agricultural industries and regions; the industry diversification and employment generation for the South West Forests of Western Australia Structural Adjustment Package; the Rural Financial Counselling Service "to assist businesses in rural Australia - particularly farm businesses - to deal with a range of financial pressures and adjustment issues; the new Federal Flood Mitigation Programme; mobile phone coverage, internet services, payphone, telecommunications projects in the education and health services; the improvement in the quality of health workforce in rural and regional Australia; the extension of the Natural Heritage Trust to address environmental challenges; the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality; the joint Federal, New South Wales and Victorian Government effort to improve the Murray River; a major increase in road quality; support for the Alice Springs to Darwin railway; measures for quarantine strengthening against farm diseases; changes to the treatment of private trusts and private companies to assist 'succession planning' for farms; extension to the Rural Financial Counselling Service; and extra undergraduate student places for regional higher education institutions.

Despite some important exceptions, the great part of this list gives a rather limited view of rural and regional Australia. It confirms some of the rural stereotyping discussed in this paper.

Conclusion

Museums maintain iconic views of identity as heritage. War memorials, for example, reveal militaristic senses of national identity based on sacrifice, as well as many variations based on civic identity (Inglis, 1998). Donald Horne (1984, 1997) has used the concept of a fictional museum to denote all the intellectual currents in contemporary Australia. Museums are the keepers of our heritage values. One positive stereotype of rural Australian heritage is expressed most clearly in Longreach. A trail of self-funded retirees make pilgrimages to the shrine of this version of rural Australian authentic identity. Its influence is intense. A heritage, we should recall, is a folk version of a tradition. As Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) have famously observed, it is often invented to serve the political needs of current political activists. It is "a retrospective analytical construction which produces a rationalized version of the past" (Gunnell, 1978).

The use of the term ‘rural’ in most current political debates fails to make clear that most rural residents do not live in remote or isolated settings, maintaining pioneer heritage ways of life, occupied in mining and agricultural or pastoral production. Governments do not always appear to recognise that the populations of large country towns have very different problems of comparative disadvantage with the metropolitan centres from the inhabitants of the smaller owns. These in turn are very different from the problems affecting people in very remote areas. The various stereotypes hide such distinctions. From the perspective of the city, all the places of inland Australia (apart from wineries, snow resorts and national parks) are relatively unlikely places for city dwellers to spend much time. They are beyond the pale. There is therefore some reliance on the stereotypical views of the rural.

Australian depictions of the rural has a complex history where myths and realities seldom coincide (Ward, 1965). It should be stressed that an acceptance of the rural as depicted at Longreach (as well as in the other places discussed in this paper) is often internalised by rural residents, including those in large country towns with occupations unconnected with agriculture. It is also clear that many residents of small towns are positively fearful of city life, even if they simultaneously draw succour and support from stories of settler and pioneer survivalism. The mystique of the bush legend is very powerful, and it is no surprise that it is swallowed whole by many rural residents.

Stereotypical views of the rural being presented at Longreach and on radio shows such as Australia All Over, are watered down, yet still evident, in some of the policy outcomes of governments. This is not to claim that there are not be other reasons for the agricultural emphasis in the use of the term rural in public discourse. One important factor here is likely to be the influence of the agricultural lobby, particularly the Nation Farmers’ Federation, in capturing the attention of the National Party and other powerful parties and decision-makers in the capital cities. The cultural context in which such institutional politics is embedded should not be neglected, however. This cultural context includes popular discourses such as those that draw on the stereotypical views of the rural discussed in this paper.

These cultural influences may be subtle. Of course it is not the case that Canberra-based politicians expect the typical voter of Eden-Monaro, for example, to look like the Man from Snowy River. It is true, however, that this sort of stereotypical image can be a useful political tool for an ambitious politician such as former National and now independent candidate, Peter Cochrane (Sydney Morning Herald, 7-8.7.01, 34). It is also true that such stereotypes, in both their positive and negative forms, draw attention away from demographic, cultural and economic factors that more accurately represent rural inland Australia. This is how all such stereotypes work, whether they be based on gender race, class, nation or region. Governments continue to fail to fully understand the ‘rural’ in rural Australia. If we are to move to a more inclusive discussion about regional policy in Australia, this should be addressed.

Anderson, J., and I. MacDonald, 2001, ‘Regional Australia, Partners in Growth’, Ministerial Statement, Department of Transport and Regional Services, Canberra, 22.5.01, http://www.dotrs.gov.au/budget/regional/index.htm, downloaded 25.7.01, plus extra information in Budget initiatives for Regional Australia, ‘Budget Papers. Highlights for 2001-02’, Department of Transport and Regional Services, Canberra,

http://www.dotrs.gov.au/budget/regional/2001_2002/highlights.htm downloaded 25.7.01.

Astley, T., 1999, Drylands, Ringwood: Penguin.

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, 2001, ‘Rural Vision’, Canberra. http://www.affa.gov.au/docs/innovation/ruralvision/index.html downloaded 24.7.01.

Eco, U., 1987, Travels in Hyperreality, London: Picador.

Gunnell J., 1978, ‘The Myth of Tradition’, American Political Science Review, 72, 1, pp. 122-134.

Hobsbawm, E. and T. Ranger, 1983, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Horne, D., 1984, The Great Museum, London: Pluto.

Horne, D., 1997, The Avenue of the Fair Go, Pymble: Harper Collins.

Inglis, K.R., 1998, Sacred Places: War Memorials and the Australian Landscape, Carlton: Miegunyah Press.

Kane, J., 1997, 'Radicalism and Democracy' in G. Stokes (ed.), The Politics of Identity in Australia, Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.

National Farmers Federation, 2001, ‘Taxation Zones and the Country-City Divide’, A Discussion Paper, May, http://www.nff.org.au/ downloaded 4.7.01.

Reynolds, H, 1990, The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia, Ringwood: Penguin.

Thompson E., 1994, Fair Enough: Egalitarianism in Australia, Sydney: UNSW Press.

Walker J., 1999, A Rewarding Life, Longreach: Santa Publishing.

Ward, R., 1965, The Australian Legend, 2^nd ed, Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Watson, P.L., 1998, Frontier Lands and Pioneer Legends; How Pastoralists Gained Karuwali Land, Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Clive Bean

Queensland University of Technology

Patterns of Australian Mass Opinion on Issues of National Sovereignty

Abstract

This paper considers data on two dimensions related to the concept of national sovereignty, namely public attitudes concerning the maintenance of economic boundaries and attitudes related to the social, economic and cultural impact of immigration. The data suggest that in general Australians are inclined to favour economic protection rather than openness but at the same time they tend to emphasise the benefits rather than the costs of immigration. The paper tests a number of theoretical propositions concerning the social and attitudinal predictors of economic and immigration-related sovereignty attitudes. Despite some differences between the two dimensions, the most important variables prove to be occupational status, birthplace and education, plus attitudes towards multi-national companies and general feelings towards immigrants. These results imply that, other things being equal, public opinion on both the immigration and economic dimensions are likely to become more open over time.

Like many economies around the world, during the last two decades Australia has attempted to open up its local markets to external competition, in line with the increasing worldwide emphasis on globalisation. The Australian government has also pursued policies over a much longer period of time aimed at strengthening its economic and cultural foundations by broadening the ethnic mix of its population through immigration. Citizen attitudes to these policies and their consequences are likely to be interactive with the direction of the policies themselves. To some extent politicians will be mindful of perceived public attitudes when adopting such policies, which in turn are likely to help shape public views, which in turn again may have an influence on the path that future policy-making follows. At very least it is important for decision-making elites to have some understanding of ‘the mood of the people’ on relatively sensitive public issues such as these, which have at times proven politically explosive in Australia. This paper explores public attitudes on these issues and tests various theoretical accounts of their origins.

A common thread that these two policy areas have is that in some sense they both have implications for national sovereignty, or national independence (Warhurst 1993a). The notion of sovereignty in this context refers to the ability of nation-states to control their destinies free of external influences and relates also to the more restricted concept of boundary maintenance. ‘External sovereignty’, as it is sometimes termed, ‘is generally considered to be synonymous with political independence and brings with it the right of exclusive jurisdiction over a territory and its population ...’ (Alston 1995, p. 17). Boundary maintenance can be considered to be an aspect of sovereignty and may relate to more formal or more symbolic boundaries (Phillips 1996).

Ideas connected with boundary maintenance range across a variety of issues, including in particular economic, defence, cultural and ethnic identity questions. This analysis focuses on two dimensions of this concept, namely attitudes related to the maintenance of economic borders and attitudes related to the impact of immigration and immigrants on Australia’s national sovereignty, especially the social, economic and cultural costs and benefits of immigration. The interest here is not only in the structure and distribution of these views across the community but also in how they are shaped by social background and by social and political attitudes. An additional point of interest is that the data were collected during the period preceding the advent of the right wing populist politician, Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party, whose political agenda has issues of immigration and economic protection at the forefront (Grant 1997; Abbott et al. 1998; Leach et al. 2000). On these key dimensions, the data in this paper thus provide something of a baseline for those interested in judging the impact of One Nation.

The distribution and structure of sovereignty attitudes

Let us look first at a number of questions which address the issues of economic and immigration-related sovereignty. The data for this analysis come from the 1995-96 Australian National Social Science Survey (Kelley et al. 1998). The data file consists of 2438 cases and the questions on attitudes towards national sovereignty come from the International Social Survey Programme National Identity module, which was included in the survey. Table 1 shows responses to three questions relating to economic sovereignty and four questions concerning immigration-related sovereignty, all based on five-point Likert type scales.

Table 1 here

Looking initially at the questions on economic borders, we see that the distribution of opinion among the Australian public is consistently in favour of limiting access to external elements and protecting the national economy. For example, over three-quarters of the sample agree with the proposition that Australia should limit the import of foreign products in order to protect the national economy and only one respondent in ten disagrees. These findings are consistent with similarly strong endorsements of economic protectionism found in other studies (for example, Bean 1995). On the question of whether foreigners should be allowed to buy land in Australia, the balance is more even but more people remain against allowing foreign ownership (43 per cent) than in favour of it (36 per cent). The third question asks whether preferential treatment should be given to Australian films and programmes on television and a clear majority say yes (58 per cent), while only 21 per cent say no.

From the questions related to the costs and benefits of immigration, a rather different picture emerges. Whereas there is a strong emphasis on preserving Australia’s national sovereignty with respect to economic competition, respondents do not display the same concern in regard to immigration. On each item the balance of opinion emphasises the positive with respect to the impact of immigration. Thus, 43 per cent of respondents disagree that immigrants increase the crime rate, while 32 per cent agree. Sixty-three per cent agree that immigrants are generally good for Australia’s economy compared with only 15 per cent who disagree. A narrower difference results from the proposition that immigrants take jobs away from people who were born in Australia, but the balance of opinion is still a favourable outcome for immigrants: 42 per cent disagree that they take jobs away while 36 per cent agree. Most strikingly of all, fully 87 per cent agree that immigrants make Australia more open to new ideas and cultures and only 5 per cent demur.

It is worth noting, however, that these responses suggesting that the public regards the beneficial effects that immigrants bring to Australia as outweighing the negative effects, do not coincide with an equally positive view of immigration itself. Views on these issues are clearly very complex, as revealed by the fact that, in answer to a further question, over 60 per cent of the same sample believe that immigration into Australia should be reduced and only 11 per cent believe that it should be increased, a balance of opinion on the direct question about levels of immigration that is consistent with public views as recorded in opinion polls for most of the period since the Second World War (Betts 1988; McAllister 1993).

It is not only the pattern of responses that are of interest but the structure of the data on questions of sovereignty as well. Table 2 contains results from a principal components analysis of the seven items from Table 1. This analysis gives empirical foundation to the assumption that there are indeed two separate dimensions of attitudes towards sovereignty, with the four immigration-related items loading on the first dimension and the three economic items loading on the second. For the analysis to follow, the three economic items are thus combined into a simple additive scale of attitudes towards economic sovereignty and the four immigration items are likewise combined into a single scale (with the two items that load negatively on the dimension suitably reversed). These two scales then form the dependent variables for the analysis. A certain amount of caution is, however, required in the interpretation of some of the individual scale items, since past analyses of similar data have revealed problems in their utilisation (Goot 1993).

Table 2 here

Theoretical expectations

Theoretical considerations would lead us to predict that a number of social structural variables might influence the attitudes a person holds towards economic and immigration-related sovereignty. In particular, education has been identified as a potentially crucial factor in shaping views along these dimensions. Those who have experienced higher education have been exposed to a wider set of perspectives likely to facilitate a more cosmopolitan, less parochial view of the world. The highly educated may also be encouraged to adopt these more open views because they regard a cosmopolitan world-view as being something of a status symbol (Betts 1988; 1993; Birrell 1995; Bean 1995). To the extent that cosmopolitanism relates more to issues of culture and population than to those of economic borders, it is also possible that education would in turn be more influential in shaping immigration-related sovereignty attitudes than sovereignty attitudes based on economic considerations.

The reverse is likely to be true for occupational status, another key social structural factor likely to shape views on sovereignty. Persons of higher occupational status arguably have an interest in promoting more open economic boundaries in particular, because they increasingly work in an international market place in which their services and products can be traded worldwide and in which national borders are thus becoming much less relevant (Reich 1991; Bean 1995). There is less reason to assume, however, that occupational position per se would be directly related to immigration sovereignty.

We would also expect immigrant status itself to have a substantial impact on the formation of attitudes on questions of economic and immigration-related sovereignty. People born overseas could be expected to be more likely than the Australian-born to emphasise the benefits of ethnic and cultural diversity (Graetz and McAllister 1994; Markus 1993), since they embody that diversity within the Australian population themselves. The overseas-born would presumably be especially inclined to highlight the benefits associated with immigration, but they could also be expected to see virtues in more open economic borders, partly because they might see benefits from such policies for the economies of their original countries and indeed for themselves.

Membership of a trade union is another factor which may influence a person’s position on issues of economic and immigration-related sovereignty, though not necessarily in the same direction on the two issues. On the issue of economic sovereignty, the union movement has been an opponent of opening up Australia’s borders on the grounds that its members’ jobs will be threatened if local industries do not receive sufficient protection, while on the question of the benefits of immigration the union movement has tended to be somewhat equivocal, there being a tension between the potential threat to the jobs of the Australian-born from competition by immigrants and the potential benefits of economic growth that immigration may bring (Warhurst 1993b). Officially, however, the union movement has generally supported policies which have encouraged immigration. We would thus expect members of trade unions to oppose economic openness but if anything to be more inclined to see the benefits than the costs of immigration.

Several other aspects of social structure should be included in any analysis of sovereignty issues, partly because they are related to those we have just discussed (and their exclusion would therefore create the potential for incorrect conclusions to be drawn from the analysis) and in some cases because there are grounds to believe that they may have an impact of their own on the attitudinal dimensions in question (Evans 1995). These include income, residence in an urban or rural location, age and sex. Among these, age and place of residence may have particular relevance. Younger adults may favour an open stance to a greater extent than older people because they have been socialised into a world in which the dominant discourse among political elites has emphasised the virtues of openness. With respect to place of residence, people who reside in rural areas may be more suspicious than their urban counterparts of both immigrants and open economic borders because they have less experience of the former and consider themselves to be especially vulnerable to the latter.

In addition to having origins in social structure, views on specific aspects of sovereignty may also come about partly through the possession of broader political and social attitudes. Central dimensions of political ideology in Australia include attitudes towards the free market and attitudes towards trade unions (Kelley 1988; Kelley, Bean and Headey 1990). The former in itself has a number of separate strands and in the context of boundary issues the most salient of these is attitudes towards the operation of multi-national corporations, which are a powerful symbol of the global free market. We could expect, for example, that individuals who have a positive view of multi-nationals would be inclined to favour the opening up of Australia’s economic borders, in particular, while, based on the above discussion on the stances of the union movement, those holding positive attitudes towards trade unions should be more likely to be against opening up economic borders while at the same time they could be expected to be more likely to see benefits rather than costs in immigration.

As well as these economic dimensions of political ideology, general feelings towards immigrants from different countries are also likely to play a major role in shaping attitudes towards national sovereignty. We could expect broad feelings towards immigrants to exert a powerful influence upon specific evaluations of the costs and benefits of immigration and to a lesser degree on the issue of economic boundaries, with those who generally felt positive towards immigrants more likely to see the benefits of openness.

Finally, party politics may play a significant role. Despite the fact that the major political parties have tended to avoid taking issue with each other over immigration policy (McAllister 1993), they do have clearly differentiated stances (Newman 1995), with the Labor Party being supportive of higher levels of immigration and of multiculturalism compared with the Liberal and National parties which favour lower levels and a greater emphasis on cultural assimilation. Labor supporters may thus be more inclined than coalition supporters to perceive benefits from the presence of immigrants. On the other hand, despite the policies of the recent Labor government aimed at opening up Australian markets to global competition, Labor has traditionally been an advocate of economic protection and its followers among the public may still be more likely than coalition followers to support this view.

Results

Having outlined theoretical expectations as to the likely influences on attitudes towards our two dimensions of sovereignty, it is now time to put these expectations to the test. This is done by way of ordinary least squares multiple regression analyses which show the impact of each variable in the model net of the effects of the others (details of the variables in the analysis are in the Appendix). Table 3 contains an analysis of attitudes towards economic sovereignty and Table 4 contains a parallel analysis of attitudes towards immigration-related sovereignty. In each case, the first column of figures presents the simple Pearson product moment correlation between each independent variable and the dependent variable and then the table introduces a number of different models, starting with the social structural variables on their own and successively adding attitudinal variables to each subsequent model.

Table 3 here

Concentrating initially on the first column in Table 3, we see that all but two variables have statistically significant zero-order correlations, in the predicted direction, with attitudes towards economic openness. Most of the correlations are modest in size, however, although attitudes towards multi-national companies correlate a good deal more strongly than any of the other variables. When we turn to examine the standardised regression coefficients (betas) for the social structural variables in model 1 only some of our expectations are confirmed. Higher occupational status and being born overseas lead to a more open economic stance, as predicted, and so does having a higher income. Age also has the expected relationship, with older people being more protectionist than the young.

The most surprising result is that, once other aspects of social structure are controlled, education has no independent impact on attitudes towards economic sovereignty. Our prediction was that education may be less influential in shaping economic than immigration-related sovereignty attitudes, but not that it would be entirely uninfluential. Although education is significantly correlated with economic openness, the analysis suggests that this association occurs not because of characteristics to do with education itself but rather because education is related to variables such as occupation, income and age, which do significantly influence economic sovereignty attitudes. Trade union membership, place of residence and gender also fail to exert a significant influence and the overall amount of variance explained by social structure is small (5 per cent).

Model 2 adds attitudes towards multi-nationals and trade unions to the equation. As anticipated, views about multi-national corporations have a strong impact. Positive evaluations of multi-nationals lead to more open attitudes towards economic boundaries (beta = .28). Attitudes towards trade unions, however, have no net impact on economic sovereignty attitudes in this equation. In addition, income is no longer significant and the coefficients for both age and occupational status have declined somewhat from model 1, indicating that to some extent these factors work through attitudes towards multi-nationals in shaping views on economic sovereignty. Birthplace, however, retains its influence at the same level, suggesting that immigrant status as such, and not its connection with other attitudes, predisposes those born overseas to support more open economic borders.

In model 3, feelings towards European immigrants on the one hand and Eastern/Asian immigrants on the other, are included. Feelings towards the latter group have a substantial impact (beta = .21), with those who rate Eastern/Asian migrants more positively more likely to favour open boundaries, as predicted. The effect for ratings of European migrants, by contrast, is rather surprising. While the coefficient is the same size as the zero-order correlation, the sign has changed from positive to negative. In other words, once attitudes towards Eastern/Asian immigrants have been taken into account (plus the other variables in the equation), it appears that positive ratings of European immigrants influence people to be slightly less supportive of open economic boundaries. It is tempting to speculate that in contrast to migrants from Eastern and Asian countries, European immigrants, perhaps by virtue of their generally longer time in Australia and greater cultural similarities, may in some sense not be viewed as ‘foreign’ and thus attitudes towards them coincide with protectionist sentiments to some degree. Given that Australia’s moves towards economic openness have occurred alongside efforts to enhance relations with Asian countries and the growth of Asian immigration into Australia, it may also be that economic openness is seen as being connected with openness towards Asia.

Attitudes towards multi-nationals remain the pre-eminent influence in model 3, while attitudes towards trade unions are now marginally significant in the expected direction: favourable attitudes towards unions are associated with a more protectionist stance. The presence of the immigrant rating variables has little impact on the effects of the social structural factors. The final model, which includes political party identification, has virtually no additional impact. Presumably reflecting the current bipartisan stance of the major parties on the issue of economic sovereignty, party identification itself has no effect. Even this full model does not explain a great deal of the variance (only 15 per cent) in attitudes towards economic sovereignty.

Table 4 repeats this analysis with attitudes towards immigration-related sovereignty issues as the dependent variable. The size of the raw correlations in the first column signal that this dimension of sovereignty attitudes is more closely related to the variables in our model. Only union membership, age and sex do not register significant correlations. Model 1, concentrating again on the social structural predictors indicates that this time our prior expectations about education are verified. Education in fact has a very substantial impact on attitudes to immigration-related sovereignty, with higher levels of education leading to greater emphasis on the benefits of immigration, as anticipated. While this finding provides general endorsement for our theoretical explanations for the expected impact of education - the cosmopolitan and status symbol arguments - it does not of course help distinguish between the two.

Table 4 here

Birthplace again has a considerable effect, as predicted, not much smaller than that of education and a larger one than it had on the economic dimension. Occupational status has a significant, but much reduced effect compared to its raw correlation, while income loses its statistical significance altogether. On this dimension the tables thus appear to be turned, with education dominating occupation and income as the key factor among the indicators of socio-economic status. Contrary to expectations, but perhaps reflecting the equivocal nature of the union movement’s positions on these issues over the years, union membership has no impact on either dimension of sovereignty attitudes. As expected, urban residents are somewhat more positive about the consequences of immigration than rural folk. Age also has a significant impact net of other elements of social structure, but it is older people, not younger, who are more ready to emphasise the benefits rather than the costs of immigration.

Although their introduction makes little difference to the pattern of social structural influences, attitudes towards both multi-nationals and trade unions have significant, though relatively modest, effects (model 2). In both cases, despite their being negatively correlated with each other, favourable views of multi-nationals on the one hand and of trade unions on the other lead to a more open stance on the question of immigration-related sovereignty.

The big impact, however, comes from the general feelings towards immigrants introduced in model 3. Ratings of both European immigrants and Eastern/Asian immigrants show large zero-order correlations, but only the latter retains its impact in the multivariate analysis. The impact of Eastern/Asian migrant ratings is very large indeed (beta = .51), while the European dimension loses its significance altogether, perhaps for reasons along the lines of those canvassed above, that (net of feelings towards Eastern/Asian migrants) Europeans are not so much who people have in mind when they think of immigrants. The dominant influence of ratings of Eastern/Asian immigrants is such that the effects of both multi-national and trade union attitudes (the more so the latter) are reduced somewhat in model 3.

The introduction of the immigrant rating variables also coincides with the disappearance of the occupation effect and, more interestingly still, with a marked reduction in the impact of education (even though it remains clearly influential in its own right). In other words, to some degree education influences immigration-related sovereignty issues through feelings towards migrants. To the extent that ratings of migrants from a variety of different countries can be viewed as an indicator of cosmopolitan attitudes, this evidence can be taken as partial endorsement of the theory that it is indeed a cosmopolitan perspective derived from higher education that leads to well-educated people being more likely to emphasise the benefits of immigration rather than its costs.

Model 4 introduces party identification into the equation and although this does not add to the already substantial R-squared of 38 per cent, party support is significant in its own right, with Liberal-National supporters less likely than Labor supporters to emphasise the benefits of immigration. Furthermore, attitudes towards trade unions are now no longer significant. It would appear that the impact of this variable works partly through feelings towards immigrants and partly through its association with party identification. Finally, a comparison of the variance explained at the bottom of Tables 3 and 4 indicates that the model accounts much better for immigrant-related attitudes towards sovereignty than it does for the economic sovereignty dimension.

Summary and Discussion

Many but not all of the theoretical expectations outlined earlier in this paper have been confirmed by the analysis. The most notable surprise was the lack of an independent effect for education on attitudes towards economic sovereignty, although for a variety of reasons the rejection of this relationship must remain a qualified one. Furthermore, education was shown to exert a powerful influence on the other dimension of sovereignty, relating to the effects of immigration. This second analysis also provided evidence for the argument that the quality that education imparts to its recipients that leads to their adopting a more open stance is a cosmopolitan view of the world. Occupational status also had some influence on both dimensions and the most consistent social structural variable was immigrant status as measured by birthplace.

In thinking about the implications the results in this paper may have for the future shape of Australia’s economic and population policy, it is necessary to be mindful of the fact that over time the levels of formal education, the occupational status of the workforce and the proportion of overseas born in the population – the three most important social structural variables in the analysis – are all increasing. This is also true for many other societies and the conclusions in this paper are thus bound to have significance beyond Australia. Each of these structural factors is positively associated with greater openness on sovereignty issues. Other things being equal, we are therefore likely to see a gradual trend towards greater public acceptance of open borders of both the economic and immigration varieties. Based on the data in this paper, national sovereignty appears to be more of a concern to the public in its economic manifestation than in its ethnic or cultural manifestation. As we move into and through the 21st century, it may gradually become less of a concern on either front.

This is not to say, however, that it will be an easy political issue to manage from a policy-maker’s perspective. In general, the public may indeed be likely to move progressively in the direction of a more open stance. Yet, the rise of the One Nation Party in Australia plus similar parties in other countries, together with the increasing incidence of anti-globalisation protests around the world, suggest that there are significant numbers of citizens for whom moves to reduce immigration and economic boundaries remain anathema. This direct linking of sovereignty to the globalisation debate makes it an issue of considerable delicacy for policy-makers in democratically elected governments who are doubtless aware of the adverse political consequences that lack of sensitivity to the apprehensions of such people could bring.

Appendix

Appendix Table 1 provides the basis for the multiple item scales which comprise the attitudinal independent variables in the model, showing items that make up each scale and the principal components analysis demonstrating the distinctiveness of each dimension. The table shows there to be two separate dimensions of feelings towards immigrants, one of which can be labelled Eastern/Asian immigrants and the other of which relates to European immigrants. The first is based on feeling thermometer ratings of Vietnamese, Lebanese, Chinese and Indian migrants and the other is based on thermometer ratings of Italian, British and Greek migrants. In addition the three items addressing attitudes towards trade unions load strongly together, as do the three multi-national items. As was done for the dependent variables, the relevant items from each dimension are combined into additive scales (with items that load negatively reversed), representing each of the four dimensions. Cronbach’s alphas for these scales are: .93 for feelings towards Asian immigrants; .87 for European immigrants; .79 for attitudes towards trade unions; and .73 for attitudes towards multi-nationals. The two immigrant scales are thus highly reliable, despite some cross-loadings evident in the principal components analysis. Appendix Table 2 contains summary information on all variables in the model, showing how they are scored and their means and standard deviations.

Appendix Tables 1 and 2 here

Endnotes

References

Table 1. Attitudes towards Economic and Immigration-Related Sovereignty Issues (percentages)

Source: Australian National Social Science Survey, 1995-96 (n=2438)

Table 2. Principal Components Analysis of Items Measuring Immigration and Economic Sovereignty Attitudes (varimax rotation)

Source: Australian National Social Science Survey, 1995-96 (n=2438)

Table 3. Multiple Regression Analyses of Variables Predicting Attitudes towards Economic Sovereignty Issues (standardised regression coefficients)

* p < .05; ** p < .01

Source: Australian National Social Science Survey, 1995-96 (n=2438)

Table 4. Multiple Regression Analyses of Variables Predicting Attitudes towards Immigration-Related Sovereignty Issues (standardised regression coefficients)

* p < .05; ** p < .01

Source: Australian National Social Science Survey, 1995-96 (n=2438)

Appendix Table 1. Principal Components Analysis of Items Measuring Feelings towards Immigrants,

Trade Unions and Multi-National Corporations (varimax rotation)

Source: Australian National Social Science Survey, 1995-96 (n=2438)

Appendix Table 2. Variables in the Model: Scoring, Means and Standard Deviations

Source: Australian National Social Science Survey, 1995-96 (n=2438)

Alastair Buchan

University of Western Sydney

A Theoretical Consideration of the Notion of Scabbery.

Introduction.

To this point there has been no definitive work written on the issue of "Scabs" or "Scabbery", there has in fact been very little at all written on the subject. One possible suggestion for this oversight or deficiency proffered by Dr. Andrew Moore is that historians in general, and labour historians in particular may feel ill at ease with the subject. Regardless or not if this is the case, I would argue that an objective analysis of the subject is long overdue. In most work written on the history of the labour movement, and in particular those examining issues of industrial action, any mention of strikebreaking, or the action of scabs has been one of vituperation. To the faithful within the labour movement, the act of scabbery was seen as the lowest and vilest of crimes, indeed an act of heresy. The punishment for this most heinous breach of faith was to be cast out, condemned as it were to eternal damnation. The reaction on the part of trade unionists to this highly emotive issue is understandable. However, I would argue that it is the responsibility of scholars writing on this subject, to approach it from a much more objective standpoint, than has hitherto been the case.

The issue of scabbing, as of any other component of the history of the labour movement is a complex and multifaceted consideration, and not one that should be marginalised or ignored. It is, and should be considered as a vital part of the history of the labour movement, and as such should be studied and treated with the same objectivity and rigor as the issue of solidarity within the labour movement, for is it not after all, the other side of the coin. In examining this issue it is not my intention to become an apologist for the actions of strikebreakers, either as individuals, or groups, but more to take on the role of "Devils’ Advocate", in examining their actions and motivation for taking this particular course of action.

At this point it would seem appropriate to consider what the term scab in its fullest etymological sense means, and why the term scab is used to describe or label a strikebreaker? Scab noun, 1 the dried crusty surface of a healing skin wound or sore. 2 a contagious disease of sheep resembling mange, caused by a mite (Psoroptes communis) 3 a fungal disease of plants characterised by crusty spots on the fruit, leaves etc. 4 Derogatory. a. Also called blackleg, a person who refuses to support a trade union’s actions, especially one who replaces a worker who is on strike. b. (as modifier): scab labour. 5 a despicable person, coming from the Middle Low German, schabbe, scoundrel. Blackleg, a name used by British miners for someone who takes the job of a miner on strike. Clearly the use of the word scab by striking unionists when referring to strike breakers is not coincidental. The significance of the definitions of disease, mange and dried crusty sores used in conjunction with that of a strikebreaker cannot be overlooked. It is surely an indication of the deep-seated antipathy and revilement harboured by trades unionists for strikebreakers, seeing them as it were, the lepers of the labour movement.

An area of this issue that has been hitherto, either totally ignored, or at best marginalised, is that of motivation. What is it that prompts a person or persons to scab or become strike breakers? This surely is as diverse and complex an issue as any other area of the history of the labour movement. In making an objective study of the act of scabbery either by an individual or group, an understanding of the motivation behind such an action is imperative. Such a study would require us to do more than merely examine it from an historical perspective, an approach which would I believe, tend to lead to a rather superficial and perhaps less than objective answer to the question. The complexity of the issue demands the full rigour of research employing a multi-disciplinary approach, one that would consider the sociological, socio-psychological, and geographical, economic and political aspects of the problem.

In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglas postulates that, ‘ many human acts are symbolic acts by which we re-model our environment, making it conform with an idea.’ Within the labour movement the idea of total solidarity is one of paramount importance, it could in fact be argued that it is the very cornerstone of the movement. Could it then be argued that the violent reaction of the labour movement to acts of scabbery, is just as Douglas postulates an attempt to re-model their environment to conform to the idea of solidarity.

Douglas also argues that, ‘ every culture must come to terms with anomalies which defy its basic assumptions, and that the nature of the threat, and the manner in which it is met, tell us much about the structure of the community concerned.’ If this is the case, what then does the violent reaction to acts of scabbery by the labour movement tell us about that particular section of society? Why does the labour movement feel so threatened by the action of scabs that they react in the violent manner, in which they so often do? Could it be that the very notion of solidarity within the labour movement is a myth, a somewhat transient phenomena, and as such lacking the strength and substance of true solidarity, and therefore, every single act of scabbery, whether by an individual or group is seen as a serious threat to the labour movement, the loose thread which would cause the "fabric of solidarity" to unravel.

Labelling and Deviance.

The process of labelling although not exclusively applied in a negative or derogatory manner is nevertheless, more commonly used in this way, and there can be no doubt that this is the case when the term ‘scab’ is used within the labour movement. The labelling process can be seen as political theory in defining how rule makers successfully connect the concept of deviance to those who break the rules, and the consequences of labelling on a deviant’s self-perception, societal standing and future. Becker argues, that ‘acts in themselves are not naturally good or bad, that normality and deviance are socially defined, that deviance is not a quality of the act a person commits but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an offender’. Goffman suggests that in a sense we are all deviant, in that no one conforms entirely with all the rules or principles of what is seen as socially acceptable behaviour, perhaps the question we should consider is, who or what within society determines deviance? The notion of deviance is clearly a socially relative phenomenon, by which I mean that the concept of normality and therefore by extension deviance is dependent on social context and as such can vary considerably within different societies or sub-cultures. Therefore, the issue of who and how deviance is labelled is crucial to its explanation.

The term scab is in itself a label that is clearly intended to degrade and humiliate the recipient within their community. Quite clearly the term strike breaker does not convey the contempt with which those in the labour movement hold those who have committed the cardinal sin, the most heinous breach of what is considered to be the highest tenet of the labour movement, that of solidarity. To the faithful the scab is someone beneath contempt, a Judas to their class. They have transgressed against the principles of socially acceptable behaviour, and as such are seen as deviant. And so as Becker has argued it is not the act itself as such, but the consequences of the act and the sanctions imposed upon the scab by the strikers and their supporters.

These sanctions may run the entire gambit, from psychological abuse and intimidation, to actual physical violence. It should also be seen that in very many cases this abuse and violence is not restricted to the scab alone, but is also imposed upon their family and property. In this we see that the strikers and their supporters become the sole arbiters in the decision to take the action of labelling those who do not conform to their view of socially acceptable behaviour, it is they who determine who is labelled deviant within their society or sub-culture.

Alienation.

One possible effect of being labelled a scab is for the individual or group to develop a sense of alienation and isolation from the remainder of their community. The dictionary defines alienation as ‘the state of being an outsider or the feeling of being isolated, as from society, stemming from the Latin alienus, strange. In a philosophical sense alienation is seen as the action or its result in estranging individuals from what is generally considered to be their normal state. Existentialists, however, claim that alienation of a person occurs as a consequence of having made wrong choices, resulting in their loss of free agency, thus forcing them to accept inauthentic lives. In a more general sociological sense, however, alienation is seen as those who have become disenchanted with their place in the community or sub-culture in which they operate.

While these may well be some of the philosophical and sociological definitions of the term alienation, how far do they really go towards actually describing the effects of the sense of alienation on scabs within their community? To be shunned and despised by those who prior to having committed this act of scabbery, were friends and neighbours, and in some more extreme cases even family. The existentialist claim that this alienation is a consequence of having made wrong choices is perhaps accurate, but it makes no attempt to interpret what are wrong or right choices, or perhaps a more accurate assessment of this would be incorrect or correct choices for a particular situation, nor does it attempt to explain who determines the validity of these choices. As with the issues of labelling and deviance the sole arbiters in judging right or wrong with regard to the choices in this situation is the labour movement, through the agency of the strikers and their supporters, and in making these decisions there, is no consideration of legality as an issue.

To try to understand or fully explain why a community would act in a manner that was designed to create a sense of alienation for scabs and their families is beyond the scope of this paper, and I might add this writer. However, it is conceivable that at least some members of the community react to the situation as they do, through fear of the consequences and repercussions which might befall them should they express any form of sympathy or association with the victims of this alienation. Some of those who feel this way may well make a point of avoiding the scabs or their family members in order not to become personally involved. The percentage of the community that might react in this fashion is something that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to quantify. Quite clearly this is not a subject that those involved would generally be prepared to discuss openly, if at all.

Stigma.

Erving Goffman defined stigma as, ‘any physical or social characteristic, which so abased an individual’s social identity in a manner as to invalidate that individual from full social acceptance.’ Goffman also believed that the implications for the stigmatised was dependent upon whether ‘the stigma was visible (in this situation the person was obviously discredited) or hidden (in which case the person was potentially discreditable).’ The latter case gave rise to a greater number of options for the management of the stigma. Clearly the stigma attached to an individual or group branded as scabs and as such seen as traitors to their class is of the latter form of stigmatisation and a number of different factors impact upon the management of the stigma.

One such factor it could be argued is geographical location. When Goffman talks about the management of a stigma, he argues that the problem lies in developing methods or ways of lessening the effect of the stigma. Where the stigma is not a physical blemish that is clearly apparent to others but a hidden stigma such as being branded a scab, management of this could be more easily dealt with in a large city where the scab would be less conspicuous rather than in a small tight knit rural or provincial community where there is less opportunity for anonymity.

In many small communities, such as mining villages for instance, where you work is essentially where you live and those with whom you work are those with whom you live. In large cities, however, where you work and where you live are in many cases quite separate from one another, as are those with whom you work and live. However, in the first half of the twentieth century, even in large cities the anonymity of those who scabbed was not always guaranteed. The location of some industries was dictated by geographical factors, such was the case with those who worked on the waterfront, wharfies and coal lumpers. The majority of those employed in these particular jobs lived within close proximity of their workplace, many within walking distance of the waterfront.

Consequences of Scabbery.

In managing the stigma of having been labelled a scab, one option open to them was to leave the industry in which they had been employed, however, for those who had been employed in certain industries, such as mining, working on the wharves or working in small tight knit communities, this also meant that they were forced to leave the area in which they lived to avoid the consequences of their act of scabbery.

Those members of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees’ Union (AMIEU) who had scabbed during the 1918 – 1919 Townsville Meatworkers’ Strike were either forced to resign or were expelled from the AMIEU. They were ostracised as social lepers. The union lists of scabs bore witness to the odium of the labour movement when confronting those who had committed the ultimate act of heresy. The list of scabs drawn up by the Ross River shop committee was indeed a remarkable document. Its specific purpose was to publicly identify and condemn those named on it as scabs, which for them meant ‘condemnation to a slow starving death as other Unions will not have you working at any price’. Therefore, for many this meant that they had to live under an assumed name, which in Townsville with a population of 25,000 at the time of the strike was not always effective, and so generally this meant they were forced to leave the area.

One of the consequences of having committed the most heinous sin of scabbery, and therefore, unworthy of forgiveness was the long and enduring memories of those workers against whom they had scabbed. In 1946, some forty-three years after the conclusion of the 1903 Victorian railway strike, a strike, which lasted little more than a week and involving only about 1,300 workers, ‘ three ageing blacklegs were still being sent to Coventry by their fellow workers’. The 1938 AMIEU state conference when considering the appeals of three ex-unionists expelled from the union as a result of their actions during the 1918 – 19 Townsville Meatworkers’ Strike, had their appeals rejected on the grounds of "congenital unworthiness": ‘each of them knew better than to do what they have done, but they were born scabs’.

Motivation.

As we have already noted the consequences for scabbery could mean ruination for the scab and their family. The question this poses is, what is it that motivates a worker to take this desperate step given that in the great majority of cases they must be acutely aware of the consequences and repercussions that will result from having taken this action? There are clearly many reasons why a worker would consider this action; one is the basic socio-economic, eg. the desperate need to survive financially. In many cases this occurs when workers have been on strike for a lengthy period of time, and can no longer make ends meet and so through sheer desperation are forced to return to work. Whilst this may well be a reasonably easy motive to understand, nevertheless it is no more likely to be forgiven by those who remain on strike.

Who then were the Scabs? The AMIEU issued a list of those accused of scabbing at the two largest meatworks in the area, Alligator Creek and Ross River. This list contained the names of 246 men who had broken the strike. Although some of those on the list were not members of the union, and had in fact never worked in the industry before, the majority of the names on the lists were AMIEU members. However, there does not appear to be any direct correlation between those who scabbed and length of AMIEU membership. It is, nevertheless, possible to categorise a number of ways in which the scabs as a group tended to differ from the strikers.

1. Generally the scabs seemed to fall into an older age bracket than those who were on strike.
2. In the majority of cases they were unskilled and semi-skilled workers, there were in fact very few skilled workers amongst the scabs.
3. Many of those on the list were also members of other unions whilst holding membership in the AMIEU. Unions such as the Australian Worker’ Union (AWU) or the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association of Australasia (FEDFA), and had been for a number of years. There were also those who had joined the AWU whilst the strike was in progress. This surely must raise doubts as to the AWU’s attitude with regard to solidarity within the labour movement.
4. There were also a significant number of returned soldiers within the ranks of the scabs.

One case amongst the affidavits shows a clear example of what is probably the easiest to understand and the most basic motivation for committing the act of scabbery, that of economic necessity. One strikebreaker recalls the conversation he held with an AMIEU official when trying to regain his ticket (union membership) sometime after the conclusion of the strike:

Of all the motivations for becoming a scab, this is probably the one that most who have never been involved in any form of industrial action can most easily understand, and probably for most of those who have, perhaps having felt a certain amount of sympathy for them, there but for the grace of God as it were. But the unions never forgive, and they never forget those who have sinned against them in this way.

The 1918 – 1919 Townsville Meatworkers’ Strike helps to identify, and in some ways explain the rationale behind the decision of some of those who broke ranks with their fellow workers in becoming strikebreakers. This strike is particularly valuable in helping to make an objective study of the issue of scabbery, in that it provides a list of names of those who acted as scabs, the affidavits provide further valuable evidence of some of their motives. Clearly the lists that were provided by the AMIEU were intended to publicly identify and vilify those who had broken faith with their fellow workers. It is particularly valuable in this research in that, in most cases, those who have committed the cardinal sin of breaching the solidarity of the labour movement, prefer to maintain wherever possible a low profile, thus making a study of this issue very difficult. And so records such as these, regardless of who compiled them or their motives for doing so are invaluable to research.

Lists of strikebreakers, although not unheard of, are nevertheless, not commonplace, which makes lists such as those produced by the AMIEU extremely valuable in the field of academic research. One other such list of strikebreakers was compiled during the 1917 New South Wales General Strike, containing 7,363 names, however, unlike the lists produced by the AMIEU, those who organised the strikebreakers compiled this list. The list was in fact a register compiled by the Farmers and Settlers’ Association of volunteers as they enrolled in camps in Sydney. The first and largest of these camps was the Sydney Cricket Ground, however, as this became incapable of coping with the volume of volunteers, most of whom were from rural New South Wales, other camps were established at Taronga Park Zoo and the Sailors’ Home in Newcastle. Clearly this list was not produced with the intention of publicly vilifying those on it, in fact quite the reverse. Although technically, and certainly in the eyes of the striking trade unionists they were scabs, this however, was not how they saw themselves, nor indeed was it how they were perceived in their own communities. What we see here is Hiller’s argument of the labelling process seen as political theory, whereby the consequences of labelling is dependent upon the deviant’s self-perception, and how it affects his standing in society at that time, and in the future.

On Wednesday, 27 July, Chifley announced the government’s intention to employ soldiers in open-cut mines. The following Monday, 1 August the army began to work open-cut mines in the Northern District coalfields. The use of troops to break a strike by a Labor government was seen by the labour movement as anathema. From its inception the Labor Party had stood against the use of military force by the state in the resolution of industrial disputation, which had over time become an article of faith within the Labor Party. The infamous words of Colonel Tom Price, "fire low and lay them out", had not been forgotten. Such was the disgust of W. Hall, an ALP branch secretary at the actions of the Chifley Labor government in the use of troops as strikebreakers, in his resignation from the party, he referred to the troops used to work the open-cut mines as " scabs dressed in military clothes". A report in the Cessnock Eagle dated, Friday, 29 July 1949, read: "When the soldiers moved through Cessnock on their way to the camps it was noticed that they carried rifles with bayonets and submachine guns. An officer said that they would be issued with live ammunition for guard duty".

In this paper I have used two strikes, the "1890 Maritime Strike" and the "1949 Coal Strike" as examples in order to illustrate the manner in which governments have been prepared to exercise the full coercive powers of the state in support of those who would deny workers the right to withdraw their labour. Since the beginning of the industrial capitalist system, a workers’ labour has become a commodity, just as coal, steel or fuel, the prices of which are determined by the market on the basis of the "law of supply and demand". This is a system which our society for the most part accepts, although sometimes grudgingly, why then should labour as a commodity be dealt with any differently?

Whilst government reaction to strikes does not always take this course, these two strikes are nevertheless, not isolated incidents. Over a period of time, governments of all political persuasions have shown their preparedness, if not always their willingness to support capital in its industrial conflict with labour. Nor is this a purely Australian phenomenon, this type of government intervention in industrial disputation occurs in all industrial nations. The question this poses is, just how effective would scabs be in breaking strikes without the support of authorities? The "1984 – 85 Miners’ Strike" in Britain illustrates in no uncertain manner the answer to that question. It clearly demonstrates the necessity of a huge police presence, in order to protect and escort scabs across union picket lines.

A study of labour history shows us that scab, or company unions formed during a strike generally have a very limited life span after the strike has finished, and the state or employees no longer have any need for them. There are of course some exceptions to the rule.

The 1917 NSW. General Strike gave rise to a proliferation of loyalist and company unions, scab unions to the remainder of the labour movement. The two main areas of industry where these unions sprang up were the railways and the waterfront. Six new unions in the railways were granted registration in the NSW. Industrial Commission on Thursday, 20 December 1917, by Mr. Justice Heydon. Within eight years, only the one remained, the NSW. Permanent Way Association (PWA), which after a number of name changes was registered as a federal union on Wednesday, 7 December 1938, as the National Union of Railwaymen of Australia (NUR).

On the waterfront during the 1917 NSW. General Strike, the Permanent and Casual Waterside Labourers and Stevedores Union of New South Wales was granted registration in the Court of Industrial Arbitration, on Tuesday, 4 December 1917. In 1918 it changed its name to the Permanent and Casual Waterside Labourers Union. It was awarded Federal registration with branches in Sydney, Melbourne and other ports. In 1927 it once again changed its name to the Permanent and Casual Wharf Labourers Union of Australia (P&C). In the late 1940s it amalgamated with the Waterside Workers’ Federation, becoming the number two branch in each state. During the 1917 strike the Port Jackson Coal Workers Union was also formed on the Sydney waterfront, registered on Tuesday, 22 January 1918, basically to take the place of the Sydney Coal Lumpers’ Union that had been deregistered, Monday, 24 September 1917, for its part in the strike. As with the majority of scab unions formed during strikes, the Port Jackson Coal Workers Union did not handle the test of time, and when it stopped receiving preferential treatment from the state and employers, and with the reregistration of the Sydney Coal Lumpers’ Union on Monday, 15 March 1926, it quickly became defunct. As we see from the experience of scab unions formed during the 1917 NSW. General Strike, only two of the many that were formed, lasted successfully for any substantial period of time, the NUR in the railways and the P&C on the waterfront. The reasons for their success, where so many others failed is a matter for research in a paper at some other time.

Conclusions.

Clearly an understanding of the notion of scabbery is long overdue, whilst this paper in no way could be considered the definitive work on the subject, it is nevertheless, a beginning. This paper can only hope to scratch the surface, a much deeper analysis of the subject from the socio-psychological and sociological perspectives, requires more considered research carried out in conjunction with professionals in those disciplines.

The examination of labelling and deviance is an attempt to give a clearer understanding of the concept of self-perception and determination of whether an individual accepts the odium of being branded a scab and the alienation which this entails, or whether as in the case of the rural volunteers in the 1917 General Strike they consider themselves as loyalists acting from a sense of altruism and ideology. Goffman’s definition of stigma, and the alternative options available in managing stigmatisation, is undoubtedly an area, which warrants deeper research than the scope of this paper, will permit.

The correlation of geographical location and time period, is one area that requires more considered research in order to establish, whether or not, there is a difference in the perception of what constitutes scabbery, in rural areas as opposed to urban industrial areas at a given point in history. Is this perhaps the issue of regional custom and practice?

Motivation is an area of great significance in the study and understanding of scabbery. However, one of the underlying problems in attempting to analyse what motivates an individual or group to commit the act of scabbery, is that in most cases they endeavour to maintain a low profile. And so, lists such as those used in this paper are invaluable. The fact that the rationale behind the compilation of the two lists is radically different does not lessen their value in this research. However, the fact that the aggregate of the two lists is in excess of 7,600 names, makes it quite impossible analyse them in the depth which they merit in a paper of this size.

The study of strikes in labour history, industrial relations and politics demonstrates clearly that the state does not remain neutral in the conflict between capital and labour, but becomes an actively involved partner of capital. This paper establishes clear evidence of the intervention of government in a number of industrial disputes, and its readiness to exercise the full coercive powers of the state in resolving industrial disputes in favour of capital. Nor is this use of the power of coercive force against workers restricted to right-wing governments, history has shown us that it has been just as strenuously applied by Labor governments in breaking strikes.

Jack London’s definition of a scab:

It is the lot of the scab, to in the end be betrayed by those who have used him in the betrayal of his own class.

Ian Cook

School of Politics and International Studies

Murdoch University

Responding to One Nation

Introduction

Responding to One Nation is difficult, at least for some of us. A self-conscious anti-intellectualism and the mobilisation of apparent racists create significant problems for someone who values intellectual activity and is disturbed by the apparent validation of racist views. The difficulty increases for those of us who eschew conceptions of absolute or objective "truth". Responding to One Nation as a sceptic, or someone who values reason yet denies the possibility of absolute or objective truth with respect to any non-trivial claims, requires both an exercise in will (toward tolerance) and considerable care. This paper is an attempt at such a response.

This paper has been organised into three main parts. The first deals with responses to One Nation from some Australian intellectuals. This section is headed "Against One Nation" because it is devoted to a brief discussion of the hostile responses from the intellectuals whose works are discussed. The second section is a brief discussion of scepticism. This section provides a necessary prelude to the final section, which provides an outline and response to two sets of problems that are central to One Nation’s analysis of Australian society and politics. These sets of problems are subsumed within the rubrics multiculturalism and elites.

1. Against One Nation

One of the main effects of One Nation has been that it has disrupted aspects of the familiarity of Australian politics. For Love the alarm that has greeted Pauline Hanson’s ‘message is largely due to the fact that she has launched a moderately popular challenge to the cosy Whiggish assumptions about moral progress in public policy.’ (Love 1997: 25) That a seemingly naïve and politically inept group of self-proclaimed anti-politicians have caused this disruption is fundamental to the disturbance that "One Nation" now signifies.

The response that has resulted from the disruption of the Whiggish certainties to which Love alluded makes for interesting reading. Some of the more interesting responses are those in which intellectual posit something of counter-truths to those presented by One Nation. One of the more interesting of these is to be found in the Ward, Leach and Stokes’ The Rise and Fall of One Nation. Their introduction to this collection is a clear reminder of the enlightenment project with which modern intellectuals identify. Here we are told that ‘One Nation illuminated a darker side of Australian politics...’. (Leach, Stokes and Ward 2000: 1) Of the contributors to this collection, the editors make clear that ‘none writes with any sympathy regarding its policies. Several are overtly hostile to Pauline Hanson and to the ONP, its pronouncements and practices.’ (Leach, Stokes and Ward 2000: 2) For the author’s of the ‘Introduction’ ‘reasoned critiques remain necessary, but countering Hansonite ideas with reason alone will not work.’ (Leach, Stokes and Ward 2000: 18)

One of the techniques intellectuals employ to ‘counteract One Nation.’ (Segal 1999: 167) is to associate it with some pre-discredited group or intellectual position. Gelder, for example, dismisses One Nation as a ‘Nature Cult.’ (1998: 760) Many others dismiss the party as populist. To be accused of populism is to be accused of promulgating paranoid conspiracy theory. One Nation’s populism is characterised as a paranoid and defensive reaction to an ill-defined enemy of the people that occupies elite positions within society. Melleuish drew a parallel between One Nation’s construction of this elite (as represented in The Truth (Hanson 1997)) and preceding versions of this theory. The difference between the ideas presented in The Truth and preceding forms is that ‘it operates less as a political or social category than as a metaphysical entity on whom all the evils of contemporary Australia can be heaped. Unlike previous accounts... virtually no attempt is made to ascertain, in concrete terms, who these people are.’ (1997: 27)

2. Post-Truth

This struggle to counteract or combat One Nation has some problems, however. In the first instance, it suggests a refusal to acknowledge the extent to which some members of Australian society maintain a commitment to values with which many of Australia’s intellectuals, even some of the most conservative, are uncomfortable. This is not true of all intellectuals in Australia, but does appear true of a significant number of them. An important problem is that many of the hostile responses to One Nation seem to reflect an imagined Australia that should not partake of the sort of backward looking, racist and homophobic policies for which One Nation is "known". A more interesting problem here is that it often reflects a certainty about economics, politics, race and society that is unavailable to a sceptic.

Scepticism has had a very long history of western philosophy and has existed in a variety of forms. A sceptical position is one in which it is held that no belief in any proposition is epistemologically justifiable. Thus ‘the correct explanation of our believing some body of propositions... is non-epistemic.’ (Jones 2000: 435) If scepticism is anything, it is the view that, despite persistent claims to the contrary, beliefs do not reflect an absolute truth. Scepticism is not an irrationalist philosophical position, however, for the very derivation of a sceptical position is through the use of reason. In short, reason reveals the very limits of reason that places "truth" outside the range of possibilities for reason itself. Scepticism may well be understood as the most rational of positions. Scepticism does not require the rejection of conversations governed by a concern with truth, but merely requires the suspension of the sort of certainty that access to truth provides for those who believe that they have discovered it.

Scepticism is most commonly encountered in contemporary intellectual circles in the form of post-structuralism and postmodernism (though the referents of these terms are often interchangeable). Post-structuralism, associated with Foucault’s works, appropriates scepticism and provides an account of the construction, and not the discovery, of truth. Post-structuralists, who follow Foucault, do not to suggest either that truth claims will not be made or that they will not be accepted by many of those engaged in conversations around truth. Indeed, many truth claims relate to matters so trivial few people would bother questioning them. Scepticism is only of real significance, in this context, when it comes to non-trivial truth claims. This kind of truth claims, within this account, are not a function of access to the way things really are but express, as Nietzsche might put it, the will to power of those who declare the truth. ‘Such is the message everywhere implicit in Foucault’s Nietszchean genealogies of power/knowledge: that truth-claims are always, inescapably bound up with the epistemic drive for mastery and control, even (or especially) where it masks behind a rhetoric of liberal-humanist values or emancipatory critique.’ (Norris 1993: 257) That post-structuralism and post-modernism have become somewhat fashionable in contemporary intellectual circles has not extended to those who dismiss One Nation as "wrong" and as supported by those looking to what has been, at best, a past truth (but who do not have access to the real truth).

To approach One Nation without truth and in the belief that the difference that she articulates is felt powerfully within at least a tenth, and probably more, of Australian society creates an interesting, if uncomfortable, starting-point for this discussion of One Nation. That One Nation tends to reject the very being of an intellectual, and probably an academic, does not help. Yet, this is the basis upon which I must respond to One Nation. One advantage of a sceptical position is that the disruption to the certainties that dominate intellectual, journalistic and political circles in Australia is an interesting starting-point for a consideration of how an academic and sceptic might respond to One Nation.

Two points must be made before a response can proceed, as it is important that no confusion exists in these respects. The first is that I am not pretending to offer the only truth available in this context. The second, that my truth (which is really only a sincerely held belief for which I can offer reasons) is fundamentally different to that offered by One Nation. I am merely seeking to engage to approach the views of On Nation with tolerance. In this, I am seeking to operationalise the minimal conception of tolerance presented by King. For him, tolerance refers to ‘the most minimal of tolerential negations, where one does not suspend... a dislike or disapproval of an item, but does suspend, reduce or otherwise soften the negative act that might normally be regarded as following from the disapproval…’. (1998: 117) This is, no doubt, a troubling and difficult task. Yet, it seems a response that is preferable to many that One Nation has received. This tolerance leads me to act and think through the sort of doubt that Beck wondered about when he asked whether ‘doubt... will create a space for others, and in the development of others, for me and us?’ (1997: 162) I must admit to reservations, however, with respect to Beck’s claim that ‘scepticism... makes everything possible again: questions and dialogue of course, as well as faith, science, knowledge, criticism, morality, society, only differently, a few sizes smaller, more preliminary, revisable, and more able to learn.’ (163) I do not doubt, however, that scepticism can provide a basis for questions and dialogue and it is toward this that this paper is aimed.

3. Responding to One Nation

Introduction

This section constitutes my response to One Nation. While there are other texts that might be organised around what Foucault referred to as the "author function" (Foucault 1984), this response to One Nation has been generated on the basis of an engagement with speeches delivered by Pauline Hanson and documents found on the One Nation website. Two concerns about Australian life and society dominate these texts. These concerns are the effects of multiculturalism and elites. In short, multiculturalism and elites constitute a threat to Australian society and must be opposed and their effects reversed. In the following sections, I will present One Nation’s ideas with respect to the effects of multiculturalism and elites and respond to the concerns that they signify.

A. Multiculturalism

If there is anything against which One Nation stands it is multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, for One Nation, is a threat to Australian, and indeed every other, society. In Australia the policy will, if it continues, end in the demise of a distinctive Australian culture and polity. While immigration is an important element of multiculturalism, the link is not complete. For One Nation it is ‘inappropriately high levels of immigration combined with the policy of multiculturalism [that] has led to a serious breakdown in the social cohesion of Australia.’ (Hanson 1999 emphasis added) Multiculturalism constitutes, according to One Nation, a "two-pronged" attack on Australian society, for it is an attack on both Australian culture and the Australian polity. In the first instance, multiculturalism represents a threat to the idea of Australianness to which One Nation is committed. In the second, it represents a threat to citizenship in Australia. These are related concerns but merit separate treatment, as they raise different issues and seem to require different responses.

Australianness

While the notion of Australianness can only make sense as a social construct, there can be little doubt that it is important to One Nation’s understanding of the nature and implications of multiculturalism. Understanding and responding to the way that One Nation is using it as part of their criticisms and rejection of multiculturalism, then, constitutes both a means for understanding views expressed by One Nation with respect to multiculturalism and for responding to them.

i. One Nation on Australianness

A central part of the political project in which One Nation feels itself to be engaged is a defence of Australianness. That One Nation’s members’ and supporters’ identities are understood in terms of belonging to a specific culture is clear. As Hanson put it, ‘every variety of culture in Australia today has a mother country where their particular culture can survive and develop. Our unique Australian culture and identity has nowhere else in the world in which to survive.’ (One Nation 2001a) Authentic Australianness, as Hanson sees it, has a variety of components. It originates with the early settlers, incorporates Aboriginal culture, reflects the Anzac spirit, and is marked by toughness and fairness. (Hanson 1997: 14-15) In a speech to the Australian Reform Party (Victoria) designed to ‘expand and define’ what she said in her maiden speech to Parliament, Hanson argued that ‘mainstream Australia is firmly based on its Anglo-Celtic-European heritage, Judaeo-Christian beliefs, English law and Westminster parliamentary system.’ (Hanson 1997: 12)

Australianness is under threat from a variety of sources, however, and these threats require that Australian culture be defended. (Hanson 1997: 15) The most important threat comes from those migrants who do not commit themselves to this Australian culture. In short, Australianness cannot be defended if Australians do not require a commitment to that culture from everyone in Australia. Immigration is not the problem. Immigration on the part of those who do not wish to participate in this Australian culture is. Recent immigration has been characterised, in Hanson’s view, by the acceptance of people who do not respect or value Australian culture. Immigration is acceptable as long as ‘migrants who choose Australia as their permanent homeland should, as part of their decision to migrate, have a genuine desire to embrace and enjoy Australia’s cultural values, life style and freedoms as they have evolved.’ (One Nation 2001a)

Only those immigrants who are able to adapt to Australian culture are desirable to One Nation. Immigrants have always been important to Australia but desirable immigrants ‘had one thing in common, they joined in. They did not stand back on the fringe of the Australian community, expecting special privileges. These people became Australians, body and soul and many of them died for their homeland.’ (Hanson 1997: 21) Immigrant are not being called upon to abandon ‘their cultural heritage but they must realise that the celebration of their cultural heritage must be at their expense and not that of the ordinary taxpayer.’ (Hanson 1997: 21)

An essential part, if not source, of Australianness can be found in agriculture. This reflects both Australia’s past and present. More specifically One Nation defends the "family farm" as an essential part of Australian culture. It is for this reason that One Nation committed itself to a rural apprenticeship scheme ‘aimed at providing young people from rural backgrounds and whose families are on the land to continue to work on the family farm.’ (One Nation 2001a) For ‘One Nation recognises the history and the tradition of the family farm and its enormous contribution to our nation’s economic, cultural and social well being. One Nation supports the right to farm and ... will review and amend or repeal existing legislation that threatens that right.’ [Primary]

One Nation is not only committed to a defence of farming and the family farm, it is also committed to the "reindustrialisation" of Australia. In part, this is recognition of the role that manufacture has played in Australian life. For ‘Australia was once a proud, strong, manufacturing nation.’ (Australia 1997b: 7706) Reindustrialisation will address problems associated with unemployment and under employment. It will also create the conditions that will make possible a much more harmonious society than presently exists in Australia. As ‘a busy, industrious community is usually a happy one, and that is far from the situation today.’ (Hanson 1997: 33)

Addressing unemployment and the social decline associated with de-industrialisation, however, do not exhaust the intended outcomes of reindustrialisation. Reindustrialisation will also promote a "self-sufficient" Australia. (Australia 1998a: 1469) One Nation intends to create ‘an Australia that is industrially self sufficient, economically independent, strong and prosperous, and which provides meaningful and rewarding lives for all of its people.’ [Manufacturing] For ‘if a country has an agricultural base from which to feed the people, industrial infrastructure, a skilled manufacturing base, oil and mineral resources, and a healthy, united population, it has the essentials to become self-sufficient.’ (One Nation 2001a)

ii. Responding

The first problem with any rejection of One Nation’s conception of Australianness is that it is in danger of constituting an alternative truth. Those intellectuals who cleave to a different understanding of self and nation are simply cleaving to this alternative understanding. Their position is no less culturally specific and no less in service of particular interests. They may defend those interests and will dominate political debates and their view will probably "win" but this simply reflects the power that we are able to mobilise in defence of their position. They may reject ethno-nationalism, but we do so as an expression of their commitment to an alternative conception of being and belonging. This is not a reflection of being more reasonable. It is an exercise of power.

There seem to be two problems associated with a victory in this context. The first is that it is not the victory of reason and fundamentally misrepresents itself when this is claimed. Second, we cannot be certain, and have few parallel cases upon which to rely for any certainty, that this strategy is likely to meet with long term success. In short, we do not know what problems may be associated with denying the validity or need to participate in the generation of constructs like authentic Australianness. Even if we eschew authentic Australianness in defence of our culturally specific resistance to such a notion we are yet to address the role that these constructs may play in unifying communities (including that unity that is produced by resistance to dominant authenticities). The question that arises in this context, then, concerns whether we would have to invent such a thing as authentic Australianness if such a thing did not exist (and it certainly has no existence separate from those social processes that create these phenomena).

Responding to One Nation’s construction of authentic Australianness seems to require examining questions that are associated with the nature and necessity of a national identity for any country. That we have experienced a number of state sponsored programmes designed to create or solidify forms of national identity may well constitute a reason to be suspicious with respect to these notions. We may reject any attempts to define or project a national identity and risk problems sometimes associated with a lack of national identity. Alternatively, we may acknowledge their importance and seek to develop a form of national identity with which we are comfortable.

One of the central questions here concerns what we might expect of immigrants. Castles’ has responded to One Nation’s call for an acceptance of the fact that a decision to migrate need not imply any commitment to the core values of the country to which migration occurs. This seems a difficult position to defend and explain to anyone not in full sympathy with what might be understood as a post-national environment. This is more than simply an alternative understanding of national belonging. For any rejection of One Nation’s conception of Australianness that relies upon some minimal commitment to core values will reflects a particular set of predispositions with respect to identity and belonging. Those who reject One Nation’s position with respect to what ought to be required of immigrants may not fear their strangeness, but will be unlikely to tolerate all forms of difference (in particular that form of difference with negates another’s difference). Civic nationalists are unlikely to tolerate all the attitudes and values that these diaspora may reflect. McMillan’s calls for a plural or dual conception of identity is no less troubling, as it seems to imply that we abandon our defence of some of the values that underpin a rejection of One Nation.

Even if communities do not rely on a common commitment to certain values for their very existence , individuals may find it difficult, if not impossible, to eschew the values to which they are committed and through which they make sense of themselves. Scepticism and the cynicism that it requires with respect to debates of this sort, in short, cuts both ways. It requires avoiding the view that reasonable and disinterested seekers of truth are opposed to those mindlessly committed to misguided essentialism and bigotry. In the end, an engagement with One Nation is a power struggle.

The central question concerns the point of that power struggle. It is not difficult to imagine, at least from where I sit, that One Nation will be beaten. It only ever gets between 10-25% of the primary votes. Its conception of Australianness is relatively easily projected as out of date. Its supporters seem generally inarticulate and its parliamentarians ill-disciplined. Nor is it difficult to defend the view that Australian agricultural practices, applied by the family farm, has not been a particularly effective means of managing the land. Reindustrialisation and self-sufficiency are readily dismissed as quaint, if not impossible.

There may be little need to respond to One Nation with anything but the glee of the victor. Yet this seems troubling. In part, because One Nation reflects something of the concerns about Australian society that are being expressed in a variety of ways (most notably by environmental movements and protesters against so-called globalisation) and which identify a variety of disturbing trends. Second, because it involves negating the views of a significant, if not dominant, number of Australians. These Australians are deeply anxious about themselves and their futures. They are uncertain as to whether they are valued and they certainly do not appear to have a coherent "voice" within the two-party system. We may well decide that we do not value supporters of One Nation and may need to tell them so. This is different from telling them that they are wrong or wrong-headed. Perhaps we need simply wait from them to die and take their conception of Australianness with them.

A more interesting possibility lies in mobilising this sense of authentic national identity in order to further a political project. McMillan seems to be both on the right and wrong tracks in the following (which is not in the context of a discussion of One Nation, but offers interesting possibilities). She suggests that ‘in a political age when socialism has become the analysis that dares not speak its name, and when there has been a systematic dumbing-down in popular understanding of how economic power shapes lives, the politics of national identity can too easily become a dim-witted substitute for the politics of real solidarity with people facing the same economic pressures and problems.’ (McMillan 1996: 31) McMillan’s analysis is interesting in terms of her identification of the possibility for those critical of contemporary Australian society to mobilise the sorts of sentiments that Hanson articulates. McMillan is misguided in her suggestion that there exists something called "real solidarity" and neglects the possibility that being "dim-witted" may have certain advantages.

Citizenship

Even if we do not accept the cultural aspects of the definition of Australianness that is implicit in One Nation literature, those of us with an interest in politics may remain interested in the issues that are raised with respect to citizenship. While the notions can be understood to be strongly related, the concept of citizenship refers to quite a different aspect of the problem that One Nation has with multiculturalism. If their concern with Australianness reflects worries about immigrants not valuing and participating in the culture, concerns about citizenship seem to reflect disquiet about whether immigrants will accept and play by the "rules" that govern political life in Australia. Of course, one of the rules is that a commitment to being an Australian requires taking up citizenship, but citizenship gives rise to many more and different issues to those that reflect the construction and pursuit of Australianness.

iii. One Nation on Citizenship

The conception of citizenship that underpins One Nation’s response to multiculturalism has three main elements. It is based on an understanding of rights as belonging to individuals and not to groups. Second, citizenship, and the rights that citizens claim, brings with it a set of responsibilities that are to be equally distributed across all members of the community and identical for all citizens. One Nation attacks multiculturalism because it is understood to have involved a refusal to accept the responsibilities of citizenship on the parts of some people who claim rights as Australian citizens. The third aspect of One Nation’s understanding of citizenship is that it cannot be used as a vehicle for pursuing difference. That is, citizenship is not, from their perspective, to be used to promote interests that are different from those of Australians as a whole.

The understanding of citizenship that appears throughout One Nation literature consistently identifies rights as belonging to individuals and not groups. Rights adhere to individuals as a function of their similarity and do not emerge from their differences. For ‘if we are ever to all live together as Australians, we must stop the division caused by the senseless and destructive agenda that insists on highlighting our differences—we must all be treated equally. ... we must help people on the basis of individual need.’ (One Nation 1997a) It is only when rights are understood to belong to all people and to be identical amongst all people that it becomes possible, from this perspective, to create a functioning community. ‘Australians must be treated equally and we must be one people, under one flag and with one set of rules if we are to ever truly live together as Australians.’ (One Nation 1997c) In order to live together ‘we must all be Australians together, either we are equal in all things or we are equal in none.’ (One Nation 1997d)

To choose to be a citizen of a country is to accept both the same rights as all others in the community and to accept the same responsibilities as all others. ‘Citizenship does not mean getting everything Australia has to offer and giving nothing in return. People often talk about their rights, but what about their responsibilities to Australia?’ (Australia 1996c: 8095) Primary amongst these responsibilities is absolute loyalty to one’s country. Ethnic background is irrelevant to a first-class citizen ‘provided of course that they give this country their full, undivided loyalty.’ (Australia 1996a: 3862) All Hanson asks, in this context, ‘is that any Australian, regardless of their origin, should give Australia their full and undivided loyalty.’ (Hanson 1997: 25) The decision to become an Australian citizen has to be understood as an undertaking to commit oneself to Australia. An oath of citizenship, then, must involve ‘a firm promise by those who come here to join them [Australians] as citizens of this great nation to be willing to give a clear and unambiguous commitment of loyalty where there can be no room for higher loyalties to other nations or people.’ Citizenship is not to be taken lightly. ‘Exchanging allegiance from one’s country of origin, with its history, values, laws and customs, to another is an important step.’ (Australia 1996b: 6374)

The most important aspect of citizenship is that it produces a single nation that all citizens work to promote. The question for Australians concerns ‘whether we are to be one people belonging to one nation or many peoples belonging to many nations.’ (Australia 1997c: 8898) One Nation, then, is a vehicle for resisting ‘pressures from various minority groups that are seeking to create more than one Australia.’ (Hanson 1997: 29) This resistance is necessary because ‘a truly multicultural country can never be strong or united, as continual friction and conflict is created by rivalry between people with ethnic and religious differences. In Australia, multiculturalism… is a divisive policy that puts people in compartments and prevents them joining the mainstream society.’ (Hanson 1997: 19-20)

iv. Responding

For those of us who reject essentialism, "rights" are social constructs that fulfil certain functions in a society and polity. They constitute useful parts of the bargaining processes in which individual and groups engage. There can be little doubt, though, that those who see rights as having some connection to a human essence can disagree as to the source and nature of those rights. One Nation seems to cleave to a classical liberal construction of rights which is both current and powerful in national and international contexts. This conception treats claims of group rights, which seem central to the discourses of multiculturalism, as less meaningful than other types of rights. If all rights are nonsensical, unless understood simply as parts of social and political bargaining processes, then the central issue is that of the utility of a conception and practice of rights. That people in minority groups that those usually forced to make rights claims is a reflection of the fact that dominant majorities rarely need to assert rights.

That One Nation has problems with a failure of rights to be associated with duties and that these duties are not equally distributed or identical across all Australians is both usual and unusual. Usual in the sense that all citizens are regularly encouraged to accept that rights are linked to duties or responsibilities. Unusual in the sense that concern is being evidenced with respect to the failure on the part of some Australians to accept and fulfil these responsibilities. Their concern appears to be that some groups are "free riders" who claim benefits and deny responsibilities as it suits them. This point of view is interesting to the extent to which it implies that claims of group rights may undermine commitments that would lead to the acceptance of responsibilities to the larger whole. It is an interesting, but not obviously valid, point.

The position that rights claims are being used to pursue, articulate, and preserve difference raises yet more interesting issues. The history of rights claims seems to indicate that they are most likely to be made by people discontented with their treatment in societies that are amenable to claims that reflect liberal-democratic principles. To this extent, they can be used in the protection or promotion of difference. Yet, I am not aware of a right to be different and, indeed, wonder whether anyone who was too different from me can claim a right (i.e., whether they speak enough of my language for me to recognise that they are making a claim). In short, there may well be some internal constraint upon the sort of differences that rights claims may support.

There appear to be two problems with respect to responses to One Nation in this context. The first is that these responses sometimes rely on the idea that there exists the possibility for a superior conception of citizenship. This is central to Castles’ quest for multicultural citizenship. Castles is prepared to rely upon, but does not seem to accept all of the implications of Charles Taylor’s suggestion ‘that political ideas and institutions are the expression of a certain range of cultures, and may be incompatible with other ranges.’ (Castles 1997: 9????) If Taylor is correct, and there is no reason to believe otherwise, then any set of political institutions and ideas that are constructed to reflect "multicultural citizenship" will continue to reflect a certain range of cultures. Yet Castles is disappointed that ‘multiculturalism has developed in an ad hoc way as a strategy for integrating immigrant communities into a basically unchanged society.’ (Castles 1997: 14-5)

Miller provides an interesting point of entry for a consideration of such issues in his presentation of republican citizenship, which involves liberal theories of citizenship as a set of rights with a commitment on the part of citizens to promote a common good. Miller must add to liberal theories of citizenship because there can be no guarantee that citizens will seek to promote a collective interest. Two possibilities seem to emerge in this context; either citizens are expected to promote a collective interest or they are not. If they are not, then we can understand their use of rights language as a vehicle to promote their interests (sometimes represented as a group interest). Such a language is indeed powerful, even for those of us who do not believe in rights. As Green has pointed out ‘the language of rights is especially appropriate for Aboriginal contestation of settler-state dominance, not because colonial law will generate justice, but because rights language contains the necessary political and legal power for engagement in the struggle for a measure of liberation.’ (Green 2000: 134)

If, in Miller’s republican citizenship model, citizens are constrained to justify their claims by reference to a collective interest, this creates the problem that certain types of claim will not be supported. For ‘republican citizenship cannot accommodate everything that passes under the name of "the politics of identity"’. (Miller 1995: 446) Miller argues that citizenship understood in this way requires that citizens express their interests in such a way that it is understood to reflect something of their membership of a wider community.

The republican conception of citizenship… places no limits on what sort of demand may be put forward in the political forum. It does not discriminate between demands stemming from personal conviction—say demands for animal rights—and demands stemming from group identity—say demands for religious schooling. In all cases the success of any particular demand will depend upon how far it can be expressed in terms that are close to, or distant from, the general political ethos of the community. (Miller 1995: 447)

As Love has suggested, Hanson ‘is identifying one of the enduring dilemmas for multicultural, democratic nation states. The problem is how to reconcile the claims made by a plurality of cultural groups yet retain a core set of rights and responsibilities which constitute an acceptable doctrine of common citizenship.’ (Love 1997: 26)

Criticisms that conceptions of citizenship are based on the construction of communal interests may be well founded (Young 1990), but they appear to miss the larger political issues raised by this. These relate to whether citizens, and the debates within which they participate, are to be governed by any concern with a collective interest. If not, then they seem to require presentation either in terms of the defence of some essential humanity, which seems unavailable to a sceptic, or they are to be expressed in terms of political power (i.e., the claim that a felt need ought to be recognised because it reflect the ability of a group to cause disruption—most likely to a politician’s career). That those who identify with white Anglo-Australianness are the ones most likely to be disruptive raises an interesting issue here.

Another problem that arises in this context is that the emergence of group rights appears disruptive to many conceptions of individual rights. This has often been noted (particularly by some feminists). In response, Kymlicka accepts that group rights may crosscut, if not disrupt, individual rights, but believes that the problem is not as significant as some commentators believe.

In many cases, group rights supplement and strengthen human rights, by responding to potential injustices that traditional rights doctrine cannot address. These are the "good" group rights. There are cases, to be sure, where illiberal groups seek the right to restrict the basic liberties of their members. These are the "bad" group rights. In some cases, these illiberal practices are not only bad, but intolerable, and the larger society has a right to intervene to stop them. But in other cases, liberal states must tolerate unjust practices within a minority group. Drawing the line between the bad and the intolerable is one of the thorniest issues liberal democracies face. (Kymlicka 1996: 22)

Kymlicka’s solution may be good philosophy, but it seems to represent difficult politics. That it also seems to avoid addressing the problem than group rights may interfere with the individual rights of citizens who are not part of the groups claiming rights is another problem.

Kymlicka has identifying only one problem associated with the promotion of group rights (that groups may claim a right to restrict the individual rights of their members). Other, and possibly more difficult, issues relate to the fora and processes through which allocations of resources will be made in the face of rights claims. The fora may well be occupied by a variety of rights claims from citizens, some of which reflect individual rights and some group rights. Curthoys and Johnson believe that a reason that we may well be stuck with the politics and rhetoric of One Nation, probably even after its demise, is because ‘it touches one of the most complex and important issues of our times, that of ‘equal’ treatment, sameness and difference, and the problem of how social and economic policy ought to respond to their competing demands.’ (Curthoys and Johnson 1998: 100)

Conclusion

While rejecting notions of essential Australianness is likely to come from those who adopt civic-nationalist ideologies, there is no guarantee that such a rejection is a sound strategy. In part, because the consequences of a rejection of national identity are not clear. In part, because civic nationalists, and anyone who adopts a relatively minimal understanding of belonging, are unlikely to empty their conception of belonging sufficiently to cope with all forms of difference. Anyone who believes that people are to live to certain minimal standards will want those standards to be uniformly practised and systematically reinforced through social structures. Those who expect some degree of commitment to the nation on the parts of all citizens, or loyalty, may find it impossible to negotiate a polity in which others do not feel this loyalty. Once again, the consequences of the excision of loyalty from citizenship remain unclear. Some redefinition of loyalty may be possible, but such a redefinition may prove difficult.

B. Elites

One Nation’s other central concern is with respect to the dominating and corrupting effects that elites are having on Australian politics and society. In short, One Nation believes that an elite that conspires to promote its interests over that of all other Australians dominates Australian politics. The only possible exception to this is the treatment of Aborigines, who have been granted privileges and support (primarily through, what has been termed within One Nation literature, the Aboriginal industry). The extent to which Aborigines have been provided with privileges and support is, for One Nation, both evidence of the power of elites and the extent to which they will promote their own interests above that of other Australians. The following discussion has been divided into two parts. In the first I will discuss and respond to the view that an elite that is protecting its own interests against that of non-Aboriginal Australians dominates Australian politics. In the second I will outline and respond to One Nation’s criticisms of the treatment of Aborigines in Australia.

Australian Politics

i. One Nation on Australian Politics

A rejection of the major parties is a starting-point for One Nation’s denunciation of Australian politics as dominated by an elite. These are represented as dominated by a self-interested, city-based and internationalist elite. These politicians pursue policies that are designed to promote their own interests, to the detriment of ordinary, non-elite, Australians. These major party politicians and complicit bureaucrats are members of or servants for a local elite that appears linked to an international elite (which is the principal beneficiary of globalisation). One hundred years of self government, in Hanson’s view, ‘sees us as a country controlled by multi nationals, United Nations Treaties and career politicians who have no more concern or ability to look after the Australian people, than they do their own electorate.’ (One Nation 2001b)

While One Nation’s attack on the major political parties can be understood as a strategy essential to the mobilisation of a protest vote, it also reflects a construction of Australian politics as dominated by an elite. Central to this is the exclusion of ordinary Australians. from public debate (particularly in the context of multiculturalism and immigration). ‘For almost five decades the management of our country has been left to career politicians who… [cannot] relate to ordinary Australians when more times than not, they have never had to risk their capital, fear losing their home because of a mortgage, face family hardships because of financial pressures…’. (One Nation 2001b)

While these politicians are self-serving, they also work in the interests of "international interests". Hanson expressed a suspicion ‘that the government has confused national interest with international interest... [and] that the government’s policy to internationalise us is flawed and will only destroy Australia and the lifestyle of Australian people.’ (Australia 1997d: 11014) Australian politicians in her view ‘are working for the internationalists, not the Australian people. Successive Liberal and Labor governments... have worked for the interests of just about everyone except the Australian people who elected them and pay them.’ (Australia 1997d: 11014) The ultimate consequence of the government’s polices is that Australian governments will no longer control domestic affairs. The federal government, under the leadership of John Howard,

enthusiastically advocates a reduced role for itself in the governing of Australia as we become internationalised. It suggests that as Australia merges into the world economy, domestic and foreign policy will merge and democratically elected government will have less control of Australian affairs. This also means that the Australian people will have less say in how this country is run. (Australia 1997d: 11016)

ii. Responding

The argument that the major parties are part of an elite structure that causes particular interests to be promoted over the general interest has had a long history. Indeed, these sorts of positions have been systematically presented from both the left and right for as long as there have been a left and right in Australian politics. For the left, it is the control of the ruling class (who have expanded from the owners of the means of production to those who manage both the economic and political aspects of society). For the right, it is either the promulgators of welfare or social liberalism or the political correct.

There seems to be considerable evidence that Australian society is dividing into those who are benefiting from the policies often described as promoting globalisation, and those who do not. Classical and neo-classical liberals, and those conservatives who promote classical liberal ideas as the only legitimate ideology in Australia, would suggest that this divide is simply a reflection of fundamental human difference and registers the normal inequality to be expected, perhaps even promoted, in any free society. Those who are being left behind because of "globalisation" cannot cope with the new economic and social realities and may be provided with some sort of social safety net, but little more. Many of them may be understood to seek to resist policies that reflect current realities, in this narrative, because they are lazy or inefficient (or both). There is no elite conspiracy, from this perspective, to preserve and enhance elite power and status to the detriment of everyone else. The inequality that One Nation identifies and criticises is, for the most part, simply a function of natural difference and the failure on the part of some people to acquire the skills that are necessary for success in the real world.

Almost of necessity, One Nation’s position is expressed without a significant level of sophistication. Sophistication is to be associated with the major parties, politicians in general and bureaucrats, as a result, is eschewed in favour of a lack of sophistication (which the more cynical might perceive to be a calculated projection of a lack of sophistication). This creates a problem, as unsophisticated claims of elite domination end up sounding like, if not being, conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories have been associated with people with a variety of intellectual and social pathologies. The problem for One Nation is that it cannot present a sophisticated theory and analysis of elite domination and must end up sounding like, and possibly being, the sort of conspiracy theorists who have been systematically denied legitimacy.

There can be little doubt that One Nation is plays to persistent, and apparently deeply entrenched, hostility toward politicians and bureaucrats and the decline in support for the major parties that also seems to mark recent Australian elections. (See Smith 2001) Given that neither the left or the right are yet to effectively promulgate an analysis and response to elitism in Australia means that the attack on elitism from One Nation seems to be the only one with any real political purchase.

The problem here, as Fletcher and Whip suggest, is that there may have been something of a failure in leadership but that this failure does not seem amenable to articulation in anything but the terms of One Nation. The question that arises, at least from my perspective, concerns not simply whether there has been a failure of leadership but how this failure can be meaningful discussed in public fora. As Fletcher and Whipp point out

people who do not like present policies which seem to disproportionately favour the well-off, have no issue representation; and they have no social representation because their ‘representatives’ have different experiences and ways of seeing things, a different language, and no immediate experience of real economic pain. ... it is in this sense that James Jupp, in his discussion of One Nation and populism, talks about leaders who are not like ordinary people but are much more like each other than politicians from the opposing parties used to be. (Fletcher and Whipp 2000: 81)

The existence of a self-conscious conspiracy seems a difficult thing to affirm and substantiate and any claim of this nature risks exclusion as "irrational". Developing a sophisticated analysis of inequality in Australia as a reflection of the dynamics of international capitalism, domination of a discursive formation, ideological hegemony (or any other versions of this position) seems impossible to articulate in a meaningful way. Certainly it cannot be done in a way that is comprehensible to those who lack the necessary intellectual capital to understand the notions. This seems to be reflected in Curthoys and Johnson’s assessment of the situation. ‘If, as many theorists of globalisation suggest, the world is increasingly dominated by international cosmopolitan metropolises such as Sydney, London and New York, with economically depressed hinterlands, then One Nation’s appeal in rural areas and small towns seems a sign of the times.’ (1998: 97-8)

Aborigines

iii. One Nation on Aborigines

Statements from One Nation concerning immigration and Aborigines are probably the two for which it is best known. The party is often accused of being racist as a result of these statements. In the case of Aborigines, One Nation makes two general types of claims. The first is that Aborigines can be understood to enjoy privileges and supports not available to other Australians. They claim that non-Aboriginal Australians are suffering from racist policies that exclude them from participating in government programmes and deny them benefits to which Aborigines have access. The second, and related, claim is that there exists an "Aboriginal industry", which generates these privileges and supports.

Hanson has argued consistently that neither she nor One Nation is racially prejudiced. Her position is that it is the major parties that have practised racism by using race as a basis for distributing social and economic benefits. ‘Racism in Australia has been entrenched by successive Liberal and Labor governments. It is clear that rather than trying to bring Australians from everywhere together, government policies have highlighted our differences and divided us with special benefits available to certain races.’ (One Nation 1997c) The consequence of distributing social and economic benefits on the basis of race, is, according to Hanson, to discriminate against disadvantaged people of non-Aboriginal descent. ‘Why the financial burdens and hardships on families of comparable incomes differ due to ‘Aboriginality’ is a mystery. Yet the gulf between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians is set to widen further.’ (Hanson 1997: 44) Hanson is not suggesting that Aborigines do not experience disadvantage ‘but there equally is no doubt that they are not on their own in their suffering either now or in the past.’ (Australia 1997e: 11972)

One Nation’s discussion of the treatment of Aborigines appears based on a zero sum game model. As benefits increase for one group, they decrease for another. Thus ‘while it is true that many Aboriginal people are not working and that they are living in appalling conditions... they do not have a monopoly on being disadvantaged, as it is also true that a million other Australians are not working and… feel little hope for the future...’. (Australia 1997c: 8900) In short, Hanson does not ‘believe that the colour of one’s skin determines whether you are disadvantaged.’ (Australia 1996a: 3860)

The complaint that emerges from One Nation is that needs on the part of non-Aboriginal Australians are not being addressed when they are being addressed with respect to Aborigines. ‘One Nation policy of for all Australians to be treated equally. Medical, dental and surgical services will be made available on the basis of need and not on the basis of race.’ (One Nation 1997e) The problem is that Australian society has been bifurcated and that this prevents any possibility that Aboriginal Australians will be included in the "mainstream". ‘The social security, health and employment services in this country are far from perfect, but they offer better services integrated into the rest of the community than ATSIC.’ (Australia 1997a: 4126)

One of the impediments to any attempt to change the treatment of Aborigines in Australia is the existence of what One Nation refers to as the "Aboriginal industry". While the exact nature of this industry is unclear, it may be most clearly traced by examining the beneficiaries of systems that provide support for Aborigines. ‘In response to my call for equality for all Australians, the most noisy criticism came from the fat cats, bureaucrats and the do-gooders. They screamed the loudest because they stand to lose the most—their power, money and position, all funded by ordinary Australian taxpayers.’ (Australia 1996a: 3861) Even Ray Martin is accused of failing to act professionally in not having ‘divorced himself from the bias you would expect from his close links with the Aboriginal industry and those who discredit decent Aboriginal Australians with their obvious and grubby grab for money.’ (Australia 1998b: 4697)

iv. Responding

The statements about Aborigines that emerge from One Nation are some of the most disturbing of their claims. Not because such claims are made, as Australian society has always contained and will probably always contain people who are antipathetic to Aborigines and, more particularly, Aborigines who refuse white culture (please note that I am not assuming that white culture is available to them, so their "refusal" is constructed). It is difficult to imagine that anyone in Australia could feel themselves to be so badly off that they perceive Aborigines to be doing better than they are. The sense of alienation that these people feel has to be unimaginable to most readers of this paper (given that readership reflects both the position of a degree of intellectual capital which allows it to both obtain and understand this paper). It is this aspect of the claims of One Nation that are the most disturbing, for they may indicate a failure of inclusion or sensitivity to a section of the Australian community.

We may be relieved that it is a relatively small percentage of the population may be a relief and, on this basis, may justify a lack of concern for this relatively small group of people. As Jackman has pointed out, however, Australians seem to be closer to One Nation’s views on race than they are to the major parties. The number of people, however, who may share in this view of Aborigines as privileged may well be greater than is registered in support for One Nation.

Perhaps the only thing more troubling than knowing that there are people who think this way is the possibility that they will be ignored. As Badcock has pointed out, stress is being felt in many parts of Australia. In his view, ‘there are many more ‘stressed-out’ communities scattered throughout our big cities than in regional Australia. These industrial suburbs have borne the brunt of structural adjustment in Australia and are home to more than their share of working class "battlers" who feel that they have been treated like second-class citizens by a succession of unconcerned governments.’ (Badcock 1998: 241) As Badcock also points out, these people feel completely abandoned by and alienated from Australian politics. For him,

the refusal of successive federal governments to properly help these ‘forgotten places’ and ‘excluded citizens’ to adjust to new economic and cultural realities has fuelled their sense of being expendable, and sown the seeds for the rise of ‘One Nation’. More and more people, whether in isolated country towns or on peripheral housing estates in the cities, have suffered a mounting sense of marginalisation and isolation to the point where ultimately they feel excluded as citizens by a political process that seems not to notice to care about their daily struggle for survival. (Badcock 1998: 242)

One of the main problems with One Nation’s analysis is that it may well be true that there is a zero sum game at work. As successive federal governments have reduced social services and the provision of welfare, the battle for the remainder of the funds may be akin to a zero sum game. While One Nation’s analysis of the situation has allowed for the mobilisation of racism in Australia, we would do well not to forget that those in marginal communities find themselves in competition with one another for the limited support that seems to be available for social welfare programmes. That these people are marginal and, as a result, in a situation in which they have little contact with or sense of how the truly privileged lives may explain something of their response to the treatment of Aborigines. The view from the bottom of Australian society precludes a clear perception of the top and may produce a focus on the "privileged" amongst the visible.

The notion of an Aboriginal industry is also one that merits more careful attention than it has received. Literature on policy communities, as well as post-structuralist theories of discursive communities, suggests that the notion of an Aboriginal industry may be meaningful. The construction of knowledge about Aborigines and their problems is, for those of us familiar with post-structuralist discourse analysis, discursively constituted through relationships of power. This power produces objects, experts and disciplinary regimes (imbued with systems of patronage) that may well be understood in terms of an industry. This industry, if we follow this intellectual position further, provides structures of inclusion and exclusion that legitimise certain constructions of the Aboriginal problem and deny legitimacy to others. I have little doubt that One Nation will have little effect on this discursive community and that this community will continue to construct the object/problem "Aborigines" and will administer this "problem". Nor do I have much doubt that this discursive community will continue to direct its, predominantly white, gaze at Aborigines.

Policy network theory, provide a similar analytical framework. While this framework has a variety of forms, each emphasises a network that produces the policy that governs responses to interests and issues. One of the most important aspects of a policy network is that it produces continuity of political response to issues or problems. Marsh and Rhodes

suggest that the existence of a tight policy network constrains the policy agenda and tends to result in policy continuity. The best example in Britain is the way in which the very close relations between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the National Farmers’ Union underpinned a policy of high production and high subsidies for over 50 years from the 1930s. While agriculture may represent the archetypal case, continuity, resulting to a significant extent from the existence and activities of a policy network, was also the hallmark of other policy areas considered in the Marsh and Rhodes book, notably smoking, nuclear power, diet and health, health services and sea defence. (Marsh 1998: 11)

One of the more important outcomes of the policy network, from an outsider’s perspective, is the regularity that it produces. Alternative views and approaches are disruptive to the network and will tend to meet with resistance from the network. That those in the network are often beneficiaries of the network is yet another problem, at least from the perspective of those who are not involved in the network.

The extent to which many Australians may feel excluded from the discursive relationships in which the problem of Aborigines are constructed and managed may well reflect actual exclusion. That this will fuel a sense of elite domination of Australian politics seems unsurprising. To defend expertise in this field may well be to defend elite domination. The exclusion that results may well be desirable, but it is exclusion and reflects the relatively ability of different groups in Australia to mobilise the intellectual capital necessary for participation in the construction of and policy making concerning "social problems".

Conclusion

Unlike many other Australian intellectuals, I do not find it easy to respond to One Nation. In part, because I do not have their belief in the truth, especially the truth of their own position. In part, because some of the issues that One Nation raises are hard to resolve without resorting to essentialism or ignoring the problems that the issues seem to raise. Of course, One Nation will have a limited effect on Australian politics and society. Those who speak on its behalf are not well positioned to influence contemporary political debates. These debates will remain the preserve of the major parties and the intellectuals whose response to One Nation has been to deny it legitimacy. Those who rail against One Nation will remain the winners in the power struggles that are politics and knowledge. Whether or not this is an appropriate response is not clear.

References

Brian Galligan and Winsome Roberts

University of Melbourne

Australian Citizenship and Globalisation

Globalisation is widely considered to be the major challenge facing nation states and democratic polities at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although a much contested concept, globalisation means essentially an intensification of international linkages in all spheres of human activity, including trade, commerce and governance that has been complemented by new communications technology. As a result some argue that the nation state is becoming increasingly obsolete as its power to govern domestic affairs is undermined by international forces and supplanted by transnational regulatory regimes. Globalists emphasise that governmental powers are passing upwards from the nation state to international bodies that set rules and standards for an increasing range of public policy matters. On the other hand, communitarians claim that power is moving downwards through locally based social movements. These twin forces of 'glocalisation', although pulling in different directions, are said to be eroding the sovereignty of the nation state. Those who believe that the nation state is the foundation of modern democratic governance view this process as detrimental, while others argue that cosmopolitan citizenship is enhanced by globalism. Those who favour greater citizenship participation may also see advantages in glocalisation.

Many Australians are anxious about the impact of globalisation on the nation's relatively small economy that is dependent on international trade and investment. This concern is heightened because Australia cannot readily join a congenial regional association of states such as the European Union as Britain has done, or the North American Free Trade Association as Canada has done. Despite increased orientation towards Asia since the Second World War, Australia remains apart in its cultural and social institutions that derive mainly from British settlement and are more akin to Europe’s and America’s. Australia's exposure and relative isolation heighten anxieties about globalisation that have been exacerbated by the deliberate exposure of our economy to global market forces. Australia’s 'protective state', that was established following Federation, has been rolled back and the national economy opened up to competition from world markets. The 'settled policies' of Australian political economy, tariff protection for manufacturing industries, wage fixing to ensure a basic wage and reasonable work conditions, and state provision of infrastructure, have been demolished or curtailed. Australia's people and industries have been exposed to the buffeting, as well as the opportunities, of world markets, as they were in the colonial era of the nineteenth century. As a consequence of our exposure and the intensification of global forces, globalisation has become something of a fearful bogey.

Add to this current uncertainty about Australian identity and citizenship and we have a troubled nation. Economic deregulation has occurred in advance of renewal in Australian civic culture and articulation of Australian citizenship. Old certainties about national identity have been eroding without a new consensus emerging. Questions and contestations dominate contemporary civic discourse. Who are we as Australians and how do we fit into the Asia Pacific region? Is multiculturalism appropriate and does it capture our strong Anglo-Irish heritage? How do indigenous Australians fit into the identity mosaic of modern nationhood and why were they dispossessed and excluded for so long? What happens to democratic rule when egalitarianism is being eroded by structural inequality ? When did we become an independent sovereign nation? Or do we still need to break the last ties of formal monarchism and republicanise the head of state in order to be truly independent? Can we cope as a nation-state with strong forces of globalisation that are undermining national sovereignty? Our national mood at the beginning of the twenty-first century is tinged with anxiety, confusion and lack of confidence. This is evident in populist movements like Pauline Hanson's One Nation party that has tapped grass roots disaffection in depressed areas of rural, regional and urban Australia. It is also reflected in leading public documents such as the Australian Citizenship Council's report on Australian Citizenship for a New Century that found 'no particular answer' to the question of what was distinctive about Australian political life.

Current anxieties about globalisation and national identity are in sharp contrast to the confidence and political creativity of Australians a century earlier. Secure within the British Empire that was the dominant global organisation of the day, Australians then constituted a new nation-state to enhance their collective identity within the world and expand domestic governance in a way that would preserve what was seen as a distinctive way of life. Federation was a significant feat of political architecture that enabled nation building through subsequent legislation and public policy making. It created a new national citizenship that extended the colonial citizenships already enjoyed in self-governing colonies, while at the same time retaining the political identity of British subjects. At federation Australians fashioned a nation state that expanded self government but they did so within a global empire which, on balance, they were proud to remain part of. The nation state was a vital instrument for mediating global forces in order to build a White Australia with a protected national economy, while at the same time remaining within Britain's protective global umbrella of diplomacy, defence and culture.

One hundred years on Australia has moved beyond the close ties with Britain and the cultural traditions of White Australia, but without properly articulating its national identity and citizenship. Some have found this in multiculturalism and diversity, assuming that this is sufficient to ground national cohesion and a stable democratic process. Such a view, however, misses the deeper foundations of political unity upon which Australian citizenship is based. Despite cultural and ethnic differences, Australians do share membership of a particular federal system of government whose polities provide institutions and laws that govern individual behaviour and collective decision making. Australian citizenship is particular and distinct, blending political principles and values that are more universal with distinctive Australian features of territory, heritage, society and culture. It is a citizenship with a history that spans two centuries. The national polity that dates from the turn of the twentieth century has a distinctive political history in a changing world and the state polities each have a political heritage that dates back to nineteenth century colonial self-government.

Modern multiculturalism is an excellent cultural policy for giving special assistance to migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds and facilitating their gradual integration into mainstream Australian life. It has also helped to enrich and diversify that mainstream, making Australia less of a British cultural clone. Multiculturalism is a product of changed national policies on immigration and support for immigrant groups, combined with a deeper commitment to pluralism and cosmopolitanism. It is a consequence of changed policies that affect the composition of the body of Australian citizens and help underpin greater diversity. Some enthusiasts want to make multiculturalism more substantial and serve as the basis of the Australian polity and citizenship; for them, many cultures are better than one. Such a view, however, overstates the character and significance of Australian multiculturalism. It ignores the unity of Australian political culture and the shared commonalities of its citizenship. It also underestimates the strength of mainstream Australian civil society based upon the English language and a shared understanding of the institutions of civic life and a liberal democratic regime. Thus multiculturalism provides a leavening rather than an explanation of Australian civil society and citizenship.

Citizenship is grounded in political unity rather than diversity, or at least in a unity that underpins or overrides diversity and makes possible dissent within consensus. A tolerant society will allow, even favour, diversity and contested opinions and interests but that is only possible if there is a common commitment to respect and tolerance of differences. A liberal democratic regime opens up a large public space for parliamentary deliberation and extra-parliamentary politics. However if civic processes are not understood political unity is jeopardised and Australian citizenship undermined. As a nation we need to appreciate how Australian citizenship has been constituted and citizenship practices developed over two centuries. We need to understand what has underpinned and at times challenged the consensual unity around Australian citizenship, and explore how that unity has been forged and fostered.

Citizenship is essentially a political construct and not a cultural or ethnic one. Confusion arises because building a nation-state as a political community has often relied on blurring citizenship with cultural and ethnic factors that are then used to buttress or even define citizenship of a particular state, as in the German and French cases. Similarly, in Australia, citizenship for much of the century was restricted to white people who were preferably of British origin. Nonetheless citizenship itself refers to political institutions and practices –to civil rights, legal rights, social and economic entitlements and associated duties. Of course citizenship is only one part of a person’s total life, or one association among many of which they are a member. But memberships in the political institutions that govern community life offer a stake in determining a way of life. Such rules can substantially affect how people live much of their lives in private, with family and friends, in clubs and churches, and in work places and businesses. At the same time multiple and diverse associations can support political life and citizenship, but they can also provide its challenges and problems. Civil society may reinforce racial and cultural prejudices that narrow public life and restrict citizenship, or reinforce trust and tolerance that expand and broaden them.

Australian governance and citizenship have always had a significant global dimension, being shaped by or in response to global influences and forces. Globalisation has always been with us but in different forms, and has been significant in explaining why Australian government and citizenship have developed the way they have. At the same time Australian governments have been important mediators, at times and in part blocking and channelling global forces, and at times exploiting opportunities and ameliorating adverse consequences. A global perspective gives a different picture of Australian political history from that assumed in the dominant narrative. The dominant narrative starts in the twentieth century and focuses on the nation-state. It assumes a progressive march from British dominion to sovereign nation, and from British subject to Australian citizen. The past is depicted as an era of immature subservience and dependency, while the present is presented as an age of national sovereign independence. Such an account heightens concerns about the modern inroads of globalisation on sovereign nationhood, while at the same time deepening the confusion about Australian political identity. Our nation seems not to be sovereign and, many fear, is being undermined by globalisation. Our identity is poorly articulated in domestic citizenship policy while uncertainty about who we are hampers our attempts to find a place in the Asia Pacific region of which we are part.

Fortunately, we can discard aspects of this contemporary account that demean our origins and unsettle our current state of mind. Once we focus on the global, over the longer time frame of two centuries, we can substitute the paradigm of multiple polities for sovereign nation, and the perspective of complex dependency and interdependency for national autonomy, so that the picture changes and some of the anxiety evaporates. While the forces of globalisation have changed radically over two centuries, the policies for mediating and moderating the effect of global forces have changed just as dramatically. Our current exposure is in part a consequence of changed policies that capture certain benefits of globalisation such as economic advantage and aspects of cosmopolitan citizenship. At the same time there are costs such as economic disadvantage to less robust industry sectors and regions, constraints upon domestic governments in leveraging economic forces and increasing structural inequality. Recognising that Australia has never been an autonomous sovereign nation state, but has always been a collectivity of political communities that have shaped and been influenced by international forces, helps in putting current affairs into perspective. There are benefits as well as costs from globalisation and these can be mediated by governments. For this purpose, having a federal system of government is an advantage because it allows multiple spheres of adjustment and broadens the public space for citizen contributions.

National government in Australia was constituted largely to mediate Australia’s position in a changing world. Through selective immigration policies and assisted passages, successive governments have shaped the Australian citizen body by determining who migrates and in what numbers. National and state governments have both contributed to the developing definition of citizenship and been the sites for contestation of political, civil and social rights. Many accounts of Australian citizenship have been both too ambitious and too superficial: too ambitious in wanting to reduce or encapsulate the variety of private lives and civil society into the political categories of citizenship; and superficial in finding only variety and difference when they do so. The genius of citizenship in our sort of liberal democratic polity is that it does not crowd out variety and difference. Its strength is that it does have a foundation of common political values buttressed by a political culture of shared experiences and beliefs. Difference is not sufficient grounding for a stable polity. But in any case the Australian polity and citizenship are not grounded on diversity and difference, as those who confound multicultural policy with citizenship proffer, but on shared political values and a common political culture.

Australians, in making a new nation state one hundred years ago, did not define themselves wholly in peculiarly Australian attributes or terms. While they talked extensively about the new category of Australian citizenship that they were creating, they defined it in terms of 'British subject' that was not specifically tied to the new nation state. In adopting a federal constitution in which neither the national nor state governments were sovereign, and retaining membership of the British Empire that underwrote a broader political association for both dominion nation members and individual subjects, Australians put in place a complex citizenship of multiple dimensions. The nation state they created was not sovereign, nor was their citizenship restricted to it. We should not assume that what they created was deficient; rather that the sovereign nation state paradigm does not apply.

Beyond the Nation State

It is a mistake to limit citizenship to the paradigm of the sovereign nation state that has been the dominant conceptual model in postwar decades. According to Stephen Castles, this has been the foundation upon which democratic citizenship is constructed in Australia:

This notion of citizenship based on the territorial nation state has its origins in the treaties of Westphalia of 1648 that, among other things, empowered the prince to determine the religion of subjects throughout the prince's realm. In the transition to territorial states, old networks of feudal loyalties and superior religious claims of Catholic popes to secular authority were swept aside. European kingdoms, such as England, France, Portugal and Spain were gradually transformed into nation states and these progressively imposed religious and cultural homogeneity. Political power was consolidated and secularised by the French Revolution that centralised national power and legitimated popular sovereignty. As Habermas points out, nationalism added the 'specifically modern phenomenon of cultural integration' that shapes national consciousness and is used to mobilise otherwise isolated individuals. According to Habermas: 'Nationalism is a form of collective consciousness which both presupposes a reflexive appropriation of cultural traditions that have been filtered through historiography and which spreads only via the channels of modern mass communication.'

Globalisation is undermining the notion of a sovereign nation state as critics like Andrew Linklater point out:

The post-Westphalian vision of Linklater and others draws heavily upon the earlier work of theorist Hedley Bull who suggested that international society was moving towards a form of 'neo-medievalism'. Notions of individual rights and duties and a growing sense of 'a world common good' that extended beyond the nation state were undermining the idea of national sovereignty. Bull saw in the complex layering of international, national and sub-national organisations and loyalties a healthy corrective to the system of self-contained nation states. For him, neo-medievalism might help 'avoid the classic dangers of the system of sovereign states by a structure of overlapping structures and cross-cutting loyalties that hold all peoples together in a universal society while at the same time avoiding the concentration inherent in a world government'.

A world of multiple loyalties and memberships on the part of citizens that are not restricted to the nation state has profound implications for traditional understandings of citizenship and sovereignty. It is not simply the emerging world of the future, however, but also that of Australia's past when nationhood was forged within the British Empire. Australia was never a standard Westphalian sovereign nation state to begin with, but one whose citizenship entailed multiple loyalties and membership of global, national and regional state political communities--the British Empire, the Australian Commonwealth and one or other of the regional states such as Victoria or Queensland. Until 1948, Australians called themselves 'British subjects' rather than Australian citizens, a formal title that indicated that their loyalties were not solely restricted to Australia but were to Britain as well. Even within their territorial nation state, Australians had multiple memberships in national, state and local political communities.

Earlier membership of the British Empire was crucial for the development of Australian citizenship and nationhood and globalisation. Comparative scholars like Krasner acknowledge that the British Empire/Commonwealth, from about mid-nineteenth century to the Second World War, was one of the notable systems of nations that was not based on international legal sovereignty. Others include the Holy Roman Empire that lasted from the ninth until the early nineteenth century, and the modern European Union. British imperial citizenship resembled that of other loosely organised empires, including most notably the Roman. The Romans extended the scope of citizenship from its classic origins in cities and small republics, freeing it from strict territorial boundaries by admitting whole communities. They admitted Latins from adjacent polities and subsequently other peoples from diverse regions as Rome's empire expanded. Roman citizenship became based more on political and legal entitlements and obligations and less on bounded locality. Reflecting upon imperial citizenship in its various forms helps us appreciate aspects of early Australian citizenship experience that are otherwise distorted by the sovereign state model.

Imperial extension, however, is only part of the more complex Australian tradition; federalism is the other part that transcends the neat sovereign state model. Federalism entails dual spheres of government, national and state, with government powers divided between them by an overarching constitution so that each government is one of limited powers and none are sovereign. As a result, federalism effectively entails dual citizenship or membership in two spheres of governance, each of which deals with significant citizenship rights and entitlements but neither of which is comprehensive or absolute. The Australian nation that was established at federation built upon and preserved established colonies with, in most cases, half a century of self government. Included in colonial government was a system of local government that developed to provide an additional sphere of governance and citizenship participation. The colonies, along with their established systems of local government, were preserved in somewhat changed form as states and a new tier of national government was added in the process that created the Australian nation. Australian federation was not simply a compact between the colonies fixed by political brokers. It grew from grass roots nationalism. The framers of the constitution drafted a document that the people of the colonies would accept, and that was subsequently endorsed by their voting in referendum. This popular basis is reflected in the preamble to the Westminster Act that formally passed the constitution: 'the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessings of Almighty god, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established'. Western Australains made up their mind to join federation at a late stage in the process and so were not included.

Because federal citizenship entails multiple memberships and loyalties in a complex matrix of domestic governance arrangements, adding an international dimension is not incompatible. Just as membership of the British Empire expanded early Australian citizenship by adding a transnational dimension, participation in modern international regimes where certain norms and standards are set universally can provide a positive extension of citizenship. The global dimension might properly be seen as enriching modern citizenship rather than undermining it, as the exclusive sovereign state model supposes. Citizenship is not completely 'bounded' to the nation state, as David Miller claims. In Miller's view: 'All our experience of citizenship, then, has so far been of bounded citizenship within the walls of the city-state, later citizenship within the cultural limits of the nation-state.' But confining citizenship so narrowly ignores the more complex historical experience of nations like Australia that are formed within empires such as the British. In particular it fails to recognise Australian experience where political membership and loyalty of citizenship were not exclusive to the nation state. The Australian experience shows that citizenship need not be bounded by the nation state, just as nationhood need not be premised solely on sovereign independence. Furthermore, Australian experience with multiple spheres of domestic governance shows how citizenship can be grounded in ways that extend individual and group inclusion, participation and belonging. More complex and layered citizenship is possible where multiple spheres of domestic governance allow membership in, and loyalty to local, regional and national political associations.

Australian citizenship has its foundations in colonial history. A common mistake among commentators is to date its origins from the foundation of the nation state at the turn of the twentieth century, or more superficially from 1949 when Australians were formally called Australian citizens for the first time.

The more significant formative era, when the character of Australian political institutions was initially defined, was the colonial.

Citizenship and Civil Society

Political institutions and formal arrangements are necessary for establishing both a political community and its citizenship, but they are not sufficient. Human passions and aspirations have to be engaged, and habits of thought and action cultivated that support participation and reinforce compliance. Citizenship means membership in a particular political community that requires loyalty, patriotism and even heroism in times of war. Traditionally, national poetry, painting, literature, political rhetoric and historiography have extolled citizenship qualities and actions that are seen as desirable and worthy of emulation. Political communities are often endowed with mythical and imaginary qualities, as Benedict Anderson pointed out. Founding events and great leaders may be lionised, and shameful events such as the conquest and displacement of other peoples rendered as triumphant deeds. At a more mundane level, aspects of participation and association such as acquiring citizenship or casting ones vote are surrounded with reinforcing ceremony and ritual.

Citizenship and political participation are only a part of what is significant in human experience. Citizens live most of their lives in the private domain of family and friends, earning a living and providing for themselves and their dependents, perhaps joining voluntary associations and community groups ranging from churches to sporting clubs. This is the realm of private life and civil society where citizenship qualities can be enhanced by congenial practices and habits. For example, moral virtues of caring for others, cooperation and tolerance that enhance public life depend more for their nurturing on homes, schools and churches than on political fiat. A liberal democratic regime has as one of its main purposes the protection of large spheres of human activity for individual choice including the choice to form and join civic associations. People can go about their own private business without undue influence by the state. They can also form voluntary political associations to shape public opinion and organise political activities to change laws and policies including those that govern citizenship. Liberal democratic politics has the over-arching role of preserving and facilitating civil society but is in turn strengthened by its independent vigour.

If the tendency in the past was to overemphasise the primacy of the political and the significance of formal institutions, in recent decades the pendulum has swung the other way. Communitarian theorists emphasise the significance of associations in civil society irrespective of whether or not they are politically oriented. Michael Walzer does allow a certain primacy to the formal institutions of the state, recognising that civil society requires these for its survival. Nevertheless, he insists with other communitarians that the social precedes the political as well as the economic. Robert Putnam argues that the political health of a society can be measured by the number and vitality of its civil society groups, such as choral societies and soccer clubs. Other more extreme communitarians like Selznick proclaim 'the primacy of the community over the state'. Important as the associations of civil society are, however, giving them precedence over the formal political institutions of the state is going too far. Just as political institutions of the state should not subsume and replace civil society, private and economic spheres of life cannot substitute for the political. Once political activity and the state replace all other forms of human association they become oppressive and degenerate into tyranny. On the other hand, if private or economic interests or religious groups rule in their own interests there is a comparable perversion of politics and citizenship practice.

In a recent study, John Ehrenberg sums up civil society as 'a sphere that is formally distinct from the body politic and state authority on the one hand, and from the immediate pursuit of self-interest and the imperatives of the market on the other.' While acknowledging the richness of civil society and the multiple memberships of people in various civic groups and associations, we should not confuse membership in any voluntary association with citizenship. It is important to restrict it to membership of political parties, advocacy groups or social movements that seek to support or change the formal policies of the state. Wayne Hudson is correct in his recent observation that 'citizenship is not one thing' and monistic. As we have argued above, people can enjoy multiple memberships in a number of political communities. However, Hudson's notion of 'differential citizenship' stretches the term to a plurality of 'cases and terrains of sexual, educational, media, military, environmental, ecological, and religious citizenship'. This blurs the notion of citizenship with membership of non-political associations and groups. Schools are indeed common sites for training in good citizenship, as Hudson observes, but to describe this as 'school citizenship' is confusing. Citizenship consists fundamentally of membership in a political association: this need not be exclusive or monistic, but it is political. Theoretical rigour as well as common usage support a more restrictive use of citizenship.

Conclusion

Australian citizenship is more complex than much contemporary scholarship allows. Examining Australian citizenship over time reveals a layering of memberships in multiple political communities from the imperial through to the local. The focus in contemporary studies has been primarily on citizenship that attaches to the nation-state, but this is by no means the only citizenship that Australians have enjoyed in the past or, for that matter, enjoy today. Multiple membership in global and local political communities have always been important for Australians. A federal system of government, that some have characterised as overgovernment, has allowed greater flexibility of political response. Global communities, whether the British Empire in the past or the various international associations under the United Nations umbrella in recent decades, have provided a reference and standard for national citizenship and something of a corrective against parochialism and xenophobic narrowness. Sub-national communities are also significant sites where citizenship rights and duties are contested and transacted in the day to day lives of people. Much of the lived experience of citizenship derives from the personal and the particular, and to reflect this citizenship ceremonies are conducted in municipal communities.

In thinking about Australian citizenship we need to keep in mind the variety and complexity that derives from membership in multiple political communities as well as a variety of civil associations. While citizenship has begun receiving attention from Australian scholars there has been little consensus. Hudson and Kane present a kaleidoscope of contemporary views in a recent collection, pointing out that there is a 'confusing plurality of different perspectives' but 'no clear consensus emerges about exactly how to rethink Australian citizenship'. Others like Davidson remain stuck in the formalised paradigm of ‘subject to citizen’. We need to recognise that early Australian citizenship was a robust blend of native Australian and transplanted British civic practice that is belied by the formal term 'subject' that critics have made so much of. Australian citizenship today is multi-dimensional with Australians being members of supra-national, national and sub-national polities, as well as belonging to local, regional, national and international groups.

We need a sweeping reinterpretation of Australian citizenship and governance based on recognition that both have been formed and developed as a consequence of, and in response to, global forces and challenges from the beginning. This enables us to give a more complete analysis of Australian citizenship that takes account of colonial governance and a more balanced treatment of the challenges of modern globalisation that Australia faces today. Putting globalisation in historical perspective shows how it has always been a major formative force in Australian society, politics and economics. With such knowledge Australians should be more confident in enjoying the opportunities of modern globalisation and meeting its challenges. The federal system has allowed a complex layering of political mediation and multiple spheres of citizenship that enable greater flexibility of response. Moreover, Australia has a rich political heritage of complex citizenship and governance that suits it for meeting the challenges of globalisation in the twenty first century.

Marcus Ganley

University of Western Australia

Mori Affairs Committee, New Zealand House of Representatives.

The role of New Zealand Parliament in the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process

In its latest quarterly report, the Office of Treaty Settlements, the New Zealand government agency charged with negotiating settlements of historic Treaty of Waitangi claims, lists 11 settlements as having been reached since 21 September 1992. There are currently approximately 900 claims registered before the Waitangi Tribunal. While each settlement sees numerous claims extinguished, it seems likely that the settlement process will continue for many years. In evidence before the Māori Affairs select committee in early August, the director of the Office of Treaty Settlements refused to be drawn on whether the settlement process would be completed this millennium (Milne 2001, 18).

This paper focuses on one area of the Treaty settlement process – parliamentary scrutiny. Part II outlines the Treaty settlement process. Part III discusses the current role of Parliament in this process and limitations on its role. Part IV examines the normative arguments for and against greater parliamentary scrutiny. Part V examines the new procedures for scrutinising international treaties, while Part VI examines whether these procedures could be adapted for deed of settlement legislation.

In September 1994 Cabinet determined that all claims prior to 21 September 1992 would be treated as historical claims (Graham 1997, 60). This date was chosen because it was the date on which Cabinet agreed to general principles for settling Treaty of Waitangi claims (Office of Treaty Settlements 1994, 13-17). Claims after this date are treated as ‘contemporary’ claims. The Office of Treaty Settlements is responsible for co-ordinating government policy with respect to historic claims.

While most of the settlement legislation dealt with by Parliament relates to the settlement of historical grievances, this is not exclusively the case. The Waitutu Block Settlement Act 1997 and the Tutae-Ka-Wetoweto Forest Bill, which is currently before the House, are examples of legislation implementing settlements that fall outside the normal historical settlements process. In both cases a deed of settlement and a conservation covenant was entered into between the Māori registered proprietors of land and the Crown. The legislation gives effect to the agreements. Rather than being for the purpose of settling Treaty grievances, the purpose of the agreements was to ensure the land in question was managed in a manner consistent with conservation values. The Department of Conservation deemed the land to be of particular conservation value. The Crown purchased the cutting rights in perpetuity and reached agreement with the landowners as to the management of the land.

These settlements fall within the ambit of this paper because the same principles apply to the way Parliament can scrutinise them as apply to legislation implementing historical settlements. Also, in each case, in addition to cutting rights, part of the quantum paid by the Crown in these cases was in consideration for the withdrawal of Treaty claims over the land. The Waitutu Block Settlement Act also prohibits the Waitangi Tribunal from any further investigation into the claims previously lodged.

Most settlements dealt with by Parliament are settlements of historic grievances. Once a claim is lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal a claimant group can ask the Office of Treaty Settlements or the Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations to commence negotiations (Office of Treaty Settlements 1999, 3).

As a first step the Crown requires the claimants to establish three elements. First they need to prove the claim. In many cases, the preference of claimants is to have a Waitangi Tribunal report as this provides a clear basis for negotiations. The Crown prefers direct negotiation wherever possible, without recourse to the Waitangi Tribunal process. The Office of Treaty Settlements see the Waitangi Tribunal process as quite separate from negotiations with the Crown and will not formally negotiate on a claim that is under active consideration before the Waitangi Tribunal (Office of Treaty Settlements 1999, 5). However, the Office of Treaty Settlements will ‘carefully consider’ the Waitangi Tribunal’s findings as part of the ‘proving the claim’ stage of their process.

Once claimants have proved the claim, they need to consolidate claims so that they are comprehensive and at the iwi level. The Crown does not settle claims issue by issue and ‘strongly prefers’ to settle at the iwi (tribal) level. Once these steps have been taken the Office of Treaty Settlements requires proof that the negotiators purporting to represent the claimant group have a clear mandate from the claimant group. The mandating process is finalised once Cabinet on the advice of the Office of Treaty Settlements and Te Puni Kōkiri (the Ministry of Māori Affairs) recognises a deed of mandate.

Once the deed of mandate has been achieved the Crown seeks to achieve formal ground rules for negotiations referred to as Terms of Negotiations. These allow the Crown and the claimants to move to formal negotiations. The goal of the formal negotiations is to reach a Deed of Settlement. Before a deed is signed the parties may enter into a Heads of Agreement. This outlines the basis for the final deed of settlement. The Office of Treaty Settlements is currently seeking to move directly to the Deed of Settlement stage in many negotiations. Once a Deed of Settlement is reached it needs to be ratified by both sides. On the Crown side, it is finalised by Cabinet approval. Following Cabinet approval the Deed, as agreed by the Crown and the negotiators for the claimant group, needs to be ratified by the wider claimant group. Once the claimant group has ratified a Deed of Settlement the Crown and claimant representatives sign it. From this point it is legally binding on both parties.

While the economic or commercial redress in settlements draws much attention, settlements have three parts: a formal apology, cultural redress and economic redress. The formal apology both details the history of the particular Treaty breaches and sets out an apology from the Government on behalf of all New Zealanders.

Cultural redress can take a number of forms in different settlements. In the Ngati Ruanui settlement, cultural redress takes the form of an acknowledgement of the traditional, historical, cultural and spiritual association that Ngati Ruanui has with places and sites owned by the Crown within their area of interest. This is manifested by:

• statutory acknowledgements under the Resource Management Act 1991 and the Historic Places Act 1993
• Deeds of Recognition guaranteeing Crown consultation with regard to certain sites
• the recognition of a special area within an existing conservation area
• the establishment of protocols on matters of cultural importance between Ngati Ruanui and government departments
• changing official place names
• transferring areas of special significance
• acknowledging the association of Ngati Ruanui with indigenous species
• restoration of access to traditional foods and food gathering areas.

Commercial redress will normally be made up of a combination of Crown-owned land and cash. Settlements can also include other commercial elements such as a right of first refusal to buy surplus Crown land, within the settlement area.

CURRENT ROLE OF PARLIAMENT IN THIS PROCESS

Parliament has no formal role in the negotiating process. The only role for Parliament is to process the legislation implementing the settlements as agreed between the Crown and the parties to the settlement. Once Cabinet has confirmed the Deed of Settlement on behalf of the Crown and the claimant group has ratified it the Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations and representatives of the claimants sign the Deed and enter into a binding legal agreement. All that is left is for Parliament to pass the legislation implementing the agreement.

The only opportunity Parliament has to scrutinise proposed settlements is when bills to implement the settlements are introduced. While the ability of the political executive to dominate the legislature has been a major theme in the voluminous literature on the role of parliament, and more particularly its purported decline, in Westminster-derived systems, (for example, Hill & Whichelow 1964, Jaensch 1986, Lindsay 1967, Lord Hailsham 1978, McRae 1994, Palmer 1992, Smith 1994, 107-109, Wilenski 1982) this does not suggest that Parliament should not scrutinise the legislative proposals of the executive. Indeed most authors commenting on the decline of Parliament are arguing for the strengthening of the legislature with respect to the executive.

The main opportunity for substantive scrutiny of the legislative proposals in the New Zealand system of government occurs at the select committee stage of the legislative process. Select committees normally advertise for public submissions and call for reports from the Government departments most closely concerned with the legislation. As well as receiving written submissions from the public, committees hear witnesses who wish to present their submissions in person. This public involvement is a key element in the process. When government legislation is introduced we can usually assume that considerable work has gone into its development. However, most of this work goes on behind closed doors. The very open nature of the public submission and hearing process creates an impression of legitimacy. The expectation is created that some credence will be paid to public submissions. Where there is significant public concern expressed during the hearings of evidence this makes it difficult politically for a government to press on with the legislation it sent to the committee without any modifications, though a government with a clear legislative majority may well do so.

Most bills are reported with amendments. These can encapsulate both technical and policy changes. Those amendments that are recommended unanimously by the committee are automatically adopted if the bill receives a second reading. At the end of the second reading debate a separate question is put seeking the house’s approval of the amendments that are recommend by majority of the committee (Standing Orders 292 and 294). If a majority of members of the House disagree with the unanimous recommendations of the select committee but still wish the bill to proceed they need to support the second reading and move amendments to the bill at the committee of the whole House stage.

New Zealand’s system of select committees has been viewed favourably by commentators outside New Zealand (Coghill 1996, Stone 1998, 52) and Burrows and Joseph (1990, 306) go as far as to describe New Zealand’s committee system as "a crucial bastion of democracy in our legislative process." Certainly there is a pattern of significant changes being made to legislation in the select committee process (Iles 1991, 171-173, Palmer 1979, 23, Skene 1990, 19-21, Ganley 2000a). It also appears that Members of Parliament value select committee work highly in comparison at least to speaking in the House (Ganley 200b, 73).

However, with legislation to implement settlements of Treaty grievances, as with legislation to implement international agreements, the role of Parliament is constrained. If the implementing legislation is substantively amended, the other party to the agreement may decide that the agreement has been breached. This leaves Parliament in what is, effectively, a take it or leave it position. If it believes the legislation needs substantive amendment, it may well have to reject the legislation in its entirety.

The clearest manifestation of the limitations is the way the concept of ‘scope’ operates to limit amendments to Treaty implementation legislation. The concept is intended to ensure that different matters are dealt with in different Acts. It prevents a bill from being amended during the legislative process so that it deals with matters other than those it was intended to when it was introduced. Although the word scope commonly used in parliamentary practice it does not appear in the Standing Orders of the legislatures of New Zealand, Australia, Canada or the United Kingdom (Cooper 2000, 3). In New Zealand the concept is outlined in Standing Order 283(2) for select committees and Standing Order 295(2) for the Committee of the whole House. Both provisions read:

The principle is elaborated in Speaker’s Ruling 91/6, which states "A bill can be amended only in ways that are relevant to the text. It cannot be turned into something that it is not, and did not start out as."

Bills that implement international treaties or deeds of settlement of claims under the Treaty of Waitangi have a particularly narrow scope. The purpose of such bills is to implement an international treaty or a deed of settlement so amendments must be consistent with the treaty or deed concerned. In practice this means that it is outside the scope of such bills to substantively amend them in a manner that is not acceptable to the parties to the deed or treaty being implemented. Douglas Graham expressed the principle in the following terms:

The effect is that the House and its committees are much more tightly constrained in their consideration of these bills than with other legislation. However, the bills can still be examined to determine whether the provisions in the bill appropriately implement the treaty or deed concerned. Treaties or deeds do not necessarily set out in fine detail how they are to be implemented; there may be varying approaches to implementation that are still consistent with the instrument concerned. The House and the committees may also examine provisions to determine whether they necessarily arise from the deed or treaty. Also the drafting of legislation can be scrutinised for both its accuracy and its appropriateness.

The select committee that spent over 150 hours examining the Ngai Tahu settlement described the way the constraint should be understood in the following terms:

It would appear that the Courts may not see Parliament’s role as quite as constrained as Parliament itself does. In Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu v Waitangi Tribunal McGechan J made the following comments regarding proposed amendments to the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Bill:

The most recent bill to implement a deed of settlement, the Tutae-ka-Wetoweto Forest Bill, saw a further constraint on the select committee consideration of the legislation. The resolution referring the bill to the Māori Affairs Committee included an instruction "that the committee be constrained in its consideration of the bill by the deed and covenant entered into by the Crown and the people of Rakiura." The effect of this constraint is not clear, but it appears to be the product of frustrations expressed by the previous Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations during the consideration of the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Bill (see below). If it is not redundant then it must place some greater constraint on the committee than that contained in the scope rule. The committee’s commentary indicates that the committee took the constraints in the instruction seriously:

Again when discussing significant issues relating to Tangata Whenua status and customary rights the committee notes:

The current procedures for parliamentary scrutiny of Treaty legislation represent a compromise between the desire of the legislature to rigorously scrutinise legislation and the concern not to undermine settlements. Legislation is sent to select committees. While the Justice and Law Reform Committee considered the Waikato-Tainui settlement, the practice now is to send settlement legislation to the Māori Affairs Committee. The committee hears evidence and recommends limited amendments. Where the committee has substantive concerns, these can be highlighted to the House it the committee’s commentary on the bill.

The Māori Affairs Committee’s consideration of the Tutae-Ka-Wetoweto Forest Bill is indicative of the role select committee scrutiny can play. Despite the restrictions, the committee unanimously recommended a number of changes to Bill. The preamble was amended to clarify that the bill did not deem the Forest to be a national park. The clause purporting to apply the offence provisions of the Reserves Act 1977 to the Forest was amended and a mis-description of the land to be covered was corrected.

These changes were important. However, there are much broader issues in the bill on which the committee was unable to make recommendations. Of particular importance was the question, raised by Te Runanga O Ngai Tahu, of whether it is appropriate for Parliament to legislatively determine who is tangata whenua in an area and what customary rights apply. The committee reported its concerns to the House, but could do no more.

SHOULD PARLIAMENT HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY?

Parliamentary practice with regard to Treaty settlement legislation has been to take a cautious approach towards scrutinising the legislation to avoid undermining the settlement reached. This part of the paper examines the normative question, what should Parliament’s role be in the Treaty settlement process?

The problem with allowing Parliament its normal role in considering Treaty settlement legislation is that it would undermine the negotiation process undertaken by the Crown and claimants. The agreements will be the culmination of many years of lengthy and elaborate negotiations. There is obviously a concern that it not be derailed at the last stage. This problem does not face most legislation, which is based on government policy, rather than binding agreements reached between the Government and another group.

The issue has exercised Parliament in recent years. During the debate on the House’s consideration of the report of the Justice and Law Reform committee (as it then was) on the Ngai Tahu Claims settlement bill, then Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Sir Douglas Graham argued:

During the debate on re-referring the Ngati Turangitukua Claims Settlement Bill to the Māori Affairs Committee, the same issue arose. Tukoroirangi Morgan went as far to argue against select committee consideration of settlement legislation:

The limited view is not universally accepted. In the same debate ACT MP Donna Awatere Huata argued strongly for Parliament to assume its normal role in scrutinising the legislation:

Certainly Parliament should not be put in a position where its scrutiny could undermine settlements. It does not follow from this that Parliament should not have substantive role to play in the Treaty settlement process. What is needed is a constructive role for Parliament in process.

The current procedures followed by the House represent a compromise between the desire of the legislature to rigorously scrutinise legislation and the concern not to undermine settlements. The result is a process in which scrutiny is weak. Ensuring effective legislative scrutiny is not merely a theoretical argument about establishing constitutionally appropriate parliamentary processes. Certainly the idea that the government of the day can introduce particular bills with a presumption that they will not be subjected to substantive amendment sits uncomfortably within our conception of the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive. However, effective scrutiny is beneficial in itself, not just to ensure some abstract goal of ‘constitutional purity."

Effective parliamentary scrutiny offers a number of benefits. These include providing an independent forum for the voicing of grievances, allowing an opportunity to rectify any significant problems with the proposed settlement and ensuring the executive government’s conduct of the negotiation process is subject to critical examination.

Currently the opportunities for those who disagree with a settlement to place their grievances on record before the settlement becomes a fait acompli are limited. While the executive government, through the Office of Treaty Settlements or Te Puni Kōkiri, may consult with interest parties, this is not the same as being able to highlight concerns in front of a legislative committee charged with scrutinising the process. The incentives of the government agencies are also quite different to those of a committee of members representing a range of political parties. As noted above, the process of making submissions to a select committee that is unable to make substantive changes is also unsatisfactory.

With most settlements there will be disputes within the claimant community. Often these will centre on mandate issues. There will often be complaints from groups who feel that their concerns have been overlooked. It is important that these parties have the opportunity to make their concerns known before any settlement is finalised. Often settlements will impact on the interests of organised, non-Māori, interest groups. It is appropriate for such groups to have access to a forum where they can make substantive comment, outside the negotiating process.

Parliament, through its committees, is unlikely to challenge the fundamental basis for a settlement. However, occasionally scrutiny may reveal the need for substantive change. Currently if this occurs during select consideration of implementing legislation, it is outside the scope of the committee’s consideration to recommend changes. If the concerns are substantial enough they could put a majority of parliament in the position of feeling compelled to reject the settlement. If parliamentary scrutiny could take place before a settlement was finalised, the opportunity would remain for the parties to consider any concerns of this nature that arise. If the Māori Affairs Committee had the opportunity to scrutinise the settlement between the Crown and the Rakiura Māori Land Trust before the introduction of the Tutae-ka-Wetoweto Forest Bill, the committee may have recommended that the government reconsider defining tangata whenua status and customary rights in the legislation. The negotiations that had to take place after the select committee stage could have taken place before the legislation was drafted. This may even have assisted in expediting the progress of the legislation in the House.

Speaking during the debate on the consideration of report of Māori Affairs Committee on the Ngati Turangitukua Claims Settlement Bill, Rana Waitai expounded the need for select committee scrutiny of the actions of the Office of Treaty Settlements:

It is not necessary to apportion any malevolence to the Office of Treaty Settlements to accept the necessity of scrutiny of its legislative proposals. The Office of Treaty Settlements undertakes arduous negotiations on behalf of the Crown. There is little to suggest that it puts the progression of individual settlements ahead of questions of the appropriateness of the settlement offered or the overall settlement process. To do so would disadvantage the Office in other negotiations. However, the role of the Office of Treaty Settlements is to finalise settlements and the role of the legislature to scrutinise legislative proposals. One does not have to believe that the Ministry of Economic Development is working against the interests of economic development to believe that the legislative proposals of that ministry require careful scrutiny. The same applies to settlements reached by the Office of Treaty Settlements. This kind of scrutiny is also valuable in that, when a government department knows that its decisions will be questioned in public forum, this effects departmental behaviour.

Despite perceptions to the contrary, Parliament’s processes have shown themselves to be quite adaptable. Today’s Estimates process is seldom thought of as a legislative process. Parliament’s own Standing Orders distinguish between "Legislative Procedures" in chapter five and "Financial Procedures" (which include the Estimates process) in chapter six. Yet underpinning the whole elaborate Estimates process is the annual appropriations bill which receives a first reading, is referred to a select committee, is debated in committee of the whole, receives a third reading and is assented to by the Crown. More recently Parliament has adopted special processes to facilitate scrutiny of international treaties. As has been previously alluded, there are some strong conceptual parallels between the processes concerning international treaties and Treaty settlements. Given these parallels, the new international treaty processes provide a useful starting point in a search for a constructive parliamentary role in the Treaty settlement process.

HAVING ONE’S CAKE AND EATING IT TOO: THE INTERNATIONAL TREATY APPROVAL PROCESS

In the Westminster tradition the making of international treaties is an executive rather than a legislative act. The power to create obligations at the international level with another state is part of the Royal Prerogative – the residue of the legal powers of the Crown that Parliament has not legislated away. In the United Kingdom, the Government is expected to table the text of any proposed settlement in Parliament 21 days before it is ratified. However, the government can modify the process (Evans 1999, 450). This contrasts markedly with the situation in the United States of America, where the President requires the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate before making a treaty (Evans 1999, 450). However, unlike the United States where treaties become part of domestic law on ratification, in the Westminster tradition they need to be implemented by legislation. Fulfilling this requirement has been Parliament’s role in the treaty process. Where the treaty does not require implementing legislation, Parliament had no role in scrutinising treaty.

In 1996 the Clerk of the New Zealand House of Representatives made a substantial submission to the Standing Orders committee, arguing strongly for pre-ratification parliamentary scrutiny of proposed treaties. This submission drew heavily on the developments in Australia. In the next parliament the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee inquired into Parliament’s role in the treaty process (Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee 1997). The committee recommended a similar process to that proposed by the Clerk of the House. Based on the committee’s recommendation Parliament started scrutinising treaties on a trial basis in May 1998. The process was incorporated into the Standing Orders when they were revised in August 1999.

Standing Order 384 requires most international treaties to be referred to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee for scrutiny. The committee either examines the Treaty itself or refers it to the appropriate subject committee, which then reports to the House on its examination. While Standing Orders do not specify a time limit for committee consideration of treaties, the Government can proceed with ratification after 15 sitting days.

The most notable shortcoming of this process is the inadequate time committees have to consider the treaties referred to them before the government can proceed with ratification. This was highlighted during the debate over the Singapore-New Zealand Closer Economic Partnership. Dr Jane Kelsey made the following comments about the process:

Currently the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade select committee is considering a Member’s Bill in the name of Green MP Keith Locke that attempts to strengthen the process. However, despite its shortcomings the international treaty process does allow Parliament to have a role it could not previously in scrutinising the treaties.

This process could provide a model for parliamentary scrutiny of deed of settlement legislation. Before the Crown finally signed it, the deed could be referred to the Māori Affairs Committee for consideration. This could be done simply by way of a government motion, without requiring any changes to Standing Orders. By motion, the House could refer the draft deed to the committee, requiring it to report back to the House within a prescribed time frame. However, as this would be a recurring process it would be preferable to make provision for it in Standing Orders.

Once the deed is referred to the committee, it would normally call for public submissions along with submissions from interested government departments. While the Office of Treaty Settlements would have the primary interest, Te Puni Kōkiri would also be in a position to brief the committee on the proposed settlement, as would other affected agencies, such as the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries. Following its consideration the committee would be required to report its findings to the House. If the committee felt that changes were necessary, and formalised these as recommendations, the Government would be required to formally respond to the House within 90 days in accordance with Standing Order 248.

The major draw back with adopting such a procedure is that it would add time to the settlement process. A major weakness in the international treaties process is that Parliament has too little time to effectively review the proposed treaty. To undertake a thorough examination, a committee really needs a minimum of three months. This allows a month for advertising for submissions and two months to hear evidence and prepare a report to the House.

The amount of time added to the settlement process by referring proposed settlements to Parliament depends greatly on the stage in the negotiation process that the referral is made. There might be some argument that a ‘Heads of Agreement’ could be referred. This would allow the scrutiny to take place while the negotiations continued. However, for scrutiny to be effective it would be preferable to have a concrete proposal to consider.

A constructive pre-legislative scrutiny process may also mean that time is saved in the House. Any time savings would be modest. Pre-legislative scrutiny will not mean that the final legislation will not need to be considered by a select committee. It is essential that the legislation be evaluated to ensure its provisions give proper effect to the negotiated settlement and that there are no errors of fact or law. This was highlighted during the Māori Affairs Committee’s consideration of the Tutae-ka-Wetoweto Forest Bill. A submission from the former Chairperson of the Rakiura Māori Land Trust revealed that there was a typographical error in the description of the land covered by the bill. While it is easy to assume that such an error would be discovered at some stage, opening legislation up to public submissions greatly increases the chances that errors will be detected.

With public submissions comes the risk that the same issues considered during the pre-legislative scrutiny will arise again. It is hard to see how this can be avoided. It is important to test the proposed legislative implementation of the settlement. However, it could be expected that, in prioritising its limited time and resources, a select committee when considering the final bill would be unlikely to spend much time on re-litigating issues it has already rehearsed during its Treaty examination phase.

CONCLUSION

The current processes for parliamentary scrutiny of Treaty settlement legislation need to be reconsidered. What is needed are processes that ensure the proposed settlement is subjected to some rigorous scrutiny, beyond what Cabinet considers to be in its interests, and that those disaffected with a settlement have a formal, independent forum in which to give voice to their concerns.

The current processes for scrutinising international treaties provides a model for a constructive parliamentary role. However, as they stand presently, they are inadequate to the task they are designed for. These inadequacies should not be imported into the Treaty settlement process. However, with the modifications discussed above, the process would be promising. It would allow select committees; primarily the Māori Affairs Committee, to examine proposed settlements before they are ratified. The Government and the claimants could address any major concerns noted by the committee prior to the final sign-off on the Deed.

The processes would also recognise that the interests of the Crown in the settlement process are larger than the interests of Cabinet. When negotiations reach Deed of Settlement stage, Cabinet approves them on behalf of the Crown. The claimant negotiators are required to go back to those they represent to achieve ratification of the agreement. The reforms proposed can be seen as a form of Crown ratification – with the body that purports to represent all of New Zealand, Māori and non-Māori playing a central role. Having gone through this process, Parliament is likely to be much less reluctant to expedite the passage of the implementing legislation.

The Treaty settlement process is of fundamental importance to the health of the New Zealand polity. It is a highly political process. Any proposed settlement will draw criticism from those who feel they have missed out or that their concerns have been overlooked. Others will feel the package is too mean. Yet others will attack it for being too generous. There are also those who doubt the need for, or even the validity of the settlement process. The process cannot be divorced from its politics.

This paper has focussed on the parliamentary stage of the settlement process. This stage has its flaws. The proposed reforms would improve the situation – but as with any reforms, they will not perfect it. However, given the importance of the settlement process it is worth taking steps to ensure we have processes best adapted towards ensuring that genuinely lasting settlements can be achieved.

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Ian Holland and Jenny Fleming

Griffith University

Institutionalising Ministerial Ethics

Introduction

This paper is concerned with ethics and the political executive. Taking as a starting point the ethical concerns about politicians revealed in a range of studies, we discuss the special circumstances of the executive. The distinctive nature of the executive creates distinctive ethical choices for ministers. This in turn suggests that we might expect ministers to benefit from specific ethics institutions. Against this, however, are a range of constraints that emerge when states attempt to regulate or guide the ethical conduct of ministers (and of politicians generally). We explore the tension between these forces by looking at recent initiatives in the area of ministerial ethics. We describe the effects of initiatives taken Canada and Australia that have been directed at ministerial conduct, with the hope that they might attenuate the flow of political scandals involving ministers in those countries. These initiatives took different forms: a publicly published ministerial Guide, policed by the Prime Minister, in Australia; and the appointment of an Ethics Counsellor to advise the Prime Minister on Minister’s conduct, in Canada. We conclude that both of these cases demonstrate the limitations of strategies that institutionalise executive ethics in ways that retain power in the hands of the first minister.

Special circumstances of the executive

Initiatives designed to set standards of conduct appropriate to political life have concentrated on establishing guidelines and institutions for the legislature or for the public service. Although the public seems increasingly critical of ministerial conduct, little work has been done specifically on ethics and the executive. Why does the executive warrant attention as a distinct class of political actor? What distinguishes them from backbenchers? Perhaps the effects of various guidelines, codes of conduct and other institutions that seek to regulate political behaviour will be modified by the different motivations and different responsibilities that ministers face.

In many countries, ministers are not accountable to parliament in the ways they were once expected to be. This declining parliamentary oversight of the executive has eroded Westminster doctrines of ministerial responsibility. There are numerous examples of how conventions of collective and individual ministerial responsibility in Westminster systems have been ignored and where ministers have not had to answer for breaches of these conventions (Page, 1990; Sutherland, 1991; Woodhouse, 1993; Jaensch, 1997; Thompson and Tillotsen, 1999).

Most political commentators also agree that the development of discipline in the cabinet room has meant that responsibility for individual ministerial behaviour has swung ‘almost exclusively to the cabinet itself, the prime minister and the executive’ (Jaensch, 1997, p. 150). Despite the existence of established accountability mechanisms such as parliamentary committees and parliamentary procedures, it is with great difficulty that parliaments police the executive. This is a problem for Westminster parliamentary systems. Ministerial responsibility, particularly individual ministerial responsibility, is ‘a key link in a ‘chain’, the functioning of which is crucial to a parliamentary system’ (Jaensch, 1997, p. 151). The chain linking the public service to ministers, ministers to cabinet, cabinet to parliament and parliament to the people is weakened considerably by the attenuation of individual ministerial responsibility. In these circumstances, strengthening this link requires special attention.

What else makes ministers a special case for ethical consideration? First and foremost is the level of power that ministers enjoy. Uhr points out that ‘different public offices … bring with them different sets of political power as well as ethical responsibilities’ (Uhr, 1998, pp. 11–12). It is the different degrees of power that distinguish ministers significantly from their parliamentary colleagues. Much of that power is derived from the political party of which they are a member. As senior figures in their parties they wield influence both inside and outside of the parliament exercising autonomy and discretion in their dealings with colleagues and the public in general. The central place of cabinet and the ministry in the political system itself puts the power of ministers on another plane from parliamentarians as a whole.

Ministers, unlike their parliamentary colleagues, draw on the protective power of cabinet convention. Their decisions, mistakes, and errors of judgment may be protected by cabinet secrecy, in circumstances where documentary evidence might otherwise be available. Away from media, parliamentary and public scrutiny, confidential cabinet discussions are an essential feature of effective government, but equally they present ministers with ethical challenges no other parliamentarian faces. Collective responsibility ensures that ministers will as a group support cabinet decisions and defend colleagues from external critics. Those seeking information under freedom of information (FOI) legislation find that requests for information relating to cabinet decisions are denied because the relevant documents are lying on the cabinet table and cannot be released until cabinet has no further use of them. It is not difficult to envisage how this situation can be manipulated in an unethical manner.

There are other things that set ministers apart from their back bench colleagues. Ministers, as the heads of departments, will have a number of temptations not accessible to backbenchers and opposition members. Their status gives them wide access to public sector confidential files and other privileged information. A minister also has the right to expert advice on matters pertaining to his/her portfolio and ready access to lobby groups with whom policy is discussed. Overall, the minister is in a very powerful, information-rich position. The potential abuses of this often-confidential information make ministers vulnerable to temptation.

A minister’s untrammelled access to opinion leaders and interest groups provides a fertile ground for potential conflicts of interest and unethical behaviour. Ironically, this may not be because ministers solicit favours, but rather because they, far more than their backbench counterparts, are likely to confront offers of bribery and influence peddling in their daily working life. Accepting them can, in some political cultures, simply appear to be ‘the done thing’ (della Porta and Vannucci, 1999). There is little question, however, that ministers, through their management and decision-making responsibilities and as heads of their departments, are more likely to be exposed than others in the political system to this kind of risk. Power brings temptation. Additionally, ministers are subject to a variety of pressures — answerable not only to their constituents, but unlike their backbench counterparts, also to the cabinet, the prime minister, the party, special interest groups and parliament. These often conflicting pressures in a party political system can be particularly onerous to reconcile and arguably expose ministers to potentially unethical situations.

Leaving aside their special vulnerability to corrupt exchanges, there is also the issue of how ministers manage the effects of their discretionary powers. It has been noted by the Independent Commission Against Corruption that a ‘high level of delegated authority, significant autonomy and routine exercise of wide discretion’ (ICAC, 1998–99, p. 1) puts public officials at a greater risk of exposure to corruption. Of all the public’s paid servants, ministers have the most discretion of all, through their ‘legislative and political authority to oversee the actions of the officials’ (Weller, 1999, p. 63). There is no question that their powers ensure that government is possible, but it presents them with unique opportunities to influence policy implementation. That influence can seem so powerful that officials may make inappropriate discretionary judgments in favour of politicians without even being asked, placing an extra burden of ethical responsibility on ministers.

Ministers also have a unique role in being the de facto selectors of people for public offices, particularly on boards and statutory authorities. This exposes them to the moral hazards of both trying to appoint friends to positions and trying improperly to interfere in the operations of such independent entities (Menadue, 2000). Again the issue of discretion is pertinent.

Finally, ministers are distinguished by the support of a distinctive staff cohort, whose functions and employment relations set them apart from the public service. Ministerial staffers play an important role in government activity, but are only to varying degrees governed by the rules and procedures under which the rest of the machinery of government operates. Ministers’ reliance on their staff places them in both a privileged and parlous position that, as Tiernan (2001) has demonstrated in the Australian case, requires special attention.

These are the many and important ways in which ministers occupy a distinctive, especially powerful, place in political life, exposing them to unique and frequent ethical dangers. There are, of course, some arguments to suggest a minister’s power is limited by a number of institutional developments, such as FOI and administrative law and that these initiatives have by and large ensured the continuance of ministerial responsibility and accountability (Blick, 1999). Indeed some suggest matters have gone too far, and that the range of control and check mechanisms limits ministers’ ability to properly respond to their constituents and ‘do their job’ (Hayden, 1998, p. 64). The prevailing view however remains that traditional mechanisms of ministerial accountability have been eroded, and have not been adequately complemented by these new measures to ensure ministerial conduct is ethical and transparent. The very distinctive situation of ministers means that parliament- or public sector-wide measures would seem unlikely to fully capture the nature of the challenges ministers face.

Many jurisdictions have long recognised the distinctive situation of ministers. Often this recognition has developed only as a result of political scandals. As governments have emerged from particular crises, they have moved to put in place measures to deal with them. In 1912, Ministers in Britain’s Asquith government were accused of profiting from shares as a direct result of decisions taken by their government. In the wake of the scandal, Asquith articulated in parliament what he termed Rules of Obligation and Rules of Prudence, pertaining particularly to conflict of interest, in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the adverse treatment his government had received at the hands of the media (Asquith, 1928). Such innovations, however, are not unproblematic. Ad hoc attempts to introduce ethics into politics present dangers of their own, which need to be assessed against the potential benefits they offer.

The limitations of ethics institutions for the executive

When it comes to ethics in parliament, ‘every reform is its own problem’ (Sutherland, 1991, p. 91). There are tensions in all processes of political reform, and we have reviewed elsewhere how acute these tensions can become when they are interventions at the centre of power in modern democracies (Fleming and Holland ed., 2001). These tensions and contradictions create constraints under which attempts at reform operate.

First, institutions that expose the body politic to greater public examination are almost inevitably going to give the public new scandals to observe. Institutions that promote ethical political behaviour will also reveal discourses of moral failure in politics and are likely to trip up more MPs, further alienating the public from politicians even if particular sorts of perceived rorts are successfully The NSW ICAC for example was established to tackle corruption in public life. As part of the effort to prevent unethical political conduct, the ICAC was given powers to investigate complaints about members of parliament, and the 'corruption' it sought to eliminate was defined broadly. Its emphasis on treating unethical behaviour as corruption, together with its considerable powers as an anti-corruption watchdog, combined to cut short the careers of two NSW MPs (Fleming, 2001; Tanner, 2001). The ICAC's powers did not merely allow the unethical conduct of ministers to be uncovered. The creation of its powers effectively 'created' new categories of corruption. When some NSW ministers did not respond to these changes, those ministers became the objects of scandal and sustained media criticism (Tanner, 2001). Any mechanism for motivating ministers to higher ethical standards has to balance a competing need to not motivate voters to greater moral outrage.

Second, any institution that attenuates the power of the executive becomes a target of the executive. Yet, many of the institutional mechanisms for motivating ministers to ethical conduct necessarily attenuate executive power. Thus any reform in this area risks executive opposition. The hostility of governments to ethics has been evident in their resistance to proposed institutional reforms. This is exemplified by the British government’s rejection of the British Committee on Standards in Public Life’s proposals for amendments to the Questions of Procedure (now Ministerial Code; see Baker, 2000; Woodhouse, 2001) and by the tortuous process in NSW by which party commitments to a code of conduct took the best part of a decade to translate into an actual document.

There are ways in which executive resistance may be mitigated. Strong media and public support for watchdog organisations can provide some balance against governments that want to curb institutions they believe infringe on executive authority (Fleming, 2001; Tanner, 1999, 2001). Even with that support however institutions may find themselves constrained in their attempts to exercise their mandate. Part of the issue is the challenge of avoiding ethics institutions becoming casualties of an issue attention cycle, when governments start to realise the complexity and cost of supporting ethics institutions, and public interest in the last scandal wanes (Downs, 1972).

The question of how to avoid simply engendering executive opposition immediately reveals a third constraint on finding mechanisms to motivate ministers. There is always a balancing act required between institutionalising ethics on an equitable basis across the parliament or public sector, and having regard to the special circumstances of the executive. Parliamentary institutions, like the Canadian provincial commissioners discussed above, work with all MPs rather than just ministers. Any institution that supports all MPs has in its scope members of all parties, and can be seen to be even-handed as a consequence. Translating this structure to one that deals only with ministers presents a problem for any party that finds its ministers getting into trouble over an extended period of government. It is relatively easy for a government to introduce standards for ministers at the time of their election, because they use this as a vehicle for establishing a contrast between themselves and the previous, inevitably ‘corrupt’, administration. But as time goes by they develop a sense of being unfairly persecuted. This is because, although parliamentarians come from every party, ministers are, at any given time, from only one party or governing coalition. There are never ministers on the opposition benches.

This produces a degree of ‘ethics fatigue’. Ultimately, Prime Ministers end up refusing to extract from experienced ministers the price that adherence to some new code appears to call for. Extenuating circumstances are found, the minister’s good intentions are highlighted, and the portfolio is retained.

The public response to this then in turn is cynicism that apparently ‘the only rule for determining when ministers resign is when the prime minister decides’ (Thompson and Tillotsen, 1999, pp. 52–53; Weller, 2001). Any institution that monitors only ministers scrutinises only one side of politics for long periods of time, and has to walk a fine line between being a captive of the government and being its persecutor. It is the line between being Howard Wilson, Canadian federal ethics counsellor — critiqued for being an instrument of the government — and being Kenneth Starr, US special prosecutor — critiqued for being a partisan enemy of the executive (Jackson, 2001).

Both Australia and Canada have attempted to strike a balance between addressing the special circumstances of the executive and acknowledging the problems associated with parliamentary ethics regimes. The Australian conservative government of John Howard and the Canadian liberal government of Jean Chrétien both introduced code of conduct-driven regimes, but with important differences between them. The next section describes the regimes and discusses their impacts.

A tale of two systems

The role of the Ethics Counsellor is essentially to uphold the code of conduct for public office holders. He has no authority to investigate suspected breaches of the Criminal Code. However, as Jackson points out, ‘his most important responsibility is to probe the ethical conduct of cabinet ministers whenever requested to do so by the prime minister.’ He reports privately to the Prime Minister despite Chrétien’s promises prior to his election, that an ethics counsellor would report directly to parliament (Geddes & Beltrame, 2001). There are no records of the conversations between the Prime Minister and the Ethics Counsellor, nor of the Ethics Counsellor’s findings. Unlike the Auditor-General, the Commissioners of Information, Privacy, Official Languages and the external oversight body of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Ethics Counsellor is not obliged to present a report or any official information to parliament. It is this lack of reporting that shrouds the office of the Ethics Counsellor with a degree of secrecy seemingly inappropriate for an Office committed to promoting the values of openness, accountability and ethical conduct. As Jackson points out:

Over time this has become a contentious issue for the Prime Minister and the Ethics Counsellor. The latter defends the arrangement, arguing for the primacy of ethical leadership and the dangers of ‘diluting’ the authority of the Prime Minister by introducing a third and independent body that reports to the legislature. The reporting arrangements are also defended on the basis that an independent body would ‘have less interaction with ministers, with the danger that day-to-day ethical issues may receive less expert attention than they deserve’. As a result, those of independent status are ‘less useful as advisers to ministers on ethical issues’ (Wilson, 1998, p.87).

Despite the presence of the Code, the advice of the ethics advisor and the office of the Ethics Counsellor Chrétien’s government has experienced its share of ministerial scandals (although its record is better than that of Mulroney’s conservative government who lost twelve ministers to one scandal or another (Sutherland, 1991; Samyn, 1998). They have included the resignations of solicitor-general Andy Scott in 1998, Deputy-Prime Minister, Sheila Copps in 1996 and Defence Minister, David Collenette (Samyn, 1998). As Jackson has documented these cases are the exceptions rather the rule. Jackson notes numerous incidents where ministers have been under scrutiny and have invariably been found to be ‘within the designated guidelines’ by Wilson, in those cases on which his advice was sought. This is not suggest that any wrong doing has taken place, but as Jackson notes, when the Ethics Counsellor reports informally to the Prime Minister and because the Counsellor’s findings constitute ‘advice to a minister’ the public are denied any information that might alleviate their concerns. It is the lack of public scrutiny that clouds the role of the Ethics Counsellor. In discussing accountability in the Canadian state, Thomas notes,

In recent years, controversies about the misuse of tax-payers money, the allocation of funding monies for job creation and the numerous allegations into political transgressions in the prime minister’s constituency have become common place (Martin, 2000). Wilson’s apparent reluctance to investigate or to publicly pass judgement has made his office the focus of much criticism and led to it being perceived as ‘more of a lapdog than a watchdog’ (Geddes, 2000; Samyn, 2000). It is widely agreed that Wilson, ‘has never made a decision against the prime minister or a cabinet minister’ (Laucius & Jaimet, 2000). Mr Wilson began to be depicted in editorial cartoons ‘as a robot dog who obeys his master’s every command’ (McIntosh, 2001).

A particularly damaging case for Chrétien was the ‘loan-lobbying’ affair where a newspaper reported the prime minister’s attempts to lobby the government-appointed President of the Business Development Bank for a $615,000 loan for a former business partner. The businessman in question had bought a hotel from the prime minister and others and when the hotel began to lose money he applied for a loan. The loan was rejected but later approved following the prime minister’s intervention. The President of the bank was eventually sacked. Compounding the controversy was the fact that Chrétien was once part owner of an adjacent golf course. While he had sold his shares in 1993, the buyer had subsequently reneged on his payment and in 1997, Chrétien had still not been paid. It could be argued that potential renovations to the adjacent hotel would increase the value of his shares (Bryden, 2001).

Under pressure from the opposition Wilson argued that the prime minister had no case to answer because ‘there were no rules governing Minister’s contacts with Crown corporations’ (Jack, 2000) and that Chrétien had ‘acted the same as any other MP in representing the interests of his constituents’ (Bryden, 2001). Following the scandal however, Wilson generated a series of proposals that would see ministerial dealing with Crown corporations being incorporated in the existing conflict-of-interest rules (O’Neil & Tibbetts, 2001). Wilson’s office insisted however that any tightening of the rules would not alter its findings in relation to the Prime Minister’s lobbying efforts on behalf of a constituent (Bryden, 2001). Despite the government’s attempts to ignore the controversy, the ‘loan-lobbying affair’ has become the focus of Opposition attempts to destabilise the government and replace the Ethics Counsellor with an independent ‘ethics watchdog’ (Clark, 2001; McIntosh, 2001; O’Neil, 2001).

Stockwell Day was also reported as saying that if elected, under his government ‘the ethics commissioner will no longer report to the prime minister but be responsible to Parliament’ (Samyn, 2000), which would bring the federal arrangement more into line with the Canadian Provinces. Later, as the Golf Club incident escalated, the Bloc Quebecois leader Duceppe not only claimed that Wilson’s office was partisan, but during a Commons industry committee meeting at which Wilson appeared, he ‘introduced a motion to withhold government funding for Wilson’s office for the coming fiscal year’ (Brown, 2001). Meanwhile the Alliance in the Commons was calling for a judicial inquiry. Opinion polling suggested most Canadians thought Chrétien had behaved improperly and favoured a judicial inquiry (Bell, 2001).

Some months later a parliamentary committee recommended stripping Wilson’s office of one of its functions: investigating lobbyists, despite Wilson’s insistence that it fitted well with his conflict-of-interest advisory role (McIntosh, 2001). It is hard to avoid concluding that one of the reasons this recommendation was possible was the increasing doubts expressed throughout the media about the credibility of the Office of Ethics Counsellor.

Political ethics in Australia (at least at the federal level) has perhaps not been as marked by scandals and patronage as in Canada. However, it has followed a similar path of evolution in ethics institutions, and in the codification of the conduct of the executive (Weller, 2001). At the same time as the liberal Chrétien government was working with the new regime of an Ethics Counsellor, Australia’s conservative Howard government went down a different path, introducing a new published Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility, policed by the Prime Minister directly (Howard, 1996).

Howard introduced the Guide for Ministers to complement existing ethics guidelines and conventions of responsible government. It was articulated as a guide rather than a comprehensive set of rules (Thompson and Tillotsen, 1999; Weller, 2001). The Guide to an extent sets out in writing some of the conventions of cabinet government as practiced in Australia, though it makes no reference to circumstances in which ministers might resign or be sacked (Thompson and Tillotsen, 1999). The Guide refers to a wide range of aspects of being a minister, from the functions of Executive Council, to principles to guide the conduct of overseas travel. One section however got more coverage than others: on ministerial conduct. The comprehensiveness of the Guide (it ran to some 28 pages) seemed to encourage the view that it was indeed meant to be a set of clear measures against which ministers could be tested. It became the focus of opposition and media attacks on cabinet members, many of them successfully damaging the government and sometimes leading to the loss of a minister. The Guide was the axe used to fell Assistant Treasurer Jim Short and parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer Brian Gibson, in unrelated incidents in October 1996. It was used to launch an unsuccessful attack on Industry Minister John Moore, and was the instrument causing the downfall of Small Business Minister Geoff Prosser in June 1997. It played a role in perhaps the government’s worst scandal, the so-called travel rorts affair, which claimed Administrative Services Minister David Jull, Transport and Regional Development Minister John Sharp, and Science and Technology Minister Peter McGauran. The sharp edge of the Guide was finally blunted on Resources Minister Warwick Parer, attacked in the first half of 1998 over decisions taken in his portfolio while owning $2 million of shares in the coal industry (Thompson and Tillotsen, 1999; Tiernan, 2001; Uhr, 1998). As well as retaining Parer as Minister, Howard signalled a change in approach, weakening the line taken with respect to ministers’ shareholdings (Evans, 2000; Howard, 1998; Seccombe, 1999).

The Guide is a creature of the Prime Minister, and it became clear, as ministers were attacked for not complying with it, that the Prime Minister had sole responsibility for deciding how the application of the Guide would affect cabinet members. Thus he defended and retained John Moore and Warwick Paper, while accepting the resignations of others. This in itself became a source of criticism of Howard and of his Guide, as commentators remarked that the measure of ministerial survival was not compliance with the Guide, but the degree of Prime Ministerial support each individual could muster.

Australia’s Prime Minister Howard thus endured years of being hammered by the opposition with his government’s own code of conduct. Eventually, defending the latest minister to run into difficulty, Howard effectively ended up arguing, as the opposition leader put it, that ‘the ministerial guidelines are a guide: they are not a death sentence’ (Beazley, House of Representatives, 2 November 2000, p. 19997).

Things came further unstuck for the government in late 2000. During the mid-1990s, Australian government minister Peter Reith, then an opposition front-bencher, breached the guidelines for the use of his parliamentary entitlements, by giving his parliamentary telephone card (telecard) service number and security code to his son. It was however only in October 2000 that the consequences of Mr Reith’s breach emerged in the press and the parliament. It transpired that his son had made around $1,000 of calls using the minister’s phone access. More significantly, the telecard had been used by others whose identities were never positively determined by Australian Federal Police. These other individuals charged over $45,000 of calls to the card from locations around the world, creating a scandal that was dubbed the telecard affair. The prime minister refused to sack his minister, or to require that he take responsibility for the debt, but Peter Reith was eventually forced by popular pressure to personally repay the $50,000 phone bill that had been incurred in his name.

As the crisis of the telecard affair deepened, the opposition parties shifted emphasis, from the attacks of the past on individual ministers such as Gibson and Parer, to an attack on the ethics regime. This paralleled the attacks in Canada on the Ethics Counsellor, that went beyond criticising individual ministers like Scott or Chrétien. In Australia, several Bills were introduced into Parliament in 2000 directed at ethics in politics, amongst MPs generally, and ministers in particular. Labor, from opposition, argued that its Auditor of Parliamentary Allowances and Entitlements Bill 2000 was necessary ‘to help restore community confidence in the way in which Members of the Commonwealth Parliament use their various entitlements’ (Beazley, 2000, p. 1). The Bill was based on one of Labor’s election policies, and proposed the creation of an independent officer, with similar powers to the auditor-general and the ombudsman, whose responsibility would be to advise parliamentarians on the use of their allowances. The office would also audit the use of these entitlements and investigate complaints about their use.

The government disagreed with Labor’s proposal. They pointed out that to pursue this institutional reform was ‘to suspect every member and senator’ of rorting the entitlements system (Troeth, Senate, 9 November 2000, p. 19594). The conservative government mocked the opposition’s stance, pointing out that it implied they thought their own members of parliament could not be trusted and that the opposition was ‘smearing every MP in this house’ (Abbott, House of Representatives, 31 October 2000, p. 21707).

In the new year, Howard ministers continued to be attacked, with the Prime Minister’s Guide the weapon of choice. In March 2001, Arts Minister Peter McGauran, and his brother Senator Julian McGauran, were attacked for voting in favour of legislation that might have benefited their interests in poker machines (Lewis, 2001; Seccombe, 2001). In August 2001, Small Business Minister Ian McFarlane was accused of misleading Parliament about his knowledge of an incorrect Goods and Services Tax claim by the local branch of his party (Lewis and Strutt, 2001).

Past attacks launched using the Guide continued to cause damage to the government. Most notably, in June 2001 defence Minister and telecard affair victim Peter Reith announced he would retire from politics. Most commentators considered that the telecard affair had done more than anything else to end Reith’s political ambitions (eg. Barton, 2001; Grattan, 2001; Grubel, 2001; Pearson, 2001).

Conclusion

John Howard’s Guide reduced the discretionary space in which ministers operated. It set out rules for ministers in writing, in a very public and readily accessible form, and with more comprehensive coverage than before. This increased the chance that ministers would be criticized or sacked without there necessarily being any change in the actual standard of ministerial conduct. As Weller (2001) and Tiernan (2001) have argued, this is exactly the situation that eventuated. Similarly, the proximity of the Ethics Counsellor to the Canadian prime minister has allowed the public to superimpose a sceptical discourse about the integrity of the counsellor on top of their existing perceptions of conflict of interest and patronage amongst MPs (Jackson, 2001).

Both the Australian and Canadian experiences showed that many cases hinged on the scope and wording of the rules governing ministers. This was the case in Canada despite the facilitative role played by the ethics counsellor, who presumably worked to ensure consistent and clear interpretation of the prime minister's guidelines for ministers. In the wake of Canada’s scandal-affected 2000 election, it was suggested that ‘the possibility of a close look at the ethics rules guiding MPs and cabinet ministers – or lack of them – could be one of the few real policy spinoffs from a campaign widely decried as thin on substance’ (Geddes, 2000). Yet the experience in Australia between 1996 and 2001 suggests that no amount of close scrutiny or rewording of guidelines will lead to major policy improvements and better ministerial behaviour. The conduct of ministers is not an administrative question, but a political question. It will always be a target of debate, however the guidelines are written.

What is interesting is how, although the Canadian and Australian executives followed different trajectories from the mid 1990s to 2001, they ended up at a similar point in public discourse. Both governments found themselves with a credibility problem that had resulted from their willingness to use ministerial conduct as a political weapon on the one hand, with their unwillingness to let control slip out of the hands of the prime minister on the other. Chrétien had used an adviser, and had kept his ministries largely intact. Howard had gone it alone, and suffered heavier casualties amongst both cabinet and staffers. Both however found their ethics regimes under serious question by the end of their second terms in office. These questions remain focussed on the credibility of an ethics regime that does not appear to be transparent, and in which the policeman is also judge and jury.

References

Maria Maley

Australian National University

A New Typology of Australian Ministerial Advisers: describing advisers to the Keating government 1995-6


The role of ministerial advisers in Australian government has grown enormously since they emerged in 1972, and they have become increasingly important players in our political system. Yet very little information about them is publicly available. Much of the concern that is expressed about the role of ministerial advisers in government stems from the fact that they are unknown to the public, and from assumptions about who they are. Often commentators assume that they are young, inexperienced party 'hacks' who are not qualified to undertake the work that is now expected of them. Political scientists have investigated who the people are who are employed as ministerial advisers as a way of tracking the evolving institution of the ministerial office. Biographical data has been collected about advisers to the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke governments (Forward 1975,1977; Walter 1986). However so far there has been no biographical data published about the Keating advisers.A group of 41 advisers to the Keating government were interviewed between April 1995 and April 1996, as part of a major qualitative research project about the changing role of ministerial advisers. Biographical data was collected at the time of interviews. This data appears to be the only biographical data collected about Keating advisers, and thus it has a place in the data series formed by the work of Forward (1975,1977) and Walter (1986). For reasons discussed later, the Keating data is not directly comparable with the earlier data series. However it can be usefully analysed for two reasons: first, because it provides a snapshot of a group of advisers working at that time; and secondly because from it emerges a new series of types, which reveals much about the changing nature of the ministerial office.This paper, then, describes a sample group of Keating advisers and identifies the different types evident in the group. It analyses what these types tell us about the evolving institution of the ministerial office.Forward and Walter's data seriesForward (1975,1977) undertook important quantitative studies of ministerial advisers to the Whitlam government and Fraser government. Walter (1986) replicated these surveys for the first Hawke advisers in 1983, creating a series of empirical studies over three governments which could be used to track changes in role and demographics over the period. Walter found the Hawke advisers in 1983 had similar characteristics to their counterparts surveyed by Forward in 1974 and 1976. All three groups were mostly male, mostly graduates, disproportionately from non-government schools, with about half from inside and half from outside the public service. Hawke staffers differed in being mainly in their thirties (rather than their twenties and thirties), and having higher levels of education (89 per cent had at least one degree, compared to 65 per cent under Whitlam and 62 per cent under Fraser). They were also more likely than earlier cohorts to be current party members (62% compared to 13% in the Fraser group and 53% in the Whitlam group) (Forward 1975:142; Walter 1986:115-123). A 'striking development' was that 62% of Hawke advisers had been previously employed in advisory and party positions (1986:120). Walter notes that this profile matched the general trends for staffers in the US, UK and Canada, the pattern being one of relative youth; middle class origins; high education; specialist credentials; and academic or governmental backgrounds (1986:115). Forward also developed a typology of advisers, based on whether the adviser was a member of the public service or not; and whether he or she had a 'political' orientation. This typology touched on what was controversial and different in the 1970s: there was a sudden influx of partisans and people from outside the public service to ministers' offices. Thus Forward identified four types: political public servants; non-political public servants; political non-public servants and non-political non-public servants. There are several problems with the classification of advisers as 'political' in the earlier studies. This category attempted to capture behaviour and role perception. It was assessed on the basis of party membership, reasons for joining a minister's staff and engagement in what Forward termed 'political party' work in the office. In Walter's replication of Forward's typology he changed the last criterion to 'political-policy' work, and did not define what he meant by this. Further, to be classified as 'political' in Forward's typology an adviser had to meet three, four or five criteria (based on their answers to five of the survey questions). Those who met two, one or none of the criteria were judged as 'non political'. However this process resulted in 26-50% of those classed as 'non political non public servants' being members of the ALP (Forward 1975:149). There are thus problems of definition and weighting in the classification. Setting aside these reservations, the typology revealed some changing trends. Walter found the proportion of Hawke advisers who were 'public service types' was about the same (46%) as under Fraser (52%) and Whitlam (47%), but there were more 'political' types amongst Hawke staffers (63% compared to 51% for Whitlam and 39% for Fraser). While the largest group in the Fraser sample was non political public servants (45%), in the Hawke group it was political non public servants (44%). Walter detected an 'ascendance of "political" types' in the Hawke ministerial offices (1986:122).Table 1: Types of ministerial staff (Walter 1986:122)
Whitlam 1974 Fraser 1976 Hawke 1983
political non public servant 33% 34% 44%
non political public servant 32% 45% 27%
political public servant 18% 5% 19%
non political non public servant 18% 16% 10%
Comparisons with Forward and Walter's data seriesBecause of the way the Keating data was collected and the proportion it represents of the total group of advisers at the time, it cannot be used to describe numerically all advisers at the time of the interviews, nor to make accurate comparisons with figures in previous studies. Forward and Walter's quantitative studies were collected randomly and represent higher proportions of the total sample group. Forward's first 79 questionnaires represented 44% of the sample; his second 56 interviews represented 92% of the total sample; and Walter's 48 questionnaires represented 56.5% of the total possible sample. The 41 interviews in this study represent 24% of the total possible sample of 170 staff (at April 1995 when the interviews were begun). They were obtained through non probability sampling. (For further information about methodology see Appendix A).The Keating sample is broadly representative in the sense that it includes advisers from 20 of the 30 offices at the time and covers all portfolios, all ranks and both senior and junior minister's offices. However using gender and rank (the only publicly available information on the total group) it can be seen as skewed slightly towards those at the higher ranks and towards males. This must be borne in mind in interpreting the data. However, bearing in mind these limitations, it is possible to examine the biographical information obtained about this group of Keating advisers, in terms of revealing trends and types of advisers employed at this time (without being able to quantify how prevalent they were amongst the entire group). Thus as long as caution is used in interpreting the meaning of the data, it is possible to analyse it and find much that is interesting amongst it.Gender and rankThere is one point on which comparisons with the earlier data series can be made. The gender and rank of advisers is publicly available information which appears in the regularly published Ministerial Directories. It is possible to compare the data on gender and rank in the Ministerial Directory for April 1995, with Walter and Forward's data.In April 1995, 61 % of advisory staff were male and 39% were female. This represents a significant increase in the proportion of female advisers since the Hawke, Fraser and Whitlam surveys. Women were 15-16% of advisory staff in the Whitlam and Fraser periods (Forward 1977:160), and 20% of the Hawke advisory staff (Walter 1986:116). There was thus a doubling of the proportion of female advisers over the Hawke/Keating period. However women remained under-represented in the most senior advisory positions. Women headed only 20% of the offices in April 1995. Yet this is a significant improvement on the earlier figures: only 8.6% of offices were headed by women in 1983 and none were headed by women in 1981 (Walter 1986:116). Looking at rankings in April 1995, of all female advisers 70% were employed at the lowest two rankings (assistant adviser and adviser) and 30% at the higher levels (senior adviser and consultant) while for men this was a more even split (48%; 52%). Thus while women advisers had become far more common in the Keating years, they still found it difficult to break into the higher ranks, particularly the office head position.The paper now turns to a general description of the sample of Keating advisers and of the different types of advisers employed at this time.Description of the sample group of Keating advisersGeneral featuresThere were several strong features of the group. The advisers in the sample were mostly male (71%) and overwhelmingly in their 30s and 40s (90%). Their average age was 38 years and four months. Table 2 :Age of Keating advisers interviewed in 1995-6
20s 30s 40s 50s
no 4 17 18 0
% 10% 44% 46% 0%
NB: n= 39 as two did not disclose this information.Most were current or former Labor party members (62.5%). They were all highly educated, with 100% having one degree and 47% having more than one. The most common degree was the BA, and the most common specialist degrees were economics and law. Most had attended only government schools (64%). Table 3: Schools attended by Keating advisers interviewed in 1995-6
Government only Catholic only Independent only Government and Independent
no of advisers 23 11 0 2
% 64% 30.5% 0% 5.5%
NB: n = 36 as 5 did not disclose this informationSimilar to the pattern in earlier studies, around half were currently public servants (56%). Public servants and non public servants were spread in similar proportions across all positions.Experience as an adviserThe average period of employment as an adviser was 3.5 years. However the range of experience was great - from 4 months to more than ten years.Table 4: Years as an adviser
years <1y 1y 2y 3y 4y 5y 6y 7y 8y 9y 10y
no of advisers 1 9 11 5 4 6 1 2 0 0 2
% 2 22 27 12 10 15 2 5 0 0 5
n=41Half of the advisers in the study were relatively new and had two years or less experience (51.2%). This is unsurprising since when interviews began, in April 1995, the second Keating government was exactly two years old. Most advisers interviewed had only worked for one minister (58%) and in one or two portfolios (80%). However a small group had had more wide ranging experience: five of the sample had worked for three or four ministers; and eight advisers had worked in three or four portfolios. Table 5: Number of ministers worked for
1 2 3 4
no 24 12 3 2
% 58.5% 29% 7.5% 5%
n=41 Table 6: Number of portfolios worked in
1 2 3 4
no 19 14 6 2
% 46% 34% 15% 5%
n=41Short tenure is typical of the adviser's job. Ministers and portfolios change frequently; and advisers themselves commented that 'burnout' began after 2-3 years. Some ministers preferred changing staff every 2-3 years. One senior minister in the study commented: 'Optimally you have a turn-over every two or three years of your more senior staff anyway, because there is a burn out factor and you need a freshness and vitality ... and you can't afford to become entrenched in your way.'However there was a core of relatively very experienced advisers within minister's offices at the time of the interviews. Fifteen of the sample group (37%) can be classed as 'long term' advisers (defined as having worked as an adviser for four or more years). Some of these advisers contributed a wealth of experience to the sample and could be influential individuals in their policy areas. As many as 29% of the sample (12 subjects) had advised ministers on one policy area for between 3 and 6 years. This group of long term advisers will be discussed in detail later in the paper.Career backgroundThe Keating advisers interviewed had a wide range of backgrounds and many had multiple former careers. Seventy per cent had a public service background (as state or federal public servants). Just under half of the sample had previously worked as an adviser to a state or federal minister (46%). None had worked in trade unions. Only one respondent had no career background in the sense he had come to work as an adviser straight from university. He alone fitted the image of the 'party hack' who has no other experience except working for the party organisation (he had briefly worked as an electorate officer while at university). Ministerial advisers in this group appear to be a quite separate cadre from those working for the party organisation.The eight advisers who had worked in private sector or private practice had been lawyers, economists and consultants. Seven advisers had worked in the community sector. Five had been or were currently academics. Five came directly from lobby groups. The table below shows the number of respondents who nominated each career background.Table 7: Career backgrounds of Keating advisers interviewed in 1995-6
career background number of advisers public service positions:
Commonwealth public servant 27
state public servant 2private sector positions:
finance sector/private sector economist 3
consultant 2
lawyer (private sector) 2adviser positions:
adviser to another federal ALP minister 17
adviser to a state ALP minister 5party positions:
electorate officer 1
trade union 0
party bureaucracy 0other:
community sector 7
academic 5
activist 5
lawyer 4
teacher 3
journalist 1
doctor 1
soldier 1n=41. The number of careers listed exceeds 41 as some listed multiple former careers.Around half of the sample group were policy specialists (51%), defined as advisers who, before taking their present job, had been working in a similar policy area to that on which they were now advising. PartisanshipThere are great difficulties in measuring partisanship, as it is complex and has many aspects. Being or having been a party member is the clearest measure of partisanship, but it is also a minimum measure. Apart from party membership, partisanship can be seen in attitude and behaviour and presents as a range rather than a clear set of categories. (The following discussion of partisanship therefore draws on interview material from the qualitative study.) Of the respondents who were not party members, the vast majority identified themselves as either 'party supporters' or 'party sympathisers'. Most ministers were comfortable with that level of commitment to the party amongst advisers. More important to them was loyalty to them personally. Commitment to the government and to the party was assumed to flow from personal loyalty. (Indeed, in a highly unusual case, one minister in the study employed a committed member of the Liberal party as an adviser; he felt completely confident about the adviser's personal loyalty to him).To explore partisanship, the sample can be divided according to two criteria: whether the adviser was a current or former member of the ALP and whether the adviser was currently a federal public servant employed under the MOP(S) Act. Table 8: Public service status and party membership of advisers interviewed in 1995-6
public servantb non public servantparty membera

13
12non party member

10
6
n=41
a defined as those who were currently or had formerly been members of the ALP
b defined as those who were current members of the Australian Public Service employed under the MOP(S) Act.The two largest groups were those who were party members and public servants, and those who were party members but not public servants. Each of these sub-groups constituted 30% of the total group. More than half the public servants were committed partisans in the sense they were or had been party members (56.5%). The non public servants tended to be more partisan than the public servants: 71% were party members.Non public servantsLooking first at the non public servants, there was a major distinction between those who were party members and those who were not party members. The party members were highly partisan in their attitudes and approach, whereas the non party members displayed lower attachment to the party. The party members consisted of three activists, two academics and six people who had been recruited though party channels and often had responsibility for important party political work in their offices (such as liaising with the party organisation, back benchers, factions and local branches). The other party member was a policy specialist from the private sector (he was a doctor who advised on health policy).By contrast the non public servants who were not party members were all policy specialists and displayed low levels of attachment to the Labor party. Two were academics, two were activists, one was a specialist lawyer and one was a specialist journalist. Often these people had very strong attachments to certain policy agendas, which they pursued vigorously, and these agendas coincided with the government's policy agendas. Their attachment to the party flowed from their attachment to its policies. However they did not have a direct attachment to the party beyond this. They had all been advisers for less than two and a half years.Public servantsTurning to the public servants, their partisanship was more complex than the distinction between party members and non party members suggests. The party members had strong and often long standing attachments to the party. Yet amongst those who were not party members, there were only two who took a consciously non partisan approach, and distanced themselves from party political work. These two acted as if they had been 'seconded' to the minister's office. One described his job as 'a pseudo-departmental position in the office'. Though they took a critical approach to the department's work and pursued the minister's interests, they saw themselves ultimately as departmental officers. However there were few differences between the other eight non party members and the thirteen party members. All were partisan in their approach and attached to the party and its ideology. All of these 21 public servants said that they would never have worked for the Coalition as an adviser. Several of both groups had long term attachments to the party and had worked as Labor advisers for many years. Indeed, two of the non party members went on to work as advisers for the Labor party in Opposition after 1996. A non party member was one of the inner group of political strategists who planned question time and parliamentary strategy. In other words, public servants could be highly partisan without being party members. Excluding the two consciously non partisan public servants mentioned above, the remaining 21 public servants can be seen as constituting one group - 'partisan public servants' - though within that group there was variation in levels of attachment to the party.Types of advisersForward's typology is no longer relevant for understanding ministerial advisers in the 1990s. A new typology is needed to investigate the features of the institution as it had evolved in the Keating years. The paper now identifies important types of advisers in the Keating sample. It draws on interviews as well as biographical data.Four different types emerged within the sample and have significance for institution of the ministerial office. Membership of each type was not distinct - the four types overlapped each other to some degree. 1. 'Political warriors'Nine of the sample were described by other advisers as 'politicos' or 'political warriors'. They had specific responsibility for party political work such as liaising with party units and backbenchers, factional manoeuvring, parliamentary and media strategy and local politicking within the minister's electorate or state branch. This highly political group were a minority of advisers in the sample, and they were not homogenous. Five of them were non public servants, who were recruited through party channels, because of their skills and experience in working within the party. However, as mentioned earlier, only one was an inexperienced 'party hack'; the others had experience in a range of different careers. Four were public servants, who had worked as advisers for many years. Though not originally recruited in such roles, over time they had developed the political skills and close relationships with ministers that enabled them to do this work. One of these advisers was unusual in that he was not a party member, but he worked as senior adviser for a very senior minister, and had a close personal relationship with him. It was his personality, his position and his relationship which had created this highly political role for him.This type is important because it reveals that only a minority of the adviser sample had specific party political responsibilities, and it would be wrong to make assumptions about who these people were.2. Long term advisersWhile most advisers worked for relatively short periods before resuming their main careers elsewhere, there was an important cohort of advisers of long standing who had worked for ministers for four or more years. These advisers had usually worked for more than one minister, in more than one portfolio. They were highly partisan.Fifteen (or 37%) of the sample were classed as long term advisers. It is not clear what proportion they represented of the entire group of advisers working at this time. Yet it indicates that there was a core of relatively very experienced advisers within minister's offices at the time of the interviews. Their average period as an adviser was six years. Some had had continuous experience as advisers over many years (for ten years in some cases) while others had been in and out of adviser jobs over a long period. Three of the sample interviewed in 1995-6 had worked in the ministerial offices of the first Hawke government in 1983. Three more had first been employed as advisers in 1985. Ten had worked continuously as advisers and five had had breaks between periods of employment with ministers. They had moved in and out of adviser jobs, combining it with work in the public service, the private sector and academia. This is a phenomenon of long term government. However this sub-group also represents the professional advisers or career advisers Walter (1986) predicted would develop as a result of the institutionalisation of advisers within government. They indicate a growing professionalisation of the job of adviser. Ministers at this time were able to draw on the considerable experience of a cadre of 'professional' advisers in ministers' offices. The subgroup of long term advisers was older than the total sample group and more likely to be male, public servants and party members. Their average age was 40 years 10 months. All except one worked for senior ministers at the time of the interview. However 60% had also worked for junior ministers at some stage in their careers. The fact that two thirds were public servants is significant - it may suggest that the security provided by the MOP(S) Act had made long term careers as advisers possible or practical. Table 9: Comparison of long term advisers and total respondents

long term advisersa
total respondentsbpublic servants
67% 56%
party members
87% 62.5%
male
73% 71%
average age
40 years 10 monthsc 38 years 4 monthsd
worked for >1 minister
73% 41.5%
worked in >1 portfolio
93% 54%
a defined as those respondents who had worked as advisers for four or more years (n=15)
b n =41
c n=14 (1 did not disclose)
d n=39 (2 did not disclose)
While none of the long term advisers were at the rank of assistant adviser, it is interesting that they otherwise were not dissimilar in rank to the total sample and were evenly spread amongst the remaining three positions (adviser, senior adviser, consultant). While it might be expected that the experienced advisers would be concentrated at the higher ranks, there were a sizeable number of advisers of long standing employed at the adviser rank.The long term advisers interviewed were not generally the type of adviser who was closely linked to one minister and stayed with that person for long periods of time. Only four of the group fitted this mould. The large majority (11) had worked for more than one minister. Two of them had worked for four different ministers.It is important not to overstate the ease of creating a long term career as an adviser. Advisers in the study stressed the difficulties of the long hours and family and life sacrifices involved in the job, factors which usually led to 'burnout' after two or three years. They also commented on the difficulty of maintaining a long term close relationship with a minister. Loyalty to ministers was not always reciprocated; one had to prove oneself useful through frequent changes of portfolio. One adviser said ministers ranged from being 'absurdly protective' of staff who were 'donkeys', to those who were 'brutally dismissive and treated their staff with savage contempt'. Some ministers (like the one quoted earlier in this paper) valued new staff. One reportedly sacked his entire staff after the 1990 election, saying 'I want a new staff, you are all going to go'. After the 1993 election there was a push from the Prime Minister's office and the party organisation for ministers to get rid of staff who 'had been there for too long or had not performed' and to employ 'fresh' staff. Some long term advisers felt there was an unfair push against them at this time simply because they had served for many years. Some were bitter about 'the axe falling in an undifferentiated way' and experienced advisers not being re-employed. Thus the professionalisation of advisers should not be overstated. It was a minority of the sample who had made long term careers as advisers.3. Partisan public servantsAnother significant type which emerges in the sample is the partisan public servant. As discussed earlier, partisanship is difficult to measure, and at its minimum is indicated by party membership. That the majority of the public servant advisers in the sample were or had been party members (56.5%) is significant; this was not the case in earlier studies. Public servants who were or had been party members comprised almost one third (32.5%) of the total sample of Keating advisers.Walter noted a marked decline in the number of seconded public servants in Hawke ministerial offices compared to those of Fraser and Whitlam (1986:123). In the Keating sample, only two of the 23 public servant advisers displayed the non partisan approach of a seconded officer. The rest expressed a range of levels of attachment to the party, from a willingness to promote the party in government, to strong sympathy for the party and its ideology, to identification with the party and party membership. Another indicator of the changing nature of public servant advisers is whether they came from their minister's department. Over 60% of public servants in the Keating sample did not come from their minister's department. Though comparisons with earlier surveys must be approached with caution, this suggests a marked difference from earlier cohorts: only 27% of Whitlam public servant advisers and 34% of Fraser public servant advisers did not come from the same department as their minister was responsible for (Forward 1977:163). This suggests different types of recruitment: public servants who did not come from the same department often had independent connections with the minister, either through the party or through their previous work as an adviser.The partisan public servant is an adviser who combines expertise in government and policy making with political commitment - an extremely useful combination for ministers, and one which can be very potent in a minister's attempt to steer the work of the department and to have input to policy making. Ministers value these advisers highly. John Howard recently stated in a speech that the public servant was the 'ideal' ministerial adviser. He said:Some of the finest ministerial staff that I have known had previous careers within the [public] Service. My own chief of staff... and those of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Treasurer are among many others working with senior ministers who would fall within this category. In many ways it's the ideal - someone who understands the detailed workings of government but is fully attuned and sympathetic to the government's political and policy objectives. (Howard 2001)Partisan public servants are a key structural feature of the Australian ministerial office. Their presence in the Keating sample indicates that ministers saw the public service as an important source for recruiting advisers, and valued the technical skills public servants brought to ministerial offices. It also indicates that the MOP(S) Act had operated as an effective mechanism for enabling public servants to move in and out of adviser jobs, while maintaining their careers in the public service (evidenced in the fact that almost 70% of the long term advisers were public servants). However interviews suggested this was not done without difficulty, and there could be career damage for public servants who worked as advisers. 4. Policy experts: specialists and generalistsThe majority of advisers in the sample reported that they were recruited for their policy expertise, either as specialists or generalists. (Only eight advisers felt they were recruited for other reasons). Fifty one per cent of the sample were policy specialists - defined as those who, before taking their present job, had been working in a similar policy area to that on which they were now advising. These policy specialists were public servants, activists and academics with deep knowledge of specific policy issues. Some had many years' experience working on the policy issues on which they were now advising the minister. Specialists tended to have a shorter tenure as advisers, and if they remained, became generalists. Generalists could also bring considerable policy expertise to ministerial offices. Many generalists were practitioners experienced in the processes of policy making, either as public servants (not from their minister's department) or as long term advisers. That there were a considerable number of advisers in the sample who brought policy expertise to their jobs indicates the increasingly technical nature of the adviser position. Many ministers were looking for technical skills, relating to specific policy areas or to policy making more generally, when recruiting their advisers. While there was often a mix of skills in an office, policy skills were clearly valued by many ministers in recruiting staff at this time.ConclusionThis paper presents a new data set of ministerial advisers and suggests a new typology which identifies developments in the ministerial office in the 1990s.The advisers in the 1995-6 Keating sample had broadly similar demographics to advisers in earlier studies. They were mostly male, in their 30s and 40s and highly educated. Most were current or former Labor party members. Around half were currently public servants. Half of the advisers in the study had two years' or less experience. The Keating advisers had a wide range of backgrounds and included academics, activists, community workers and private sector lawyers and economists. However the vast majority had a public service background (70%). Just under half of the sample had previously worked as an adviser to a state or federal minister (46%). Women comprised 39% of all staff in April 1995. The proportion of female advisers doubled over the Hawke/Keating period, but women remained under-represented in the most senior advisory positions. There were four main types evident in the sample that are important to understanding the evolving institution of the ministerial office: a small group of 'political warriors' who were responsible for party political functions; a cadre of long term advisers; an important group of partisan public servants; and a group of policy experts who brought expertise either as policy specialists or as experienced generalists. These four types have implications for the developing character of the ministerial office. The job of ministerial adviser in the Keating years tended to be highly partisan and policy focused, and showed signs of being increasingly professional and technical. A mix of types of staff was also important to the character of the institution at this time. An examination of this group of 41 people reveals some important features of those working as advisers in the Keating years. It also provides important insights into the changing nature of one of our most significant political institutions.Not for citation without the author's permission.September 2001
ReferencesDunn, D (1997) Politics and Administration at the Top : lessons from down under Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh PressForward, R (1975) 'Ministerial staff of the Australian Government 1972-1974: a survey' In R. Wettenhall & M. Painter (Eds.), The First Thousand Days of Labor Canberra: Canberra College of Advanced EducationForward, R (1977) 'Ministerial staff under Whitlam and Fraser' Australian Journal of Public Administration 36, 159-167Commonwealth of Australia (1995) Ministerial Directory April 1995 AGPS CanberraHoward, J (2001) The Centenary of the APS Oration 19 June 2001 The Centenary Conference of the Institute of Public Administration AustraliaWalter, J (1986) The Ministers' Minders: Personal advisers in National Government Melbourne: Oxford University Press Appendix A : MethodologyBiographical data was collected as part of a large qualitative research project about the role of ministerial advisers in the Keating years, which is a forthcoming PhD thesis. The research involved 64 in-depth interviews with ministerial advisers, ministers and public servants, conducted between April 1995 and April 1996.Those defined as advisers in the Keating study were assistant advisers, advisers, senior advisers, principal advisers and consultants who worked for ministers. The staff of parliamentary secretaries was excluded. In line with Walter's approach, all administrative, electorate and media staff were also excluded from the total sample group.The interviews were obtained through a combination of snowball sampling and targeted letters. Snowballing involves contacting subjects who then suggest other eligible contacts and this process continues until an adequate sample is built. It is ideal for situations where access can be difficult and trust needs to be established. After this, letters were sent to advisers in offices which had not been reached through snowballing.

Megan Kimber

QUT

Improving Students Essay Writing Preparation: Trialing Peer Review

ABSTRACT

In this paper I discuss an action research project trialing the use of peer review within tutorials to better prepare students for writing essays for assessment in a core undergraduate subject. Action researchers aim to close the gap between research and practice as it involves practitioners (in this case university teachers) in devising and implementing strategies to overcome an identified problem. It is collaborative and spirals outwards through a series of cycles thus including as many people who are affected by the process as possible. In this way action researchers seek to achieve social change, particularly through democratising a social practice. Peer review was chosen as the best method to achieve these results because of the way in which it contributes to the learning process, entails a conscious decision to include students in formative assessment, and increases student confidence, understanding of content and tutorial ownership. Teacher reflection, student evaluation, peer observation and student essay results all suggest that students obtained these benefits – with students involved in the third cycle being not only the positive towards the process but also attaining a mean mark higher than that of the group as a whole.

Introduction

In the global era where stress is laid upon ‘lifelong learning’, it is essential to provide citizens with the skills to assist them to contribute to society as fully as possible. Research, critical thinking and analysis, and writing are three such skills and assessment through essay writing is one way to aid students in attaining them. However, undergraduate students’ ability to write essays appears to be deteriorating and the task of better preparing students to write essays has even given greater urgency due to the increasing size and diversity of the student population. This article reports the results of a trial to implement peer review - a form of peer assessment that focuses on students providing each other with qualitative feedback and enabling them to assume greater control over their learning - to better prepare students enrolled in a core public policy subject, Government, Business and Society (hereafter G, B & S), for assessment via written essays. The evidence suggests that peer review is effective in this regard. It appears that peer review is a useful teaching/learning activity that not only provides students with variety in tutorial activities but also enhances their essay writing skills, their understanding of the unit content, and their ownership of tutorials. This evidence is drawn from theory (the literature on action research, on peer assessment, and on teaching and learning), from tutor observation and reflection, from the oral and written comments provided by students, from discussion with peers, and from students’ essay results. Discussion of the project will concentrate on the problem identified, the action taken to address it and the results obtained. Before continuing it is important to note that action research reports tend to be written in the first person and to describe what action research and peer review are.

Action research

Action research was the method chosen for the project. It is qualitative in nature and, in an educational context, action research allows teachers to close the ‘gap between research and practice’ (Kember and Kelly 1993, 3) because, as practitioners, they define the research problem and ‘conduct the research in a way in which the outcomes are directly useful’ to them (Kember and Kelly 1993, 3). The term ‘action research’ was first used by the social psychologist, Kurt Lewin, in 1944 in order to describe his goal of promoting ‘social action through [the] democratic decision-making and active participation of practitioners in the research process. ...’ (Kember and Kelly 1993, 1-2). Action research is cyclical. It begins with the identification of a problem and moves through planning to action (or implementation) and then to observation and finally to reflection. These activities are interrelated and are implemented ‘"systematically and self-critically"’ (Carr and Kemmis quoted in Kember and Kelly 1993, 5). Action research is continuous, spiralling outwards to include more people who are ‘"affected by the practice ... [while] maintaining collaborative control of the process"’ (Carr and Kemmis quoted in Kember and Kelly 1993, 5). The collaborative nature of action research implies that what is regarded as evidence is qualitative and relatively open-ended. Nonetheless, it draws on the four ‘lenses’ of reflective practice outlined by Schön (1987): self, students, peers and theory. Thus action research exists when a social practice provides the subject matter of a project and when this practice is regarded ‘"as a form of strategic action susceptible of improvement"’ (Carr and Kemmis quoted in Kember and Kelly 1993, 5).

The aims of action research could be seen to link with the goals of many involved in teaching politics and public policy. Some researchers view the field as a democratising force because the study of civics can lead learners to transform their beliefs, altering the way in which they interact within social, political and economic institutions (for example Edmondson III 1991; Davis, Wanna and Warhurst 1993; Opheim 1997; White 1997). It could be suggested that in Australia undergraduate teaching and learning in politics and public policy, as in other social sciences, generally involves a lecture and a tutorial. Lectures are used to impart basic information and tutorials expand upon and explore that information. A student-centred approach emphasising developing students’ skills and knowledge can be seen to be important (for example Biggs 1999, Lublin 1991[1987]).

Peer review

Similar aims and approaches are involved in peer assessment, which is one of a number of innovative assessment techniques being promoted in the literature on teaching and learning (for example Biggs 1999, Dochy, Segers & Sluijsmans 1999). Peer assessment is a process whereby groups ‘rate their peers’. It may ‘entail previous discussions or agreement over criteria’ and ‘the use of rating instruments or checklists’ that have either been developed by others or ‘by the user group’ (Dochy, et al. 1999, 337). Thus the forms of peer assessment range from students providing each other with qualitative feedback to their involvement in marking. ‘The assessment [task] may be formative or summative and could form part of a larger scheme through which peer feedback is given prior to self-assessment’ (Dochy, et al. 1999, 337-8). In other words, peer assessment is both part of the grading process and of the ‘learning process through which skills are developed’ (Dochy, et al. 1999, 338). It is this contribution to the learning process that is the main educational virtue of peer assessment. As Dochy, Segers & Sluijsmans (1999, 340) argue, peer assessment ‘can be valuable as a formative assessment method and hence as part of the learning process. Students become more involved, both in the learning and in the assessment process’.

Experiments with peer assessment have been implemented in a range of disciplines including geography, education and science (for example Pain & Mowl 1996; Falchikov 1995). It has been found to increase attendance, promote ‘excellence’, increase feedback and teach responsibility (Dochy, et al. 1999, 338). Further, where peer marking has been introduced, the ratings students have given each other have been discovered as generally ‘accurate’ in comparison with those given by the teacher (Falchikov 1995, 177). There are, however, potential dangers with peer assessment (Falchikov 1995, 177; Pain & Mowl 1996, 23; Dochy, et al. 1999, 340). They include that:

• students do not always react positively towards it;
• students sometimes find it difficult or are reluctant to award marks;
• students can ‘overmark’ as a consequence of ‘friendship marking’;
• where ‘collusive marking’ occurs it can lead to non-differentiation within groups;
• some students can dominate (‘decibel marking’); and
• ‘parasite marking’ can result from when some students not contributing to the group.

Despite these dangers, the ‘few student evaluations of peer assessment [that exist] ... suggest more benefits than reservations’ (Falchikov 1995, 177).

Peer review capitalises on the benefits of peer assessment as a tool for formative assessment. While students may be requested to offer their peer a mark and to justify it in accordance with set criteria, either student or student/tutor generated, it is used to provide constructive feedback rather than to record or contribute to an actual grade. Peer review can:

• improve students’ confidence;
• create a more democratic learning environment;
• make assessment criteria more explicit;
• enhance students’ written and analytical skills;
• provoke a deeper understanding of the topic; and
• provide a sound basis from which to implement peer marking (Brew 1999, 159-71; Dochy, et al. 1999, 337-40; Lapham and Webster 1999, 183-91; Pain & Mowl 1996; Falchikov 1995).

These benefits can strengthen the alignment between objectives and assessment in a subject (Biggs 1999) and they are central to why peer review can be used to better prepare students to write essays.

This potential is evident in Pain and Mowl’s (1996) use of peer marking to improve undergraduate essay writing in a first year geography subject. Indeed their introductory comments could be describing the situation in politics and public policy. Pain and Mowl (1996, 19-20) state that:

Pain and Mowl, in part, express the problem I identified in G, B & S - students’ preparation for assessment through essays and, independently of them, I chose peer review, a form of peer assessment, as the best means of addressing the problem.

The project

Context

G, B & S is a large core subject designed to provide an introductory civics education to and develop the analytical and communication skills of undergraduate Business students. It centres on the interactions between government, business and society in the contemporary world. The material is theoretical, practical and comparative in nature. While most students are in the first year of their degrees, there is a growing number of upper-level students, students undertaking a second degree, students who have entered university through alternative pathways, or who are from overseas or Non-English Speaking Backgrounds. Due to the size of enrolments (1,500 in the project semester) the subject is taught across two campuses.

The primary vehicles for teaching and learning in this subject are weekly lectures (one hour) and tutorials (two hours). One-to-one consultation is also available. The subject has an on-line teaching site containing the unit outline, information on assessment, the PowerPoints from lectures and other such material. This project was conducted during first semester 2001 and I was responsible for four tutorials, each comprising thirty students from diverse backgrounds and varied abilities. Lectures impart basic information. Tutorials develop content knowledge and skills, which are assessed through a progressive workbook marked in class, an essay and an end-of-semester exam containing both short answer questions and an essay. Tutorial activities are designed to interest and motivate students, to encourage them to engage in higher order thinking and to prepare them to approach assessment items appropriately.

The project as action research

In the description of action research provided earlier it was noted that an action research project begins with the identification of a problem followed by planning to improve the situation. That students’ essay marks were deteriorating suggested that the problem, in part, lay in the way in which they were prepared for assessment via a written essay. I sought to address this problem through collaborative means. Although constrained in my ability to continually widen the project by my institutional position (a casual tutor), I endeavoured to move the research through three cycles initially involving my students and me and spiralling out to include the subject coordinator and other tutors. The trial resulted not only in better essays but also in students having greater confidence, gaining more ownership of tutorials and understanding of the content, and in stimulating other tutors to think more about how to write essays.

Actions and results

As the first two tutorial groups were taught back-to-back, it was impossible to have time to reflect on and alter the activities. Consequently, they were considered together forming one action research cycle. The other two tutorial groups were treated as separate cycles. There were three parts to this experiment:

• first, a whole-of-tutorial discussion of the structure and components of an essay, of good and bad essays, and of the requirements specific to the subject, and a ‘Harvard One-Minuter’ (week three of semester);
• second, a whole-of-tutorial discussion of researching and referencing, student generation of criteria for a very good essay, and student choice of a practice essay question to complete at home using their criteria and under conditions negotiated between tutor and students, and seeking student comments on the experience of developing their essay criteria (week four of semester); and

• third, provide students with guidelines on giving positive and constructive feedback. Distribute copies of their criteria and a hints sheet on the content pertaining to each question. Students exchange and review each other’s essays. Obtain student comments on peer review (week five).

Tables displaying the way in which the activities were presented prior to the trial and during each cycle are listed at appendix one.

The first component of the trial was presented identically in all three cycles. Self reflection, student comments and peer discussion resulted in modifications and significant changes to the way in which the activities involved in the second and third components of the trial were presented in the subsequent two cycles. The students participating in the third cycle derived the greatest benefits from the tasks and were the most positive towards the use of peer review. In the following discussion I concentrate on the second two components of the experiment.

The sixty students involved in the first cycle developed their essay criteria through each tutorial class breaking into several sub-groups. Each sub-group had twenty minutes for their deliberations and appointed a scribe and a spokesperson to report back to the group as a whole. Inability to complete the week’s activities, and the amount of noise, suggested that twenty minutes was too long. My assessment was confirmed by students’ comments that, while developing the criteria had been useful, too much time was spent on the activity.

Consequently, small group discussion was reduced to ten minutes for the second cycle (thirty students). In addition I requested that in reporting back sub-groups were not to mention the same criterion. The aim of these modifications was to add fun to the task and to respond to students’ concerns about not covering as much of the content as they would like. Although these changes quickened the tutorial, and the majority of students found the activity very helpful, the criteria developed by the students who participated in this cycle were not as extensive as those that were devised by the students involved in the previous cycle. While this outcome could be attributed to a number of factors, such as the lack of interest in government expressed by many students, the compulsory nature of the subject and the fact the tutorial was scheduled straight after lunch, it pointed to the need to further alter the activity.

I used self-observation, students’ oral and written comments, peers’ suggestions, and the literature on peer review and on teaching and learning in higher education to contemplate whether replacing sub-group discussion with a whole group-brainstorming task would generate superior criteria. Would such a change be less participatory than using sub-groups? What about the time factor involved in requiring all students to say something? Considering these issues in relation to the problem at hand - better preparing students to write essays - and my teaching philosophy, for the third cycle I replaced the sub-group discussions with individual student listings of a criterion and having no one repeat a criterion. The result was not only much laughter but the most extensive and well-categorised criteria of all four tutorial groups as well. Indeed the students who participated in this cycle were the most positive of all the groups in their comments about developing the criteria. They also put greater effort into their practice essays than the students involved in the previous cycles.

While most of the students involved in all three cycles of the project were positive about the benefits of having developed their own criteria and then applying it to review each other’s work, there were a number of negative comments. These remarks were largely confined to the first cycle (second tutorial group). Here, some students either ignored the instructions on how to provide feedback, or the instructions were unclear or lacking in detail. Consequently, I was clearer in the instructions on providing feedback in the next cycle.

Reflecting on the first and second cycles, the instructions for giving feedback and for the process of peer review were expanded. I provided greater detail and explanation on how to give feedback and suggested that some people might want to ‘team up’ with someone who answered a different question from them. Combined with their work on developing the criteria and their essays, these changes appeared to motivate students to devote greater effort to reading each other’s essays and to providing feedback. Indeed, several students stated that, ‘because we came up with the criteria, we owned the process’. Thus the changes implemented as a result of reflecting on, and the alterations during the previous two cycles increased student control over tutorials – that is to say democratised tutorials - making the tasks more useful and meaningful to them.

Although some students did not like reviewing each other’s essays they identified the benefits they had obtained. These included being better prepared to write an essay, greater understanding of the content and increased ownership of the tutorial. My own and the students’ observations were confirmed by these students, as a group, achieving the highest marks in the mid-semester essay of all four tutorial groups. Overall, many of the students who participated in the trial obtained high marks and the unit coordinator commented on this result. The mean mark for students in the subject as whole was eighteen point four (18.4) out of thirty. For the students involved in the first cycle it was eighteen point six (18.6) and for those participating in the third cycle it was twenty point eight two (20.82). Some of the oral and written comments offered by students are listed below.

• ‘the interest or value of seeing different points of view’;
• ‘made me more aware of my writing’;
• ‘indicated where I had misinterpreted the question’;
• ‘found out things that I had not realised that I had missed out’;
• ‘it was helpful to see how others addressed the topic’;
• ‘learnt new concepts’;
• ‘it was good where you had similar ideas which made you feel you were on track and had interpreted the textbook correctly’;
• ‘it was helpful in finding out more than one of looking at an essay. For example could have been done from a political or an economic viewpoint.’;
• ‘it was a different level of constructive interest; it was not authoritarian; the criteria helped because the whole group came up with it so they could support it, so in that sense it was really good’;
• ‘Peer marking was an exceptional way in getting honest feedback, especially since the criteria was decided by our peers’; and
• ‘it was fun and a learning experience’.

Finally, as indicated earlier in this article, action researchers aim to include as many people affected by the process in the project. While the extent to which I could achieve this was limited by my casual academic position within the institution, I involved my students at all stages of the project and continually discussed the project and shared my experience with other tutors in the subject. The last question on the written evaluation was open-ended and invited students to offer suggestions on ways to improve peer review (the questions asked in the written evaluation are included as an appendix). Several students thought that providing model essays and going through marking them would be beneficial. I had attempted to do this by requesting students read a particular article on their recommended reading list which would be used in the next tutorial meeting as material to assist in evaluating essays. As only a few students read the article, it was impossible to do the task. I also displayed an overhead transparency on ‘how to write a fail essay’ to emphasise the points raised in the discussions on essay writing. It may be appropriate to have students read the article within the tutorial and to provide them with the points on writing a fail essay as a handout rather than on an overhead transparency. It might be helpful for tutors to prepare a good and a bad essay for students to evaluate and mark. Yet such actions raise the prospect of reducing students’ ownership of the criteria that they develop and/or of students complaining about the amount of time devoted to essay writing at the expense of content. Nonetheless, whether or not these concerns are justified can only be gauged through discussion with peers and through a further action research cycle involving more tutors and their students - a process that has already begun.

conclusion

The results of the project discussed in this article indicate that peer review is effective in improving students’ preparation for writing essays in undergraduate public policy subjects. Students’ comments and the skills and knowledge they obtained mirrored those detailed in the literature. The students who participated in the trial, and the third cycle in particular, were not only better prepared to write an essay - as confirmed by their marks - but exhibited increased confidence and obtained greater ownership of their tutorial. A further cycle has commenced involving several tutors and their students in an effort to further improve the way in which students are prepared to write essays.

APPENDIX 1:

STUDENT EVALUATION OF PEER REVIEW OF THE PRACTICE ESSAY

APPENDIX TWO: ACTIVITIES

WEEK	ACTIVITIES
3	News items dealing with political ideologies (20 mins) Activities on political ideologies (45 mins) Components of an essay, how to structure an essay, what is required in a G, B & S essay (20 mins) Explain criteria; good and fail essays (20 mins).
4	Questions from previous week (5 mins); News items on social division (20 mins); Research and referencing (20 mins); and Socialisation and power in society (60 mins).
5	Questions from previous week (10); Practice essay (40) Discussion of how to answer the questions through hints sheet (20); News items and discussion on political economy linking weeks one to five (30).

	ACTIVITIES
WEEK	Groups 1 and 2
3	News items on political ideologies (15) Activities on political ideologies (45) Components of an essay, how to structure an essay, what is required in G, B & S essays (25) Explaining the criteria; good and fail essays (25).
4	Questions from previous week (10); News items on social division (20); Researching and referencing (25); Student generation of criteria for a very good essay (35); Choose practice essay to complete at home and negotiate conditions (10); Power in society (20)
5	Questions from previous week (10); Guidelines for giving feedback (5) ; Distribute students’ criteria and hints sheet on content (2); Peer review of essays and student comments on it (35); News items and discussion on political economy linking weeks one to five (45) Evaluation (10).

	ACTIVITIES
WEEK	Group 4
3	News items dealing with political ideologies (15) Activities on political ideologies (45) Components on an essay, how to structure an essay, what is required in G, B & S essays (25) Explaining the criteria; good and fail essays (25).
4	Questions from previous week (15); News items on social division (20); How to research and reference (20); Student generation of criteria for a very good essay (25); and Students choose practice essay question and conditions negotiated (5); Power in society (25).
5	Questions from previous week (10); Guidelines for giving feedback (12) ; Distribute students’ criteria and hints sheet on content (2); Peer review of essays and student comments on it (35); News items and discussion on political economy linking weeks one to five (45) Evaluation (10).

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