Executive Race-Conditions

A race condition in software is a bug where two concurrent systems act independently but also interdependently to provide unexpected outcomes. The Australian Constitution contains a potential race-condition between the Governor-General and Prime Minister.

The Australian Constitution requires that the Governor-General in Council must follow the advice of the Executive Council. This is the Executive Cabinet which is headed by the Prime Minister. Yet Section 61 lays all formal executive power in the Governor-General;

The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen's representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth.

In Section 5 the Governor-General has the authority to dissolve parliament, and then not let any parliament to site for twelve months. The Governor-General could also appoint, and refuse to appoint ministers;

The Governor-General may appoint officers to administer such departments of State of the Commonwealth as the Governor-General in Council may establish.

Such officers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor-General. They shall be members of the Federal Executive Council, and shall be the Queen's Ministers of State for the Commonwealth.

So the Governor-General can appoint ministers in departments the Executive Council have advised the Governor-General in Council to exist. Section 64 was the clause used by John Kerr to remove the Whitlam government.

The two faced Governor-General

There are two constitutional faces to the Governor-General. The Governor-General and the Governor-General in Council . The former has the entire formal executive power in their office, including command of the military. The latter must take the advice of the Executive Cabinet and can be removed from their position by the Executive Cabinet. Yet the same position can sack a government, remove the ministers and call an election.

This is the race condition.

There have been two dismissals in Australian political history. The Whitlam dismissal at the federal level, and the dismissal of Jack Lang in NSW by Governor Phillip Game in 1932. There is no guarantee that the next Prime Minister faced with the possible dissolution of their government try to sack the Governor-general first.

If Australia does fall into dictatorship, it will be done constitutionally by a Governor-General with flat-out appeals to the constitutionality of the process of usurpation. This would also be impossible without the military's backing.

The whole reason the Australian system doesn't fall over is through the principle of responsible government. But the past has shown that governments do not follow that principle when it is not on their interests. Some of the events that led to the Whitlam dismissal were because responsible government was not adhered to.

Constitutional rejuvenation, either as a republic, or just constitutional care-taking must force the Governor-General or President to only have one constitutional face - one without any ambiguity at all.

cam
Permalink, Executive Race-Conditions, Apr 2006, cam
dlatimer: The Queen is out there: The problem with this analysis is that it fails to mention the role of the Queen.

In practice the Queen\'s only constitutional role is to appoint the Governor-General and State Governors on the advice of the Prime Minister and Premier respectively.

The governors are commissioned to perform a function by the Queen and hence are not in a position to become dictators. If a series of events led to a race condition, as described in the article, then the Queen can terminate the commission and appoint another governor to return the country to constitutional normality.

Which leads us to the real question... what stops the Queen from becoming a dictator? In the sense of this article, she is a dictator, a monarch, with absolute authority. But that is tempered by the oath, traditions and laws of the UK. Essentially, the citizens of Australia do not believe that the monarchy would or could unwind the constitutional system back to the pre-1700\'s and they are right in thinking that.

This is a recurring problem with much republican analysis is that it does not comprehend that the constitution is not a complete description of the constitutional system. Rarely does it seem to understand that the conventions are not inferior to the written law in delivering democracy. There is no \"bug\".

The book by McGarvie is essential reading on this topic:
http://www.mup.unimelb.edu.au/democracy/index.html
avocadia: There is no bug:

What there is instead is a gaping hole in the functional spec wide enough for Mad Max to drive a truck through. Once the original parties have left for greener pastures, their replacements have to ascertain the nature of all understandings previously mutually held; hopefully via handover, but more likely via analysing the working implementation, and I am here to tell you that the code is never, ever the functional spec.

Meanwhile the clients are either ruthlessly taking advantage of the situation by getting you to grab your ankles to cover your ignorance, or by also replacing participants leading to a situation commonly referredto as the blind leading the blind. Either way, neither scenario leaves you as the lucky party.
ranomatic: Pre-Emption: So the monarch is a higher priority task, or maybe a non-maskable interrupt.  He or she can stop the locked up processes and fix everything.  That doesn\'t solve the bug, but does give you an out when the bug rears its ugly head.  Like a big blue reset button.

The trouble is that this particular race condition detection and elimination system is a wealthy, old, lady who\'s only qualification for this important job (as well as many others) is that her father was also the monarch of Australia.
avocadia: To be strictly fair:

One of those holes in the functional spec is the mutual understanding that there are more qualifications than just being the fruit of the right loin. Namely, the instillation of a sense of duty and the training to fulfill that duty.

Please see my opinion of missing specification.

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