Donald Horne's book, The Lucky Country was a significant book of political and social commentary when it was released in 1964. Parts of the book are highly dated as Australia has progressed through the decades since its release, however some of his insights remain pertinent.

Donald Horne's book contains a section on the Australian Parliaments in the 1960s, this is an extract;

Parliaments

It maybe have been noted in that in a chapter devoted to politics the institution of Parliament has not so far been mentioned. There are enough of them in Australia - an Upper and Lower House in every state (except Queensland where they make do with one) and two Houses in Canberra - but it is is hard to escape the conclusion that in Australia Parliaments are now mainly of ritualistic significance and that the significance of the peculiarly parliamentary part of Australian democracy is quite slight.

A political leader achieves leadership through his party and normally he then uses his position and power of patronage to dominate, or attempt to dominate his party machine; and rebels work through the party machine to try and affect the policies of the leaders.

In this power situation Parliaments are subsidiary; it is through the parties that political changes are effected - if they are effected at all.

Power within the parties is not gained by any significant appeal to mass membership. These isn't a mass membership. Party branches are small and, with exceptions, moribund.

Power within a party is usually gained by secret contrivance and manipulation. Except in the sense that the rival party machines have to submit themselves to regular parliamentary elections the idea that Parliament represents the people is simply one of the fictions of Australian public life - as is the idea that Parliaments have any particular relation beyond a ceremonial one to the administration of the Commonwealth and States.

All that happens is the people have a veto; they can keep one of the party machines out of office - at the cost of putting the other party machine into power.

And when a party gains power it uses its Parliament as its legislative and propaganda instrument.

The checks on an Executive's non-arbitrariness are mainly non-parliamentary (although considerable): there are checks within the party machine itself, there are checks from pressure groups, there are the checks of publicity and exposure (here Parliaments are of some significance, but of perhaps less significance than the Press), the checks of regular elections, the checks of the Constitution and of conventional standards of behaviour.

There is no lack of checks on Australian governments - although a better informed and more active legislative body such as the American Congress might provide greater checks because of its ability to acquire information through committees then act on the information.

Just to break for a moment, it is interesting that the federal Senate has adopted a Committee system and the American Congress has fallen into party discipline and allowed an Executive of the same party to operate with little oversight.

As an example of how important the Senate Committee system has become in Australia, this is a graph of hours spent in committee and in parliament by Senators;

Source: Senate Brief No 4 , July 2004

Donald Horne continues;

What seems to be almost altogether lacking in Australia is a channel for the invigoration of the political parties, The political structure tends to ossify.

Parliaments are all but useless for the invigoration of the parties. With one of the Party machines in control of parliament and the Executive in control of the party machine there is no prospect of Parliament - as Parliament - having any effect on administration, unless - as sometimes happens - a rival party machine controls one of the Upper Houses. But again this is not a parliamentary check - it is a party machine check.

The sheer dreariness of parliamentary life - its lack of political meaning and its old fashioned rituals - repel many of the kind of people who might make good members of an Executive and also the kind of people who like to acquire information and to probe into the process of government (and would make good parliamentarians).

An able man in the prime of life is usually not prepared to make the sacrifice of listening day after day to speech after speech of almost complete drivel.

The fiction that Parliaments are hotly debating whether they will pass a bill as if they were still made up of eighteenth century squires, combined with the demands of party discipline and the general poverty of parliamentary candidates have produced a banality in 'debate' that is world class.

It is doubtful there are any parliaments anywhere in the world where the standard of speaking is lower than it is in the Parliaments of Australia.

Apart from the windbags who get a sense of relief from opening and shutting their mouths life can assume useful meaning for an Australian M.P. only in his constituency. Here he performs a useful if rather menial job getting telephones, jobs, or pensions for constituents, and, in general, trying to pull strings in government departments.

Sometimes he corrects an injustice; more often - by gaining a privilege for a constituent - he may create an injustice for others.

It is fashionable to blame Menzies for the decadence of Australian Parliaments but since the same processes can be observed in the State Parliaments and were already in operation in the Federal Parliaments before Menzies began his long period of power this seems a trivial assessment.

One can certainly make criticisms of Menzies: he has not made any attempt to strengthen parliament; on the contrary he has always acted to suppress any attempt by a parliamentarian to assert himself as a parliamentarian.

He has been the boss, and he has let everyone know it. To him, Parliament appears to be merely an occasional sounding board for his own oratory.

There is one simple fundamental weakness in the Australian Parliaments: they haven't go enough to do. And there is fundamental weakness in the system of providing an Executive from the ranks of parliamentarians: most of them are not good executives.

The kind of man who is prepared to sit through years of boring ritual in parliamentary sessions before he is rewarded with power in Executive office is not likely to be a good political leader.

And the kind of man who is likely to be a good leader finds it impossible to break through quickly into public office - so he doesn't try.

The last two paragraphs describe Malcolm Turnbull's situation well. He was an accomplished businessman who led a political campaign - the Republican Movement - which was external to Parliament and nearly successful.

He joined politics where he acted in what Horne calls a parliamentarian manner, providing an alternate tax policy to the Treasury's. He has since been silenced under Executive discipline by being given the minor and politically insignificant position of Secretary to the Prime Minister for Water Policy.

It was a political move by the Prime Minister to bring Turnbull under Executive control.

More Reading on Donald horne

• Donald Horne
• Lucky Country
• Australian Parliament
• Party Machine
• Malcolm Turnbull
• Senate Committee
• Universalism in Australian Republicanism
• Donald Horne on Parliaments - in 1964