In the Federalist Papers it is interesting to read Alexander Hamilton's arguments against an executive council. It appears he feared shared power in the executive would make the executive weak and unable to perform its duties but also allow the executive to avoid responsibility.

The Westminster system is no stranger to the Executive Council. Originally the executive council was a means to remove executive power from the monarch while still maintaining their ceremonial authority. The Prime Minister position became rather presidential. From British history we remember strong Prime Ministers such as Pitt and Disraeli.

Australia adopted similar patterns whether the executive relationship was formal or informal through a single constitution or multiple legislative acts. For instance the Prime Ministerial behaviour of Australia, Canada and even Queensland were very similar despite Canada and Queensland not having formal constitutions until recently.

The Prime Minister has become an increasingly Presidential position in all parliamentary systems.

The only system I can think of that has multiple magistrates in or above the executive council is Iran with its theocratic Supreme Leader and Council of Guardians.

Alexander Hamilton has the strongest arguments for a singular executive in Federalist No.70 . He argues that since the sole purpose of the Executive is to execute the law, there should be no dissension in the execution which an executive council might cause. The place for bickering is in the legislative when the law is being made, but once it becomes law, then it becomes fundamental that it is implemented as the legislators saw fit;

Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office, in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity. From either, and especially from all these causes, the most bitter dissensions are apt to spring. Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and distract the plans and operation of those whom they divide.

If they should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the most important measures of the government, in the most critical emergencies of the state. And what is still worse, they might split the community into the most violent and irreconcilable factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who composed the magistracy.

There is particular irony here in the Bush Administration recently giving the Vice-President increasing executive power through executive orders. Much of what the Bush Administration has done has been hostile to the intentions of the founders of the American Republic, this is another.

Hamilton also argues that accountability and responsibility are strong arguments for a singular executive. Colloquially this is best known as Harry Truman's "The buck stops here" placard on his desk. Hamilton writes;

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds -- to censure and to punishment. The first is the more important of the two, especially in an elective office.

Man, in public trust, will much oftener act in such a manner as to render him unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the Executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author.

The circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that, where there are a number of actors who may have had different degrees and kinds of agency, though we may clearly see upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable.

Responsible government and ministerial responsibility is being trashed in Australia but I do not believe it is because of the executive council. It is modern media management. John Quiggin has an interesting response which provides a solution in the Australian example of government .

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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.

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