The Westminster System is woeful in stopping incumbency. The British system has parties stay in power for close to a quarter of a century at a time, in Australia the churn rate is greater but party's remain in power often for a decade at a time. This is a failing of the Westminster system, if Australia is to persist with a parliamentary system, term limits need to be introduced to increase the churn rate of the elected representatives in order to protect against incumbency, corruption and nepotism.

Poll : Best device to increase the churn-rate?

The State of the System

Since World War II and the change over from the states being the first government to tax income to the federal government getting first lick of the pie, parties have managed to remain in power for overly long period. While not as long as parties have been able to remain in government in the United Kingdom, Australian parties have still managed to average over three terms.

As an example of how static the Australian Westminster is, this is the periods in years parties have held government starting in 1942 ;

• Labor, 7 years (1942-1949)
• Liberal, 23 years (1949-1972)
• Labor, 3 years (1972-1975)
• Liberal, 8 years (1975-1983)
• Labor, 13 years (1983-1996)
• Liberal, 8 years (1996-

If we look at the number of Prime Ministers that were removed by a general election the stagnation and concentration of power in the Westminster system is even worse. Of the thirteen Australian Prime Ministers since 1942, only four have been removed by an election.

• Curtin - died in office
• Forde - removed by party
• Chifley - defeated at general election
• Menzies - retired
• Holt - died in office
• Gorton - removed by no confidence vote
• Whitlam - removed by Governor-General
• Fraser - defeated at general election
• Hawke - removed by party
• Keating - defeated at general election
• Howard - still in government

The defeats that have come at general election have all been "drovers dog" election where the local three-legged cattle-dog could have beaten the incumbent government. This has led to a "waitocracy" in Australian government where opposition leaders either entrench their position in an effort to wait out the current government until their is a drovers dog election.

John Howard has often been held up for his tenaciousness in returning to the leadership of the opposition party when the Hawke and Keating governments were in power. Commonly called, "Lazarus on a triple bypass". Howard's career is a good example of the waitocracy in action. Howard managed to hang around in the leadership position long enough for the drovers dog election of 1996 to come around. Keating was seen as too arrogant and out of touch with the electorate.

If Latham entrenches himself in the opposition as well as Howard did, he will get a chance to be Prime Minister, not because of his - or his party's - abilities, but rather because the incumbent government will exhaust itself on its own power and offer a "drovers dog" election to the people where they will be seen with not having a choice for the incumbent.

Inertia To Change

Humans are adverse to change in the larger aspects of life. Humanity attempts to control its environment as an outlet of this larger aversion to change and the desire for stability. This is completely understandable given the volatile nature of modern life, modern employment and fiscal security. Add the ongoing fear campaigns by government, the media and terrorist groups - the desire for stability is entirely accepted.

In political systems this acquiescence to the appearance of stability often leads to corrupted individual hijacking a democratic system with clear separation of powers into a dictatorship with absolute rule collapsed to a singular person. The current changes in Russia under the arm-twisting of Vladimir Putin is a good example of this. Another is the manner in which Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan has managed to suspend the constitution to support his desire for absolute power.

In democracies the system is set up to balance the negative passions of humans through the principle of the separation of powers (a principle Joh Bjelke-Peterson was oblivious to when questioned by a judge). Even though this is a defence against a dictator, it is not a perfect defence and through the manipulation of other negative passions and appeals to the people's desire for stability, diffuse power can collapse into absolute power for an individual.

One of the purposes of a written and explicit constitution is to have the stability of the democracy not be personified into an individual but rather into the system itself. Leaders of the Executive Cabinet (Prime Ministers) enjoy pursuing the position as celebrity and use the trivial reporting of the news media to entrench themselves further and further into power. There is no need to seek stability through a Prime Minister remaining in the position for long periods.

Deciding Limits

From a subjective point of view governments tend to exhaust themselves after about eight years. This is also the period where the government, and the leaders start to fall into the traps of power such as corruption, abuse and nepotism. In NSW, the Bob Carr government after a long tenure has corruption allegations levelled against it that were sufficient enough for ICAC to visit the issue. Despite the Howard government's re-election there are still issues surrounding the federal government's abuse of power that have to be resolved.

To minimize this entropy that governments display, it is fitting to forcibly retire the head of the Executive Cabinet (Prime Minister and Premier) from parliament (or the assembly) after six years. This is two election periods and more than enough time for the leader of a government to have an effect in the position.

Another natural period of tenure is the generation. This is often construed to be twenty-five years. Elected officials in parliament who create legislation require specialist knowledge in legislative law. Due to party discipline most of these decisions are carried out by the Executive Cabinet, but as back-benchers move to the front-bench and possibly to lead the party then a long enough period for the specialist skills to be developed is necessary.

The period of a generation is suitably long for the specialist skills of legislation to be developed. After this period an elected official should be forced to retire by the constitution. This will be effective in putting an end to the benefits of incumbency, and has been the case of some elected officials in the US Congress, almost dying on the job. A generation is half a working lifetime, and more than enough for an elected official to make their mark on the government, serve the polity, the electorate and the common good.

Protecting Against the Rules Being Bent

Another truism of politicians is that they will bend the rules to n th degree in order to satiate their personal desire for power. In the case of the head of the Executive Cabinet being forced to retire from the position, there is the possibility that the Prime Minister would leave the position before the six years is up and hand over the party to another representative. Effectively skipping the forced retirement to remain in parliament on the front or back bench.

This would require some additional explicit language in the constitution to protect against officials weaselling out of the intent for term limiting the position. To solve this, the Prime Minister would need to be recognized in the constitution as the formative holder of Executive power. Once the Prime Minister leaves the position they will be required to retire from parliament.

Being Prime Minister is the summit of Australian political achievement, forcing retirement from parliament with the handing over of the position would not detract from that achievement. Another reason to force the Prime Minister to retire from parliament after the relinquish the position is to stop a former Prime Minister going to the back-bench just before being forcibly term-limited and staying in parliament until their twenty-five years is up.

Fixed Term Elections

A final, and the most important change in increasing the churn-rate is the implementation of fixed term elections. Supposedly governments sit for three years before an election but all governments in the Australian system constantly call early elections. The Howard Government is in its fourth term in eight years. The incumbent constantly calls elections as soon as they can, and as soon as they see electoral advantage in doing so. It is a sham.

The government should be given three years (1068 days) between each election unless there is a double dissolution election. Having fixed term elections would be the greatest benefit to democracy and the greatest challenge to the power of incumbency. Three years is more than enough for a government, there is little point in giving a government four years between periods as the they have been calling election every two and bit years anyway. Three years is enough.

Supposedly the Labor Party lacks vision, leadership and an ability to engage the community. This is touchy feely garbage which ignores the realities of our Westminster forms of government and the interaction of the media with both the government and opposition. If Labor wants to get in faster they should wish for a recession, or alternatively make some sensible democratic choices such as term limits on the Executive and fixed term elections.

Natural Party of Government

The term, or the concern that a party is becoming the natural party of government is journalistic and partisan hubris. Also the notion that the so-called left, or the so-called right are in disarray and permanent chaos is also hubris. The Westminster system gives undue power to the Executive, which is informally invested in the Prime Minister. Incumbency is the biggest differentiator in an election - the churn rate is exceptionally low. Prime Ministers are more likely to lose their position to something other than an election.

When the Liberals under Menzies dominated parliament for twenty three years, there was the assumption that Labor was permanently unfavoured by the electorate. This ignored Menzies ability to wedge at election time, as well as the effect of Democratic Labor Party. It also ignores the work of the post-Menzies governments of Holt, Gorton and McMahon in modernising the pre-1950s policies and world-view of the Menzies government.

We then had Whitlam come in with a revolutionary zeal, and fall to both an incompetent cabinet before the bunyip aristocracy reclaimed "their" government through the Governor-General. If Whitlam's time in government shows anything, it is that external economic factors, as well as an opposition who has been too long out of power are damaging for an aspiring government. Then we get Fraser again, who applied 1960s economic principle to an economy that was on the edge of booming into the information age.

The common folklore over Fraser losing the 1983 election was that it was a "drover's dog" election where the local drover could have put his dog up for election and beating Fraser. But was it? Bill Hayden, who announced he was going to step down as Labor, commented;

Fraser meanwhile, had made the most disastrous decision of his whole political career. He rushed out to Government House, without a prior appointment being made, to call a double dissolution. If only he had waited, the course of our political history might well have been quite different, something he has acknowledged to me in private conversation.

The media then made sure the Liberals were in permanent disarray, running through Peacock, Howard, Peacock, Downer, Howard, Hewson, to Howard again. Labor with the power of government fell in behind the Prime Minister, until Keating decided to make a claim for the position. I recall that there was mention of Labor being the natural party of government since they obviously understood economic reform better than previous Liberal governments. And now we have the Liberals ten years in. The slow oscillation of Westminster government continues with all the advantages that incumbency offers.

The states are no different. They are all multi-term Labor governments. The closest thing to term limits the States have is NSW's ICAC. It ousted Greiner and probably weighed in on Carr's decision to retire from the Premier position.

The Waitocracy

John Howard and Kim Beazley are the same politician. They are both products of the Australian waitocracy. Howard has been remarked upon as lazarus with a triple bypass because he survived several leadership changes before becoming Prime Minister. The lesson there is that winning elections is the only thing that gives a party leader any legitimacy and authority under our present system. Howard was as much in the wilderness between 1983 and 1996, as Beazley is now.

Both pursue small target political campaigns. Howard was fortunate that Keating didn't have a Tampa or 911 in 1996 that he could whip the electorate into a frenzy about. All government's have used the power of government and the public purse to wedge, discredit and politically isolate their opponents. The Howard government is currently using taxpayer dollars to sell a policy that was not formalised legislatively until recently, and will most likely come into constitutional contention. But this is not unique for an Australian government. Taxpayer dollars have been purloined all through Australian history to attack oppositions.

There is no natural party of government, there is only incumbency. This is the best indicator of past and future election performance. We participate in a system of slow oscillation, that rewards those already in power, not only with ongoing terms, but an entropy of all power toward the centre. The Westminster is not a strong system. It is weak in checks and balances, and needs procedural additions to protect democracy.

There needs to be, at the minimum, the addition of;

• Fixed term elections.
• Term limits on the Prime Minister and Premier positions.
• Citizen Auditors.

This will be a start in defeating the waitocracy.

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John Singleton made a Fabian Society speech on Labor's chances of winning in 2007. Unfortunately the speech is not online, so I cannot read it directly, instead I am reduced to quoting Alan Ramsey in an smh op-ed. In the speech Singleton argued that Beazley was another "lazarus on a triple bypass", he should have just done away with the pretence, and called our political system a waitocracy.

From the op-ed;

Labor was so "poll driven" now it "astonishes" him. He'd thought Mark Latham, whom he'd met only once, was a "fantastic oppurtunity" but now "we're returning to Lazarus with a triple bypass". - Howard's put down of himself in 1989 - "only now Lazarus is Kim Beazley".

So where have we heard that before? From SSR ;

John Howard and Kim Beazley are the same politician. They are both products of the Australian waitocracy. Howard has been remarked upon as lazarus with a triple bypass because he survived several leadership changes before becoming Prime Minister. ... Both pursue small target political campaigns.

Road to Surfdom also linked to the article, and Gary and I discussed it at length on his philosophy website. From that discussion I wrote;

I think they are wrong, it [the opposition needing a visionary and charismatic leader] makes for good journalism, but is meaningless when compared against our political and media system. Party legitimacy, discipline and authority comes with winning elections. The party can be a bunch of no-hopers with no political vision, in fact this was true of Howard and Beazley both using "small target" strategies to try and win government. It worked for Howard, and nearly did for Beazley with only Tampa and 911 scuttling it.

It is a waitocracy, you dont need vision, or a compelling leader, you just got to hang around until you get a go, and then once you are PM, the media loves you and claims you are a "leader". The party likes power, and having the taxpayer's purse, so they fall in line with the leader. Legislation, the treasury and smacking down the media are then all used to ensure the party remains in power.

This vision and leader celebrity form of political journalism doesnt mean much. If Labor follow the Keating style of political management without his arrogance they will be fine. Howard has expanded government to an unhealthy point. If they shrink government, as they did under Hawke and Keating, then Labor will be fine. They can wedge away to their heart is content, and claim Simpson and the Donkey for Labor.

We will then see the same cycle in the Liberal Party as we did between 1983 and 1996. A constant changing of leaders as the Liberal get subject to celebrity political journalism. The same journalistic hubris of the right being in disarray and Labor being the "natural party of government".

I am sure that Singleton has a speech writer who is probably pretty smart, but we saw the Lazarus with a triple bypass analogy for Beazley in ozplogistan first.

I for one welcome our new speechwriter blog reading overlords. They may as well dig through our ideas and commentary more, because we do it better than mass media does; and ever has done.

Most of the governments in Australia at the state and federal level have been in power for near or over a decade. This is too long. Corruption and hubris have a habit of entrenching themselves after approximately eight years. The federal and state governments now openly use tax payer money to push their party policies, abuse is endemic. The Pittwater result is a poor one, not only for Liberals in NSW, but for oppositions in general.

Opposition

It is all through the Australian media. Anyone but Beazley, Independents beating Liberals in a safe seat with a 25% swing, the Victorians Liberals in a similar media reported stoush ;

But far from feeling any pressure at this stage, the Government is sitting back and enjoying the spectacle of its parliamentary opposition self-destructing. After yet another disastrous week, the Victorian Liberal Party appears to be at war with itself. It's caught up in a destructive internal conflict, one based on personalities not policies, which could result in an even worse result for the Opposition at the next election.

Robert Doyle's leadership is the subject of relentless speculation, even though he has no challenger. Ted Baillieu, the man constantly cited as his rival, has repeatedly declared he is not planning a challenge. But the so-called Costello-Kroger faction, which dominates the administrative machine, has alienated a significant minority of the parliamentary party. And with few exceptions, its preselection process has thrown up a largely mediocre group of unknown or recycled defeated MPs.

So we have the media, constantly claiming the oppositions are in turmoil, and without the authority of government to prove their capability, they end up in a permanent pool of illegitimacy. The media loves drama, Howard's so called "Athens deceleration" was nothing, absolutely nothing . Yet the media continues, or attempts to portray it as important ;

The threat had been made by Costello supporters after Howard, in musings in Athens in April, suggested he could beat Kim Beazley a third time. Some backers have recently pushed the timetable out beyond the budget. They accept the impracticality of a transition a month or so before the budget -- or, if Howard was digging in, the bad vibes that would be sent out by the Treasurer acting up at that point.

But an incumbent government is better placed to fight these suggestions off, having access to legislation, tax payer money, and as Gary Sauer-Thompson is fond of saying capable of drip-feeding the media to guide the public discourse for political ends .

Sections of the media have allowed themselves to become conduits for government spin. The journalists are either on the drip feed or they are content to recycle media releases. Either way they become publicity agents for particular politicians. The feeding is all carefully planned and organized.

The opposition hasn't the same access to the power of the civil service, nor the treasury, so can't create policy, it can only fight "small target" elections.

The state Labor governments and the federal Liberal governments have been in power too long, they are on the nose, and openly abusing the parliamentary system. At a time when we need the state Liberals to be stronger, and federal Labor to be stronger, for the sake of democracy and to at least maintain some form of churn rate, we are seeing them be kicked further and further into the dirt.

More

SSR has covered incumbency numerous times;

• Increasing The Churn Rate
• HOWTO: Offset The Power Of Incumbency
• Offsetting The Power Of Incumbency
• Incumbency Issue Again, NSW Legislation
• Statistics On State And Federal Elections

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I had dinner last night at the Watergate Hotel of President Nixon scandal fame. With its sharks-teeth brutalist architecture, it is hardly an awe inspiring building, but somehow it manages to retain its aura of elite status. Watergate has come to mean a series of political scandals, synonymous enough, that scandal of any kind, is promptly given the "gate" suffix. Nixon faced two years of impropriety and bad news - he left government with the claim of not being a crook. If he was in government today, he would give himself an award, if not a promotion.

It appears to be only constant bad news that affects a government's ratings. Last year while the Liberal Government was guillotining legislation through the Senate with all the arrogance of a majority party without check, their popularity dropped drastically. There was a period of two months there where there was constant bad news from the media on their actions. There was civil unrest at the Liberal Government with Unions organizing marches and rallies. But without the focus on bad news being maintained, the Liberal Government has recovered its position .

After the Katrina Hurricane debacle in the United States, the phrase, "Brownie, You're doing a heck of a job" became shorthand for willful ignorance of incompetence. This symbolic public cheerleading has become normal media relations for the Bush Administration. While head of the CIA George Tenet proclaimed it was a slam dunk that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This was deemed a suitable cassus belli to invade Iraq but nothing has been turned up by UN inspectors, the US military or even black market traders. Tenet's punishment for this incompetence? A Presidential Medal of Freedom .

It is the highest civil award that can be received in the US. Similar in status to Australia's old George Cross . Paul Bremer received his Presidential Medal of Freedom at the same time as Tenet. Bremer demobilized the entire Iraq Army leaving the US forces to shoulder law and order. Ironically, the current sound bite for victory and withdrawal is that Iraqi troops and police are going to take over from the US military.

But this is not unusual practice in modern democracies with how government's manage the media and public opinion. Australia's Prime Minister is far more deft at handling this in an ad-lib manner than George Bush - who requires stage managed speeches, pre-planned questions and rote answers to get his message across. Howard is far more comfortable chatting away in interviews, affirming his complete and utter support for his ministers while at the same time denying any knowledge, responsibility or even awareness of the issue.

The Australian Wheat Board scandal is just the latest where this media management technique has been used by the government. There appears to be political collusion, a US Ambassador heading overseas to silence an American investigation into the kickbacks until after the election sounds very political.

I doubt bureaucrats were the driving force behind that mission, or that they have the political power to motivate the US Ambassador to Australia to embark across the Pacific on such an effort. Especially one which carries potentially personal political risks. That was definitely politically motivated. As Gary Sauer-Thompson notes Michael Hawley is a Howard man .

Corruption is one of the few ways a government can lose an election, but even with corruption and incompetence present, this is often not enough. As Adam remarked in relation to Peter Beattie in Queensland, the electorate chose criminality over incompetence. Peter Hartcher notes ;

It's even possible that it [the Cole Commission into the AWB kickbacks] will be so damaging that even Howard will have to enforce unpleasant disciplinary action on his Government. But that is extremely unlikely.

This is, after all, a Government that was prepared to accept the wrongful deportation of scores of its own citizens by an Immigration Department so incompetent that Kafka's hallways looked like a model of efficiency and sanity.

The accountability? The head of the department was given an award and a diplomatic posting, and the Minister, Amanda Vanstone, retains her job.

In the Howard Government, presiding over a national disgrace is not a sacking offence.

John Howard and Kim Beazley both are deeply intimate with the Australian political process. They are products of the Waitocracy , sharing the same triple bypass that modern Australian politics requires in Prime Ministers and Opposition leaders. Beazley will be Prime Minister one-day as long as he keeps hanging on to the leadership of the opposition, his Drover's Dog election will come, just as John Howard's did. He will also win it with his small target campaign, allowing the government to lose in the same way that Howard allowed the Keating Government to lose in 1996.

Beazley is aware that it is constant bad news which depresses polling, in the same way that Howard is aware that it is absence of the constant bad news that keeps his polling support up. They are both playing the same game, Hartcher opens with Beazley's tactic for Parliament;

Kim Beazley promises that when Parliament resumes next week he will conduct "the most aggressive parliamentary interrogation this Government has faced in its 10 long years in office".

The Opposition Leader plans to turn the national disgrace of the AWB scandal into a political disaster for the Howard Government.

Mark Latham accused the members of the media being on the drip from the Prime Minister's office. But eyeballs mean profits, so what is a mass media outlet to do, it cannot pass up a scandal. If I was Beazley, I would be hoping that one of the AWB Directors was a cross-dresser, because there is nothing the media loves more than a salacious scandal involving sex. That is the political version of Brad leaving Jennifer for Angelina.

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