End
of Article
"Reflections"
An Address by The Honourable Gough Whitlam AC, QC to the Murdoch Student
Law Society *
Author: |
The Honourable Gough Whitlam AC, QC
|
Issue: |
Volume 5, Number 1 (March 1998)
|
Contents
Welcome
by Professor Steven Schwartz - Murdoch University Vice Chancellor
-
It's my great honour to welcome Gough Whitlam to Murdoch University. As
you know, Gough Whitlam has been called an Australian icon
- former Prime
Minister, long time leader of the Labor party, leader of numerous organisations,
author, lawyer, visiting professor
at universities both here and overseas,
and the main protagonist in some of the most momentous historical events
in Australian
political history.
-
Gough Whitlam is known as a person who has strong beliefs, holds them passionately,
and expresses them with great clarity. Two
weeks ago he celebrated his
81st birthday and I think it's fair to say he is still able and still showing
that he can maintain
the rage. Murdoch students and staff hold many of
the same beliefs that Gough Whitlam holds quite dear. We take pride in
intellectual
achievement, we are passionate advocates of political freedom,
economic freedom and intellectual freedom, we believe in fair play
and
understanding and we believe in pluralism. Ever since Murdoch was started
22 years ago, we've made it our goal to provide a
higher education to as
diverse a group of people as possible, and I believe Murdoch will continue
to maintain that as its goal
for the future.
-
These are times when there are very disturbing currents at large in Australian
society when opportunists are using the politics
of divisiveness to try
to pit one Australian against another. It's important at times like that
for universities to take a special
responsibility to become beacons of
tolerance, beacons of pluralism, places where we fight against the forces
of ignorance and
intolerance. In other words, it's important for universities
to emulate Gough Whitlam.
-
Mr. Whitlam was last here 3 years ago and he gave a talk to the Murdoch
Students Law Society and those who were here remember his
prescient remarks.
He is now here to speak to us again and I know you are all looking forward
as much as I am to here what he has
to say, so I'll just end by welcoming
him again to Murdoch and I'll now turn these proceedings to Professor Michael
Blakeney, who
is the Dean of the School of Law and who organised today's
event.
Introduction
by Professor Michael Blakeney - Dean of the Law School.
-
It's my very great honour to welcome Gough Whitlam to the Murdoch Law School.
One of the reasons that Gough is here is that I was
interviewed by the
law students' newspaper and asked who I would most like to spend the night
with. I mentioned Gough!
-
Gough has had a profound influence on my life and on the lives of my generation.
To understand that proposition, you have to appreciate
the flavour of the
political and intellectual climate of Australia in the mid to late sixties
when I was a law student. To appreciate
some of that I commend to you the
autobiographical works and diaries of that great Western Australia, Paul
Hasluck. He communicates
something of the stench for what my generation
considered to be the intellectual mediocrity and stultification of the
post-Menzies
years. Australian involvement in the Vietnam War was a tangible
manifestation of the moral bankruptcy of our leadership at that
time. In
1972 the younger generation, which at the time included me, looked to Gough
Whitlam as a shining beacon in the darkness.
-
For the few short years that Gough was allowed to govern I can say that
he did not disappoint us. From our narrow perspective as
legal scholars,
I can say that no Australian administration, as truncated as his was, has
ever been as innovative and exciting
as the Whitlam administration, and
I mention to law students the Family Law Act, the various administrative
review provisions,
the Trade Practices Act, the Racial Discrimination legislation,
the Environmental Protection Act but to name a few. Law students
will appreciate
the influence of the Whitlam years even on today's law curriculum. More
importantly perhaps the Whitlam leadership
provided the moral leadership
that had been so lacking in Australian life. Our ratification of the various
human rights and anti-discrimination
conventions, our withdrawal from the
Vietnam was, and the repeal of the conscription legislation but to mention
a few. Finally,
I should refer to the pioneering Aboriginal Land Rights
legislation which was completed after Gough's departure. I should mention
in that context that Gough was, a short while ago, welcomed to this Noongar
land by Len Collard, a Noongar person, and we appreciate
Len's welcome.
-
What relevance you may ask do the reflections of Gough Whitlam have for
you in 1997; after all he was Prime Minister before most
of you were born.
However, as a new mediocrity and philistinism settles upon the land, your
generation, as mine before yours, will
be looking for the sort of leadership
which Gough Whitlam provided. What better person than to invite to Murdoch
to share with
you his reflections. In the name of Murdoch Law School, let
me welcome you Gough to share with us your insights into the critical
issues
of the day.
An
Address by Gough Whitlam AC, QC
-
Vice Chancellor, professors, lecturers - I particularly stress lecturers
because I find Western Australian lecturers, having had
a good education
here and getting a free education at Oxford later, do provide very good
political leaders, and I welcome them
here - subjects and citizens, beacons
all.
-
I was here three years ago, as the Vice Chancellor mentioned, and my speech,
which was all written out at that time - very coherent,
no sidetracking
or diversions - was called State
Rights -v- World Values. It was delivered in August 1994 and was
the inaugural law students lecture here, and was then printed with your
permission in
July 1995 by the University of Western Australia Law Review.
I dealt in that lecture with a considerable number of matters which
were
already before or were coming before the High Court. I thought today I
might trace what ought to be done on some of those
issues and also what
other steps can be taken to ameliorate the situation, which not even the
High Court in its most modern form
has been able to solve.
-
I come straight to what I called in the inaugural Murdoch lecture the "malapportionment",
which is at the core of the corruption
of Western Australian politicians,
both Labor and Coalition, in social and economic issues. I'll quote some
of the things I said
then and I'll give you the subsequent history, showing
how long it takes to solve some problems and why we should press on until
they are solved:
During the parliamentary winter recess in 1967 - the first
year I was leader of the Party - Lance Barnard, Lionel Murphy, Sam Cohen
and I met with the surviving Labor Premier, Eric Reece of Tasmania - we
were down to one at that time - and the leaders of the
mainland State Parliamentary
Labor Parties. We all agreed to work for votes at 18 and "one-vote-one-value"
in all our houses of
parliament. Votes at 18 were enacted in all Australian
parliaments during the period of my government. One-vote-one-value in the
House of Representatives was achieved at the only joint sitting of Federal
Parliament in 1974. No Labor State government has had
a majority in the
Legislative Councils of the four southern States or, except for a few years
in the 1960s, in the Legislative
Council of New South Wales. Dunstan, Wran
and Cain succeeded in securing one-vote-one-value in both houses of their
parliaments.
Except in five seats, Goss secured it in the Legislative Assembly
of Queensland. Tasmania has always had one-vote-one-value in its
Assembly
but its Labor premiers have failed to secure it for the Legislative Council.
Labor premiers in Western Australia have
failed to secure it in either
the Legislative Assembly or the Legislative Council. Only now is there
a sustained and coordinated
campaign by members of the Western Australian
Parliamentary Labor Party to achieve basic reform of the State's electoral
system.
[1]
-
Then I recalled the policy of the Party when Burke and Hawke were elected
as heads of government in 1983: "To guarantee the right
to vote and ensure
the principle of 'one-vote-one-value' in all Australian and State and Territory
elections."[2]
-
Then I quoted Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights of over 30 years ago:
Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity without
any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable
restrictions...(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections
which will be by universal and equal suffrage and shall
be held by secret
ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors.
-
I went on to say then, and I shall now illustrate: "Western Australians
are singularly skewed and slanted in their views on voting
rights." [3]
-
It's not easy, I must confess, for people in the other States to know what's
going on in this State. One can occasionally see it
in only one daily paper
that we can get and that's The Australian. But to get The West Australian
you have to place an order and
it costs $4.50 each copy, and I believe
I can often use my funds better than that! But let me give you the facts
which come from
a very effective source in this State - The Western Australian
Electoral Commission. I quote from figures produced as at the 30th
June
this year. There is no excuse for people in Western Australia to be ignorant
about their electoral system. I've followed these
things for many years
and only in Western Australia do you get the figures in full and promptly.
So let me quote them. I'm sorry
for the statistics, but I think this is
one case where figures do speak for themselves.
-
For the elections to the Legislative Assembly, the State is divided into
a metropolitan area and a country area. As of the 30th
June 1997, metropolitan
enrolment was 828,700 and the metropolitan quotient was 24,300. The country
enrolment was 293,000 and the
country quotient was 12,700, just half as
much. In the metropolitan area, electors in the most populous district,
Wanneroo, numbered
29,000 and in the least populous district, Perth, 22,000.
Respectively that is 20.69% above and 9.25% below the metropolitan quotient.
In the country area electors in the most populous district, Warren Blackwood,
numbered 14,700 and in the least populous district,
Pilbara, 10,000. That's
respectively 15.19% above and 18.85% below the country quotient. In brief,
the metropolitan quotient is
twice as large as the country quotient while
enrolment in the most populous Assembly district is 3 times as large as
the enrolment
in the least populous district. For the elections for the
Legislative Council, the State is divided into 6 regions. 4 of the regions
elect 5 members each, and 2 of the regions elect 7 members each. As of
the end of June, enrolment in the 5 member regions was 68,000
in the mining
and pastoral region, 89,000 in the agricultural region, 237,000 in the
south metropolitan region, and 247,000 in
the east metropolitan region.
In the 7 member regions, enrolment was 136,000 in the south west region
and 341,000 in the north
metropolitan region. In brief, the votes of country
electors have three times the value of the votes of metropolitan electors
in
choosing members of the Legislative Council.
-
The Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland and the Kennedy Royal Commission in
Western Australia (the WA Inc) have confirmed that there
cannot be a responsible
government unless there is a representative parliament. Western Australia
has neither.
-
I now quote from my new book Abiding Interests:[4]
In December 1993, Carmen Lawrence, Jim McGinty, Geoff Gallop
and John Halden initiated procedures in the High Court. In February,
McGinty
succeeded Lawrence as Leader of the State Opposition, which she resigned
to enter Federal politics. He and his colleagues
had to overcome McKinlay's
case, a challenge to the unequal franchise in Federal Divisions. That case
was heard in the last week
before the coup of November 1975, and with a
spectacular sprint the Justices delivered their judgments on 1 December
in advance
of the Federal elections on 13 December. McGinty's case was
heard in September 1995 by only 6 Justices, since Chief Justice Mason
had
retired and Justice Deane had been designated as Governor General. There
is reasonable speculation in legal circles that if
they had sat on the
case, the challenge would have succeeded. On 20 February 1996 the new Chief
Justice Brennan, Justices Dawson
and McHugh, and the new Justice Gummow,
rejected the challenge. To many it seemed that the Brennan Court would
not be as innovative
as the Mason Court. It is more fruitful to speculate
that the Justices might have felt that the Western Australian Parliament
not
only could, and should, but would correct the situation.
-
I regret to say that the Western Australian Parliament has not corrected
the situation. Clearly Western Australians must now initiate
another strategy
to secure democracy in the State Parliament. They should approach the Human
Rights Committee which monitors and
implements the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights.
-
In April 1994, 8 weeks after McGinty took over from Lawrence, there was
a signal instance of the efficacy of a complaint to the
Human Rights Committee.
On Boxing Day 1991, the day after Australia's accession to the first Optional
Protocol to the ICCPR entered
into force for Australia, Mr. Nicholas Toonen,
a homosexual from Tasmania, complained that the Tasmanian Criminal Code
breached
Article 17 of the Covenant: 1. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary
or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence,
nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. 2. Everyone has the
right to the protection of the law against
such interference or attacks.
-
Let me quote the sections concerned in the Tasmanian Criminal Code. Section
122:
Any person who (a) has sexual intercourse with any person against
the order of nature, (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal, or
(c) consents
to a male person having carnal knowledge of him or her against the order
of nature, is guilty of a crime.
-
In law sexual intercourse involves the mouth as well as other orifices.
Section 123:
Any male person who whether in public or private commits any
indecent assault upon or other act of gross indecency with another male
person or procures another male person to committing any act of gross indecency
with himself or any other male person is guilty
of a crime.
-
There again, oral gratification is covered by that Section. Without elaborating
too much, the fact is that under the criminal law
of Tasmania it would
be possible for people who have had a Christian marriage and are practising
oral gratification with the lights
out or blinds down, commit a crime.
There is I am told, some anecdotal evidence that it sometimes occurs ...
I know since Vatican
II Latin is not very much used, but if there is any
Latin word which is generally understood it is the Latin word covering
that
practice.
-
I should explain to you the subsequent history of Toonen's case. He complained
to the Human Rights Committee on Boxing Day 1991.
In April 1994 the Secretary
General of the United Nations transmitted the Committee's unanimous views
to Australia's permanent
representative at the United Nations office at
Geneva, that the facts given by Toonen (and he had given all the facts
of what unquestionably
was an act against the order of nature) revealed
a violation of his rights. In the Committee's opinion, an effective remedy
would
be the repeal of the offending section of the Criminal Code.
-
On 12 October 1994 the Federal Attorney General, Michael Lavarch, introduced
the Human
Rights Sexual Conduct Bill. It received Royal Assent on 19 December
1994. In May 1996, the Tasmanian Liberal government dropped its opposition
to gay law
reform. On a conscience vote the House of Assembly passed the
Bill to repeal the sections but in June 1996 the Legislative Council
defeated
the Bill by 10 votes to 8. In February 1997, the High Court agreed to hear
his case. On 25 March 1997 the Greens in State
Parliament introduced a
Bill to repeal the sections. It was passed by the House of Assembly on
the voices without a division. On
1 May 1997 the Legislative Council passed
the Bill without amendment by 13 votes to 4. I've gone into some detail
there to illustrate
that it took about 6 years to get a result from an
Appeal to the Human Rights Committee, but it worked. It came about by a
lengthy
legislative process and a prospective appeal to the High Court.
Any person in an under-represented Assembly or Council district
in this
State, in my opinion, should appeal to the Human Rights Committee. I read
the process required by this Optional Protocol
which entered into force
for Australians on Christmas Day 1991.
A State Party to the covenant, [the ICCPR], that becomes a
Party to the present Protocol, recognises the competence of the Committee
to receive and consider communication from individuals subject to its jurisdiction
who claim to be victims of a violation by that
State Party of any of the
rights set forth in the Covenant. Individuals who claim that any of their
rights enumerated in the Covenant
[such as equal suffrage] have been violated,
and who have exhausted all available domestic remedies may submit a written
Communication
to the committee for consideration. The Committee shall bring
any communications submitted to it under the present Protocol to the
attention
of the State Party [the Australian government] alleged to be violating
any provision of the Covenant. Within six months
the receiving State shall
submit to the Committee written explanations or statements clarifying the
matter and the remedy, if any,
that may have been taken by that State.
-
In international law the word State means a nation, a member in effect
of the United Nations. The Australian States, like the Canadian
Provinces
are not States in the international sense. In Toonen's case the Australian
representatives to the UN Headquarters in
Geneva were given the findings
by the Human Rights Committee. They were transmitted to the Australian
Government which then conferred
with the Tasmanian Government. The Australian
Federal Government's replies and the Tasmanian Government's replies were
furnished
to the Committee. So in this case, if anybody in Western Australia
from an under-represented district in the Council or the Assembly
were
to communicate with the Human Rights Committee, then the Committee would
consider communications received under the present
protocol in the light
of all written information made available to it by the individual and by
the State concerned (i.e. Australia).
The Committee shall not consider any communications from an
individual unless it has ascertained that ... the individual has exhausted
all available domestic remedies. This shall not be the rule where the application
of the remedies is unreasonably prolonged. The
Committee shall forward
its views to the State Party concerned and to the individual.
Beyond any doubt, the Human Rights Committee would find that the Western
Australian malapportionment violates every possible definition
of equal
franchise. I stress that any citizen could initiate such an appeal. It
might take half a dozen years to get it through.
I don't see how else it
can be done. I don't think the position is any longer tolerable. To people
who take the attitude that in
these matters we shouldn't appeal to outside
jurisdiction, I point out that improvements in human rights in Australia
have been
achieved only when the international provisions have been ratified
by Australia, and to the extent that they've been ratified by
Australia.
When the Australian Parliament enacts an international instrument - convention,
agreement, treaty, protocol, covenant,
whatever its name - then Australian
courts and authorities investigate the case and hand down a judgment and
see that it's implemented.
-
In fact the Australian Parliament - and I won't go into the history - has
not enacted the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights. It
has enacted the Racial Discrimination Convention with one exception; it
has refused to penalise incitement to racial
hatred. It has enacted the
International
Covenant against all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. It
has enacted the Torture Convention. If the Hawke, Keating or Howard government
had ratified the ICCPR, there's no doubt that
the High Court would have
ruled that the Western Australian parliamentary system was in breach of
the law. Because we haven't enacted
it we do not have recourse through
our own courts. The United States Supreme Court in the early 1960s ruled
that one-vote-one-value
has to apply for all elected offices in the United
States. The High Court doesn't always follow the United States Supreme
Court's
actions or decisions but if we were to enact it, then there is
no doubt the High Court would say that Western Australia was in breach
of it and it had to bring in one-vote-one-value. Tasmania still has a malapportioned
Legislative Council but the Tasmanian Parliament
is tackling the issue.
Within 5 years one-vote-one-value will apply in their Council. It's always
applied in their Assembly.
-
I now come to Land Rights and again I quote from my prior Murdoch lecture: [5]
Western Australians are singularly strident in their views
on land rights. The blame for the condition and status of Aboriginal Australians
in Western Australia cannot be sheeted home to British parliamentarians
and officials. It must be sheeted home to Western Australian
parliamentarians
and officials. The British Parliament denied self-government to Western
Australia for a full generation after
it had granted self-government to
the other Australian colonies. British officials did not trust elected
and appointed persons
to safeguard the condition and status of Aborigines
in Western Australia. The British Act bestowing self-government on Victoria
was proclaimed on 23 November 1855. In 1856 Legislative Assemblies were
elected in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and
Tasmania and
in 1859 in Queensland. A Legislative Assembly was not established in Western
Australia until 1890 when Sir Malcolm
Fraser [6]
was administering the colony.
-
Western Australia doesn't now have Federal parliamentarians who have maintained
as much interest in Aboriginal affairs as their
two great predecessors
from The University of Western Australia, Paul Hasluck and Kim Beazley
Sr. Hasluck's "Black Australians"
is based on his MA thesis on 'official
policy and public opinion towards the Aborigines of Western Australia from
1829 [when the
Swan River was settled] to 1897 [when control of Aborigines
was transferred by the Imperial Government for the Western Australian
Government]'.
-
I take some points from this pioneering work. The Constitution Act 1889
(Western Australia) provided that one per cent of the gross revenue of
the colony should be appropriated for the welfare
of the Aboriginal natives.
In 1897 the Western Australian parliament gained control of expenditure
on Aborigines. On the eve of
Federation, Parliament's expenditure had been
cut to one sixth of one per cent.
-
In campaigning for the Native Title Bill 1993 I frequently quoted the elder
Beazley's elegant and eloquent speeches in the early 1960s. In October
1961 he stated: "In any land
policy, for God's sake, let us get over the
great Australian historical assumption that you must make a decision about
the lands
as though there was no one living on them".
-
In October 1961 Beazley expressed the very essence of the High Court's
rejection of terra nullius pronounced in Mabo
No 2 in June 1992. In May 1964 Beazley declared the importance of action
by the Federal Parliament: Irrespective of who has control over
aborigines,
only one government is answerable before the forum of international opinion
- the Government of the Commonwealth of
Australia. In the forum of international
opinion - the United Nations - no one will raise Western Australia's policy
or Queensland's
policy, but the delegates of the government of the Commonwealth
of Australia will have to answer for Australia's attitude.[7]
-
In moving a resolution in the House of Representatives in June 1950 Hasluck
expressed the same thought. I quoted it in my keynote
address at a conference
in his honour at the University of Western Australia in September 1995.
Western Australians cannot blame
British governments for their legacy on
land rights. Many decades ago their own politicians exposed the responsibility
of Australian
governments.
-
Now I would go further, because not only can Western Australia be proud
of what some of their politicians have said on Land Rights
and Aboriginal
issues but they can also be proud of the two Western Australians who have
been justices of the High Court. The lead
judgment in the Wik case was
handed down by Justice John Toohey. As a justice of the High Court, Sir
Ronald Wilson, a former Solicitor
General of Western Australia, was reluctant
to hold that the Federal Parliament had the jurisdiction and therefore
the obligation
to enact international standards. Since 1990, however, as
President of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC),
he has been outstanding in promoting human rights, particularly with respect
to the original Australians. In the inaugural Murdoch
Address I quoted
his support for the 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms
of Intolerance and of the Discrimination
Based on Religion or Belief. In
December 1996 he presented "Bringing Them Home", the massive report of
the HREOC National Inquiry
into the 'Separation of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Children from their Families'.
-
The Inquiry concluded that forcible removal was an act of genocide contrary
to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide,
which was signed for Australia on 11 December 1948 and ratified by Australia
on 8 July 1949. It was the
first human rights convention adopted by the
UN General Assembly. Among the acts defined as genocide is the forcible
transfer of
children from a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
to another group. H.V.. Evatt was in the chair when the General Assembly
adopted the Convention in Paris on 9 December 1948. It was adopted the
day before the Universal Declaration on Human Rights was
proclaimed. In
Evatt's absence Chifley himself, the Prime Minister, promptly introduced
a bill to ratify the Convention. The Leader
of the Opposition R.G.. Menzies,
promptly supporting the bill, said legislation would have to follow. When
Evatt resumed the debate,
he agreed that legislation would have to follow.
No such legislation has yet been introduced.
-
The Separated Children Inquiry concluded that, even before international
human rights law developed in the 1940s, the treatment
of indigenous people
breached Australian legal standards. Indigenous families were entitled
to expect the protection of the English
common law. In the States and Territories
parents were powerless to know the whereabouts of their children and to
protect them
from exploitation and abuse. The policy continued until the
end of the 1960s. If the Federal Parliament had promptly enacted the
Genocide
Convention, the policy would have been ended 20 years earlier.
-
In December 1991 the Commonwealth Criminal Law Committee, which Attorney
General Lionel Bowen established in February 1987 and
which former Chief
Justice Gibbs chaired, recommended that legislation be enacted on the lines
of the UK Genocide Act 1989. The
Keating Government did not introduce such
legislation and the Howard Government has not introduced it.
-
Internationally, Australia has always been obliged to comply with the Convention.
Australian troops overseas are bound by it. In
December 1996 the National
Inquiry specifically recommended that the Commonwealth legislate to implement
the Convention with full
domestic effect. Australia ratified the Convention
48 years ago. It is time that the Australian Government and Parliament
accepted
their responsibilities and exercised their jurisdiction to enact
the provisions of the Convention.
-
I have cited the views expressed on indigenous issues by two outstanding
members of the House of Representatives from Western Australia
and the
two justices of the High Court from Western Australia. Therefore, if I
speak with some asperity about some of the things
that go on in this State,
it is not because there have not been some good leaders and some good lawyers
from the State but because
there have not been enough of them. Murdoch
Law School should play its part in producing more of them.
-
The rest of the world is losing patience with the deficiencies of Australia's
legislative processes. In no other democracy are
election dates so frequent
and unpredictable. The Constitution of Australia envisaged the holding
of elections every three years. Until 1949 elections were in fact held
every three years. R.G..
Menzies held too many elections and too few referendums.
His opportunistic use of the Prime Minister's right to dissolve the House
of Representatives in 1955 and 1963 threw the elections for the two Houses
out of kilter. There were separate elections for half
the Senate in 1964,
1967 and 1970. This meant that no senators were elected concurrently with
the House of Representatives in December
1972; that was the root cause
of the subsequent difficulties. In 1975, 1983 and 1987 there were double
dissolutions on spurious
or faulty grounds. The Parliaments elected in
1990 and 1993 were the first to run the full three years since the Parliament
elected
in 1958.
-
Australians cannot attribute the failures of their electoral processes
in the second half of this century to the UK and US political
systems which
were blended in drafting the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Our Constitution took effect at the beginning of the century. Australians
have themselves to blame for not making the alterations to their Constitution
which the British and Americans made in their political systems in this
century.
-
In Washington in 1845 the election date for Federal officials was fixed
as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even
numbered years.
By the end of the century the State legislators had adopted the same election
date. Senators continued to be elected
by the legislatures of the States
until 1913, when the Seventeenth Amendment provided for them to be elected
by the people of the
States. Since then the same date has been used to
fill the vacancies for senators, who have fixed six year terms, for presidents
and governors, who have fixed four year terms, and for congressmen and
State legislators, who have fixed two year terms. At Westminster
in 1911
the Parliament Act forbade the House of Lords to reject or hold up money
bills. In Washington the President, Senate and
House of Representatives
may all propose different annual Federal budgets. After much toing and
froing a single budget is passed
and all elected persons complete their
terms. If Menzies after 1949 had sponsored referendums to incorporate the
provisions of
the Parliament Act of 1911 and the Seventeenth Amendment
of 1913, Australia would have been spared many of the traumas of the ensuing
years. The failure to hold referendums to incorporate the provisions of
the UK Act and the US Amendment illustrates the defects
in our Constitution.
A decision to hold such referendums would indicate the way to overcome
the defects.
-
In Australia, Federal and State elections have to be held on different
days because of a subsection of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and
not because of any section in the Commonwealth Constitution. For 80 years
no Federal Government from either side of politics has seen fit to repeal
the subsection. The justification for this
illogical restriction seems
to be the unresolved conflict between Federal and State parliamentarians
and party officials on the
collection of funds, promotion of policies and
distribution of favours. The current national secretary of the ALP, who
regards
himself as a Western Australian, opposes repeal because he is not
satisfied that, if Federal and State elections were held on the
same day
in New South Wales, the State machine would give as much attention and
support to Federal candidates as to State candidates.
I suspect the Liberal
officials would make the same assessment about the chances of the Federal
and State candidates in Western
Australia if Federal and State elections
were held on the same day. There are cynics and sceptics on both sides
of politics. Repeal
of the subsection in the 1918 act would halve the frequency
of elections in Australia.
-
There are no constitutional or statutory barriers against State elections
being held in all States on the same day. It should be
much easier to arrange
simultaneous State elections since the Parliaments in all mainland States
except Queensland now have four
year terms. Not even contiguous States
have made such arrangements. Western Australia and South Australia have
never had State
elections on the same day. In consequence ministers and
officials have fewer opportunities to coordinate laws and practices which
concern the residents of both States, such as Aborigines, surface transport,
education, heritage and environment. In Australia
during this century electors
have gone to the polls on any Saturday between 1 February and 14 December.
In the US system for a
century and a half electors have gone to the polls
on the Tuesday after the second Monday in November. The Legislative Council
of Western Australia has one feature which I can wholeheartedly endorse
and applaud. Of Australia's six upper houses it is the only
one with a
fixed term, where all the members or aspiring members have to face the
electors at the same time. In all the other upper
houses the membership
is staggered; the members come and go in different batches. In the Legislative
Council of Western Australia,
however, all the councillors are elected
at the one time, all their terms expire at the same time, they share a
fixed four year
term. In those respects the Council should be the model
for all the Houses of Parliament in Australia. We must now recognise that
the multiplicity of dyschronous elections in Australia is not a manifestation
but a manipulation of democracy.
-
In the second Murdoch address I have examined the outcome of the litigation
in the High Court over native title and equal franchise
and the legislation
in the Federal Parliament on sexual conduct in private which were pending
at the time of the inaugural Murdoch
address three years ago. I conclude
with an examination of the outcome of the litigation in the High Court
on industrial relations
which was pending at that time.
-
The Kennett Government had abolished the Industrial Relations Commission
and Accident Compensation Tribunal in Victoria, the Brown
Government had
abolished the Industrial Commission in South Australia and the Court Government
had abolished the Workers' Compensation
Board in Western Australia. The
Minister for Industrial Relations in the Keating Government, Senator Peter
Cook of Western Australia,
initiated amendments to the Industrial Relations
Act which would ensure compliance with four International Labour Organisation
conventions throughout Australia:
Convention
No 100, Equal Remuneration 1951
Convention
No 111, Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) 1958
Convention
No 131, Minimum Wage Fixing 1970
Convention
No 158 Termination of Employment 1982
The Victorian, South Australian and Western Australian Governments challenged
the legislation in the High Court. The Howard Government
was elected while
the High Court was preparing its judgment. On 23 May 1996, without the
benefit of the judgment, the new Minister
for Industrial Relations, Peter
Reith, introduced the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment
Bill to change the objects
of the Industrial Relations Act. On 4 September
1996 the Court, by five justices to one, endorsed Cook's legislation. Through
Cheryl
Kernot the Democrats exacted a vast number of improvements in return
for their support of Reith's bill. When the bill was passed
on 21 November
1996, a final paragraph had been added to its objects: "...assisting in
giving effect to Australia's international
obligations in relation to labour
standards."
-
The Constitution of the ILO and the Constitution of Australia are now shown
to provide the Australian Parliament with the jurisdiction and the obligation
to enact all ILO conventions
and recommendations.
-
One of the ablest of NSW Labor Premiers, Neville Wran, and one of the ablest
of NSW Liberal Premiers, Nick Greiner, have both advocated
a single industrial
system for the whole of Australia. The majority of Liberal and Labor politicians,
however, continue to support
the continuation of overlapping Federal and
State systems for fear that a single system might come to favour the interests
of the
workers or the employees alone. Since the Treaty of Versailles in
1919 the ILO has had the unique tripartite structure based on
national
governments, industrial associations of employers and industrial associations
of workers. The annual International Labour
Conferences take much more
time and care in discussing and drafting ILO conventions and recommendations
than is taken in the Federal
Parliament or any State Parliament in Australia
in discussing and drafting acts, regulations and ordinances. The ILO Committees
have a longer history and a more consistently distinguished membership
than the monitoring committee of any other UN specialised
agency.
-
In this address I have already urged that citizens of Western Australia
should approach the Human Rights Committee as the most
effective means
to overcome the unequal franchise which persists in both Houses of the
Parliament of Western Australia. I am aware
of the timidity and reluctance
which the politicians and private citizens still exhibit in taking this
course. No such compunction
is shown by employers and workers in approaching
the corresponding ILO committees. The Confederation of Australian Industry
and
the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have complained to
the ILO about Australian industrial law and practice in the last
decade.
So have the customs officers and airline pilots.
-
The Federal Department of Industrial Relations has just received a letter
date 10 June 1997 from the International Labour Office
advising of representations
made by the ACTU concerning the Western Australian Labour Relations Legislation
Amendment Bill and
setting out some informal comments. I expect that associations
of employers and workers will more and more appeal to the ILO committees
than to Australia's overlapping industrial systems to resolve issues of
fundamental industrial law and practice.
-
In industrial relations, as in other areas, Australia's future depends
on the implementation of the best international practice.
At Murdoch University
I stressed three years ago and repeat here today that the National Government
of Australia has the right
and the duty to enact and implement, fully and
promptly, the standards set by the UN and the UN specialised agencies to
which Australia
belongs.
Notes
* Editors Note: This article is a
revised version of Gough Whitlam's address to the Murdoch University Student
Law Society delivered
on 25 July 1997 at Murdoch University. The address
traces and updates the key issues and themes of his original address to
the
Murdoch Student Law Society on 3 August 1994 which was later published
as G Whitlam (1995) "State Rights v World Values" [1995] UWALawRw 1; 25 UWALR 1.
[1] G Whitlam (1995) "State
Rights v World Values" [1995] UWALawRw 1; 25 UWALR 1 at 7.
[2] Originally quoted from Australian
Labor Party (1982) Platform, Constitution and Rules p21.
[3] see note 2 at 8.
[4] G Whitlam "Abiding Interests"
University of Queensland Press 1997 at 201.
[5] see note 2 at 3-4.
[6] In 1890 Sir Malcolm Fraser was
administrator of the Colony of Western Australia.
[7] Originally quoted from Hansard
(HR) 14 May 1964, 1917.
Beginning
of Article
AustLII:
Copyright Policy
|
Disclaimers
|
Privacy Policy
|
Feedback
URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MurdochUeJlLaw/1998/5.html