Deliberating on the constitution

With South Australia’s Constitutional Convention continuing to generate controversy, Clement Macintyre outlines how the process worked THE Constitutional Convention held in Adelaide over the weekend of 8-10 August was the second convention devoted to consideration of the South Australian constitution and the first held as a ‘deliberative poll’.1 The impetus for the 2003 convention and the decision to use deliberative polling was largely the work of the Speaker of the South Australian House of Assembly, Peter Lewis. In the aftermath of the election of 9 February 2002, Lewis negotiated with both major parties as he sought their acceptance of his Compact for Good Government to help determine which party he would support in office. While it is fair to say that neither party was enthused by the idea of a Constitutional Convention, it was a concession that both were prepared to give if it would deliver government. In August 2003, the Premier, Mike Rann, opened a conference at the University of Adelaide on constitutional and parliamentary reform with an announcement that a convention would be held in mid 2003.2 The processes associated with the convention was to be overseen by a parliamentary steering committee (convened by the Speaker). By late 2002 a small secretariat had been appointed and a ‘panel of experts’ assembled to produce a preliminary discussion paper. The steering committee set the panel the task of considering five questions that were relevant to the Lewis Compact. These were: • citizen initiated referenda (CIR), • the optimum size of the South Australian Parliament, • the role and function of each of the Houses of the Parliament, • measures to improve the accountability, transparency and functioning of government, • the role of parties in the Legislative Council and the electoral systems used in the upper house and the House of Assembly. The discussion paper was released in January 2003. Over the next few weeks, the Speaker, the Attorney-General (Michael Atkinson, MP), the Shadow Attorney-General (Robert Lawson, MLC) and the President of the Legislative Council (Ron Roberts, MLC) toured the state and addressed approximately 2000 citizens at a series of ‘town and country’ meetings. A report based on the discussions at the meetings was prepared for the steering committee. By the time of these meetings, the use of a deliberative poll and been settled upon and the idea of a convention based on some 300 randomly selected citizens began to attract a degree of public interest and comment. Despite some criticism of the appropriateness of the methodology for determining a program of reform, it was clear that both the Speaker and the Attorney-General were committed to pursue this model. In many respects, the use of a randomly selected sample of the state is consistent with one of the key proposal in the Lewis Compact: that CIR be adopted as a means of ‘returning’ democratic control to the citizens. The process of identifying the delegates began in June 2003. Citizens were randomly selected from the telephone directory and invited to complete a survey on aspects of general political reform and the more specific circumstances of South Australia’s political system. Altogether, 1201 responded to the call and of these 809 agreed to consider participation in the convention. A total of 323 finally accepted the invitation and spent the weekend in Adelaide and deliberated on various possible reforms. For the convention, the five questions set out by the Steering Committee were distilled into four central issues. They were: • measures to improve parliament and government, • the size, structure and role of the upper house (Legislative Council) of the South Australian parliament, • the size, structure and role of the lower house (Legislative Assembly), • representation and The South Australian Electoral System. Ahead of the convention, all delegates were asked to read the Discussion Paper and a short summary version of it that was focussed more upon the four convention issues. Once the formal convention started, delegates heard a preliminary address setting out the key issues, listing some of the proposed reforms and outlining some of the possible implications of them. They then spent time in small groups working through the first issue before re-gathering in a plenary session at which selected questions were put to a panel of experts. This pattern was repeated for all four issues before a final small group session allowed each delegate complete an identical opinion poll to the one undertaken at the initial telephone survey, and to list their ‘three key priorities for reform’. The preliminary results were released on Friday 15 August. Not surprisingly, most delegates reported that their understanding of the political, parliamentary and constitutional processes had grown (in some cases significantly). The perceived effectiveness of the current system and the appreciation of the members of parliament’s effectiveness in doing their job moved from 54% to 67% and from 66% to 83% respectively. There was less change evident in the delegates’ views on CIR. The level of support remained virtually unchanged (65% before and 64% after), but this support was spread across the various forms of CIR that were discussed. There was clear support for the maintenance of the Legislative Council (despite a fairly relentless campaign in the print press to have it abolished) and, by the end of the conference, clear evidence that support for an enlarged House of Assembly had grown dramatically (from 6% to 50%). In relation to electoral matters, the most obvious finding was that there was support to move the terms of office for members of the Legislative Council from eight year ‘double-terms’ to a regular four year term consistent with the life of the lower house. A majority of delegates also favoured the introduction of optional preferential voting. In sum, the key findings that came from the convention were that CIR was supported by just under two thirds of delegates (but that there was no agreement over the preferred model), and that there should be modest electoral reform (to reduce the terms of the Legislative Council to four years and to introduce optional preferential voting). Other matters raised by numerous delegates reflected a desire to ensure the strengthening of government accountability, the value of an independent Speaker and the need for more education about the parliamentary system at school level. It is noteworthy that the preliminary findings appear to indicate that most of the ‘priority reforms’ are ones that emerged from the discussions rather than those proposed by the Speaker - though support for CIR is one clear exception to this. It is in the nature of these priorities that we might find a clue as to possible reforms that will be supported by the parliament. From the outset, the processes that lead to the convention held in August were political. As seen, it was part of the price that Peter Lewis asked of both major parties in his negotiations with them in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 election. It is reasonable to expect that there is some residual hostility towards Peter Lewis within the Liberal Party. He is, after all, a former Liberal MP of many years standing who (despite the Liberal Party’s arguments that they won the largest share of the state-wide vote at the election) delivered government to Labor. For its part, the Labor Party’s view is likely to be coloured by the consideration that since the election they have managed to bring another of the independent MPs into their fold (by appointing Rory McEwen as a minister in late 2002) and they thus are no longer as dependent upon the continuing support of the Speaker. Accordingly, both the government and the opposition will be loath to let the Speaker have too many wins as a consequence of the convention. Given this, it would be hard for either party to endorse much of the Lewis program for reform. By seizing upon the clear priorities of the convention (four year terms for the upper house and optional preferential voting) they can be seen be listening to the voice of the convention and accepting modest reform, while at the same time rejecting the thrust of Peter Lewis’ agenda. ‘All’s well’, we may say, but such an outcome will in fact offer little real and substantive reform. In these circumstances, two questions arise. Does this mean that the convention has failed and how is further appropriate reform of the parliament and the state constitution to occur? At the end of this current process, we can only hope that the government recognises that there are some aspects of the system (including many that were not subject to consideration at the convention) that need to be examined. If the government takes the initiative, keeps the debates alive and refers a broader and more general program of reform to a range of forums, then it may well be that the convention first launched by Peter Lewis in early 2002 will achieve more than might be thought at first glance. Dr Clement Macintyre is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Adelaide. He was chair of the ‘panel of experts’ that produced the Constitutional Convention Discussion Paper and is co-editor (with John Williams) of Peace, Order and Good Government: State Constitutional and Parliamentary Reform, Wakefield, 2003. Footnotes 1. The first ‘Constitutional Conference’ was held in 1981. Proceedings of the South Australian Constitutional Conference held at Parliament House, Adelaide, 27 and 28 November 1981. 2. Advertiser, 17 August 2002. The conference papers have since been published as C. Macintyre and J. Williams (eds), Peace, Order and Good Government: State Constitutional and Parliamentary Reform, Wakefield, Adelaide, 2003