Introduction

Are politics and government in a state of crisis? On most indicators, Australia fares better than many countries, yet trust in politics is low (Martin, 2010). Commentators assert that the era just past was one of heroic achievement (Kelly, 2009) but that now there is a failure of leadership (Megalogenis, 2010), generating a longer-term difficulty in reaching workable policy decisions on major issues. Some argue that there has been an increase in problem complexity, demanding an adaptive leadership to which current systems are not attuned (see Little, 2012). Others suggest there has been a ‘rout of knowledge’ when problem complexity is allied to political conflict (Garnaut, 2010), leaving us with simplistic adversarial politics.

These claims question the effectiveness of our political institutions in meeting the expectations of a democratic polity. Are modes of public reasoning promoted by politics informative and responsive? Are the policy processes to which they give rise responding to our needs in ways that satisfy reasonable expectations of just outcomes, encourage trust and contain conflict? Is there a reasonable balance between competing interests preventing undue concentrations of resources, power and influence? These questions are examined in this chapter by focusing on contemporary practices, their effects on policy deliberation and the means of communication that inform public reasoning. We begin by considering the role of parties in the Australian political process before analysing the impact of reforms to the institutional framework of governance, especially the public service. The chapter then discusses whether a form of ‘court politics’ has developed in the Australian case and analyses the Gillard-led Labor Government. We conclude by addressing the apparent paradoxical divide between Australia's objective position and its public culture. All of these factors, however, must be interpreted in the context of the ‘historical moment’ in which we find ourselves.

Parties and the decline of party democracy

The mass parties of the 20th century played such a decisive role in shaping the public agenda and providing the channels for opinion aggregation that it was deemed the age of party democracy (Dalton, Farrell and McAllister 2011, 13).