I had the radio on much
of today to listen to the States sitting, in case they got to the Energy Plan. That's the one that finally lays out a strategy for us
to meet our CO2 emissions reduction obligations under the Kyoto
protocol . What I heard instead was the internal dialogue of States
members debating (I use that term in its loosest sense) the machinery
of Government. In practice they spent the morning debating whether
to debate the issue. They then decided they should and proceeded to
vote to give the Chief Minister much more power over his ministers.
Note the wording I chose there deliberately for they become in effect
the CM's minister, not the Assembly's.
The other day they
voted not to have a public election for Chief Minister, it is going
to remain the preserve of the Assembly. They also rejected a
proposition to restrict the Chief Minister, Treasury Minister and
External Affairs Minister to senators. While there would have been
definite logic in that it also would have had the odd effect that
next election at the same time as doing that we'll have a referendum on
implementing Clothier, that if passed would extinguish the role of
Senator. I cannot say I am surprised – that's what happens when
you try to piecemeal implement something that really has to be done
as a coherent, designed, interacting working mechanism.
Today's pièce
de résistance, in the ongoing soap opera that is States
reform of itself, was to implement collective responsibility within
the Council of Ministers. No longer will Ministers be free to speak or
vote against the policy of the politburo. That guarantees 11 votes
in the bag for the CM's party, barring absences. In theory when you
have collective responsibility if there is a failure of Government
you don't just sacrifice a minister, the whole government goes. That
might work in a place where there is a party system with an alternative
shadow Government in place ready to take up the gauntlet, but in our
system?
There were some bits I
missed, but from what I could tell they were arguing about who
appoints the Ministers. If I have it right the plan is that the CM
proposes a team and the assembly votes for it en bloc. Currently
each post is voted individually. If the CM's proposed team is
rejected three times, he gets to choose whomever he pleases anyway.
They haven't finished
chewing over the changes yet, but I don't know it much matters what
they do with the rest. As of the next election, the only time an
individual States members who does not end up a Minister gets any
meaningful say over anything is when they sit as an electoral college
to elect the Chief Minister. After that it is out of their hands, just
like WEB, SOJDC, Andium Homes and all the other arm's length, commercially
confidential bodies that handle so much of the people's assets and
interests.
I did hear a number of
people lamenting the demise of the old committee system that preceded
the current ministerial approach. I guess if they can make it work in
New York, we could have made it work here (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Council). But of course a committee system is very much a council sort of
thing, not what you expect of a national government. I suspect so
much of what is happening here is that egotistical puffery of bigging
up their role and the importance of the Island and the pursuit by
some of a notion of independence.
For my part I think the whole approach is the wrong way round. The way to resilient political process and participation lies in devolving decision making to the people. This further centralisiation of power and abstraction of control flies in the face of that. In the extreme imagine we could now have a deputy returned unopposed in St Mary who is elected CM then selects the Ministers and has an 11 vote head start in any debate. Even if there were a contested election there, less than 5% of the electorate would arguably have decided the whole Government. All in your name and quite democratic!
