The argument by Riker that seemingly, Australian
political culture is merely religious and economic and certainly not state
based, is countered by Hughes when he puts forward the question of whether this
is really so. Certainly, there appears to be homogeneity in the post-election
polling statistics; but does this reflect the true political culture of the
Australian populace? These two arguments will be addressed by this essay; it
analyses domestic political culture in three states and aims to conclude that
even though there is homogeneity after the polls, pre-polling political culture
is certainly not stable.
Woodward and others, assert that Australia is homogenous when
analysing political behaviour as the polling statistics. They recognise class
cleavage and acknowledge political stability in Australia, which is ensured by:
‘stable mass political opinion, an essentially utilitarian political culture,
and a unified political elite’. They also point out that: ‘party support does
change, so clearly more besides party identification is involved’. Political
culture is influenced by party identification, but this plays only a small part
in the system.
Domestic political culture
has an effect on the characteristics of a democracy. McAllister says Australia
does not have a single political
culture. He believes that utilitarianism is a dynamic realm of egalitarianism,
that the culture of both work to provide a common good for the nation. He cites
a quote, said to be famous, that asserts: ‘Australian democracy has come to
look upon the state as a vast public utility, whose duty it is to provide the
greatest happiness for the greatest number’: McAllister. Domestic political
culture can be analysed empirically as polling statistics and published as an
outcome of political behaviour.
Empirical evaluation of political culture is
only a new process in Australian political science. However, the concept of
evaluation has been in the international political arena for about sixty years,
and in Australia it started to be developed in the 1960s. Consequently, it may
not yet have had enough time to mature and produce an appropriate foundational
model says Lovell. The present model has its foundations in attitudes, values
and beliefs; these being used to asses the outcomes of the political activities
of an actor. These activities are usually assessed by the ballot box; or to be
rather more precise, assessed as political behaviour that culminates in a
particular vote that is registered for one party or another. This assessment is
mostly done post-election, as it is then that empirical data can be accumulated
and interpreted to record political behaviour registered as a persons anonymous
vote.
Lovell and others, say that
an attempt to interpret Australian political culture may not be satisfactory,
as it is ‘elusive’ and ‘residual’. Nonetheless, they say: ‘it is possible to
identify five broad themes’; they are: Collectivism, Materialism, Conformism,
Egalitarianism, and Utilitarianism. These are, however, macro-analogies that
may not get to the core of any potential political culture that would have an
affect on homogeneity, or cleavage, within domestic political outcomes.
It is microanalysis that
will be used here to establish the truth about the claim by Riker, that political
culture is homogeneous. For example, historian Gratton in 1946 had categorised a minority political
culture that had met with political resistance. The military corps had
aspirations and thus: ‘acquiring or taking powers and privileges and challenging
[recruiting] those who sought a more equitable system’. Consequently: ‘the
governing class resisted the creation of liberal institutions’, in Lovell. This
is an early example of documented political culture analysis, which is rather
more like a microanalysis of domestic political culture and cleavage. When this
principle of microanalysis is applied at the domestic level, it is possible to
determine a wide range of attitudes, values and beliefs that are either
functioning, or being used as a tool to operate a model of political culture.
The models may be common, such as unions and farmers; or it might be unrecorded
but large, such as radical movements, or bikie gangs; or perhaps they are small
but powerful like ethnic minority groups and the disabled associations.
These groups are what might
constitute a model of domestic political culture, as they are not a part of any
official attachment to federal or state political bodies. They are in fact,
part of the societal domestic political culture that may represent class, the
under-privileged, the un-able, as well as the most able but disconnected
members of society. Crawford’s 1963 societal analysis (in Lovell) of history
reveals a battle between the classes; a struggle between the ‘pure merinos’,
the emancipists, and the currency people over status and power. This is
reminiscent of a time when Australia was ‘home on a sheep’s back’; the farmers
had high status amongst the community and primary industry was what carried the
nation.
In fact, eighty per-cent of Australian export carried the nation
in 1950. Consequently, positive political culture was evident in the farming
sector as they and the trading sector enjoyed the fruits of primary industry
politics. However, over time, the culture has shifted from the land to the
office, with white-collar industry and the business sector purchasing more and
greater power, and thus follows the social status. This entails that the focus
of political culture has also shifted; following through the era’s from farming
to industrialisation, then on to globalisation and market values, and trade and
export tariffs.
IN W.A
For example, in Western
Australia (WA) the idea of industry protection, trade tariffs, and
import/export tariffs fuel a strong political culture amongst the mining and
construction sector of the community, Burke (in Wood) says that:
The
critical effect of protection on the Western Australian economy is that a large
component of our export sector, most notably mining and mining related
industries…are vulnerable to changes.
He
cites a 1992 study, which concluded that Western Australians paid back about
fourteen per-cent of their disposable income in protection measures. This
equated to more than six hundred dollars per head of population annually in
1982. He believes that the figure would have been about one thousand dollars
and greater in 1990. In effect, the population is being asked to pay a fee to
support the industries that they rely on for Western Australian state survival,
(Burke in Wood).
This
does not sit well with the blue-collar industrial political culture, nor indeed
private enterprise. Therefore, the unions and the chamber of commerce enjoy
significant patronage; particularly heavy industry unions. The political
culture is very much against central government and support is given to unions
in support of the political pressure that is applied to local, state and
commonwealth governments. This (certainly in WA) is in clear contrast to views
that Australia might be politically homogeneous.
An
indication of Western Australian domestic political culture is reflected in
political behaviour accounted for in elections for the state. From 1983 to 1987
through three federal elections, Labor had held the majority. However, by the
1990 federal election they had suffered a ten per-cent loss to the Liberal
party. Part of the explanation for this is likely to be the result of the
public political culture turning to mistrust because of the ‘W.A inc’ affair.
The affair resulted in the loss of several hundred million dollars of public
money. The resultant domestic political culture of mistrust has continued to be
severe for the West Australian Labor party for over a decade since then. And in
the 2001 election they were returned to power with only 37.2 per-cent of the vote.
He reiterates: ‘these results suggest that the electorate took some time to
consolidate its view that the crisis, now past…’; Moon. Therefore, this means that for about ten years the domestic
political culture of Western Australia was unbalanced.
IN the N.T
The
domestic political culture case for the Northern Territory is that of an
isolated colonial outpost, rising up to become a self-supporting (though
welfare dependent) community that had evolved, and late in the twentieth
century had finally gained self-government in 1978. This government began in a
time and a region that was still exhuming itself from the colonial ‘cowboy’ era
of the north. It was a government that went on to become an oligarchy bordering
on an oligopoly, and one that was shrouded in a legend of ‘cronyism’. It was
the Country Liberal Party, the CLP.
Loveday
and others, describe the state political culture of the CLP as a ‘climate of
fear’ in which the ‘cronies’ and their supporters of the era reigned supreme as
a government for about 27 years. The Labor opposition under Claire Martin had a
difficult task ahead of them in developing a political platform that might be
used to conquer the entrenched domestic political culture of the CLP.
Particularly in their late 1990s lead-up to an election in 2001. Martin herself
realised the ‘culture of opposition’; but during her campaign she was coached
by a Tasmanian Labor consultant named Michael Field. There also existed during
the campaign, an amount of fiscal anxiety that was whispered by domestic
political culture in some electorates. This was identified by some focus groups
held for Martin and Labor: Loveday.
However
Martin was favoured in Alice Springs where the political culture ‘gave people
confidence’. The attacks on Martin by the CLP were perceived as ‘heavy handed’
and this approach did not help the Burke administration with its bid in Alice
Springs. The class of Labor was outshining Burkes’ raucous group, their
political culture was letting them down. Jane Aagaard took a risk and made a
public statement saying: ‘when you’re in business in the Northern Territory you
work in peril of speaking out against the CLP’. This statement by the
businesswoman most likely helped Labor in challenging the political behaviour
of local electorates. Particularly too when an Indigenous representative on a
pre-selection seat was enhanced by political culture in some usually neglected
enclaves of aboriginal suffrage.
A
key feature of the Labor platform was the promised scrapping of the Mandatory
Sentencing laws which would have made the aboriginals happy, but most certainly
dismayed Dennis Burke and the CLP supporters. On the ABC, Burke was quoted as
saying: ‘its widely supported in the Northern Territory in my opinion’.
However, the political culture of approximately 56,000 aboriginals might have
left him with a different impression, particularly once their political
behaviour became apparent at the polls. They represented twenty nine per-cent
of the Northern Territory population at the time. The CLP was cut back from
holding eighteen seats to just ten out of a total of twenty-five. The evidence
suggests domestic political behaviour in this case was far from homogeneous.
IN SA
In
Parkin (1992), the Bannon government in South Australia of more than a decade ago,
has been described as a smooth, homogenous, almost frugal era. An era which had
earned the government great support amongst the domestic political culture of
the state. The personal approval rating of John Bannon was ‘extraordinarily
high’ and was near seventy-three per-cent in late 1985; Parkin. However, as the
South Australian political culture gradually became aware of the possibility
that there was some type of fiscal trouble, the political culture began to work
against the ALP and Bannon. By 1990 they had lost about five per-cent of their
approval rating. Bannons’ personal political culture approval rating remained
strong throughout 1990, but did dip slightly.
However, when the announcement came in
February 1992 about trouble with the State Bank, Bannons’ approval dropped
significantly; by about fifteen per-cent. Opposition leader Baker also lost
some popularity in a similar pattern. This shows that the political culture of
South Australia was becoming anxious and untrusting of the entire state governance;
it was rejecting Labor leadership and favouring the Liberals slightly, thus
showing no sign of homogeneity. Both Bannon and Baker resigned due to the rapid
increase in their unpopularity.
In
the 1990 greater decade, South Australian government shifted from Labor to
liberal; Western Australia shifted from Labour to Liberal and back, and the
Northern Territory had occasionally favoured Labor but the CLP retained
preferences until 2001. It is possible to conclude that there is federal
electoral homogeneity, however this is not the case at the state and local
level of political culture.
CONCLUSION
McAllister;
(in Woodward 1997 p250), sums up the European technique of analysing Australian
political culture by saying that the tension’s society produces is what creates
the apparent homogeneity. However, a few contradictory themes are nonetheless
to be found. He finds there are consistent variations in the domestic realm,
especially when it comes to occupation and personal finances. These, he says,
are the main influencers on political culture and ultimately political
behaviour. McAllister cites three opinion surveys which were designed to
measure either the incline or decline in public interest of political issues.
The surveys have been running for about thirty years. They indicate that
political issues have become more of interest over the years. Certain issues
were used and watched.
The
interest in the issues fluctuated over the years, but from the beginning up to
the present, the percentage increase was 22 points; up from 14 points. This
indicates that there is not total homogeneity in political behaviour. But that
there is cleavage, political culture can and will affect state and federal
electoral outcomes, and that there are state based differences which can be
found with appropriate study. The conclusion is that Rikers’ statement is false
if state based domestic analysis is used to argue his claim.
The
reported decline in class voting, combined with Australian homogeneous issue
voting and lethargic attitudes about the economy may be converged into a new
category of a political analysis model that has its basis in -and can emerge
from- domestic political culture analysis.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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