Phillip Adams writes in The Australian that Australia has a presidential system:

"Australia has had a de facto presidential system since the end of the Menzies era, accelerated and intensified by the influence of television. As in the fight for the White House, our race to the Lodge has voters choosing between two anointed candidates. Holt or Calwell? Whitlam or McMahon? Hawke or Fraser? Keating or Hewson? Howard or Beazley?"
He then argues:

"That's why we don't need a president. We've got one already. Unprotected by a two-term limit, we've had president John Howard for 11 years. Building on the bad example of his predecessors, he's happily downgraded the parliament and doesn't hesitate to brush aside the cabinet system."

I'm not sure exactly how he came to this conclusion, other than republicanism not being Phillips' main issue, rather presidentialism is. And as Phillips points out, presidentialism in a parliamentary system can be a bad thing. The Prime Minister of Australia is less restrained than his United States colleague, thanks to the constitutional conventions of responsible government. The Prime Minister simply "advises" the Governor-General to jump, and the Governor-General is obliged to ask his advisor "how high?".

This is how Prime Ministers - and Howard in particular - use their constitutional position to become all-powerful.

Cross-posted at HOLDENREPUBLIC.org.nz
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments
  • cam . # .
    Supposedly Robert Askin was the first one to run a presidential campaign in Australia. He was NSW Premier for quite a while too. The Liberal Party are more likely to run Presidential style systems as they are heavily dependent upon the authority of their party leader to maintain a cohesive party. Labor and its pledge means the national executive is a strong as the party leader in office.

    The politics is played in a presidential way, but Adams misses the benefits of a separate executive which is you get a separate legislative - where Petre Giorgio's become the norm not the exception.

    If we have a presidential parliamentary system we are actually get the worst of both systems which is executive dominance without a legislative check.
    'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.
    • Interesting. The NZ Labour Party's caucus technically elects the ministers of cabinet, but the PM can fire ministers (this happened in the 80s); despite this Helen Clark's tenure has definitely been very presidential in its composition.
      • cam . # .
        It has changed over time, but the innovation in Australian politics from the 1890s was labor's pledge and all labor parliamentarians being required to block vote on the national executive's decisions. Even as recently as the 1930s the executive cabinet would vote on an issue and could be overridden by the national executive. These days authority comes from winning government so a PM like Hawke or Keating dominate policy. It is more like the Liberal Party authority structure where a PM/leader who can win governments gives the greatest legitimacy - and hence authority.

        All parties have their national executive, for instance the Australian Democrats can conscience vote on any issue, but if they do against the national executive they have to explain to them why they chose to conscience vote. But the Australian Democrats are a legislative party, not an executive one, so they don't have the pressures of a strong PM/leader, however, the public resources an elected Senator has become very important to the party.
        'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.