Clement Macintyre

The Lure of Politics: Geoff Gallop’s Government 2001–2006 by Lesley van Schoubroeck

February 2011, no. 328

A few months after the 2010 federal election, Geoff Gallop delivered the annual Hawke Lecture at the University of South Australia. In an address focused upon political engagement, he canvassed some possible reforms to the Australian political system. Among a number of other proposals ...

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Mortgage Nation: The 2004 Australian Election edited by Marian Simms and John Warhurst

by Clement Macintyre •

April 2007, no. 290

Australian elections are not what they used to be. The policy debates have been reduced to ten-second audio grabs. The big public rallies have been replaced with pre-packaged and scripted set-piece television events. According to the majority of the contributors to this account of the 2004 election, the passions that Australian voters once carried to the polling booth have been swapped for something much more prosaic. At the last election, our vote was apparently determined largely by interest rates and by mortgage costs. It seems that voters are now less animated by ‘It’s Time’ and more by ‘It’s Mine’.

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Peace, Order and Good Government: State Constitutional and Parliamentary Reform edited by Clement Macintyre and John Williams

by Grant Bailey •

November 2003, no. 256

Grant Bailey reviews ‘Peace, Order and Good Government: State Constitutional and Parliamentary Reform’ Edited by Clement Macintyre and John Williams

Speaking in the context of the Quebec secessionist movement, Stéphane Dion described Canada as ‘a country that works in practice but not in theory’. Whilst particularly telling of that country’s political turmoil, Dion’s summary also points to an abiding tension in all Western democracies: the perceived gulf between the theory and the practice of modern government. Constitution and parliament, the people and their representatives, tradition and modern requirements: in theory, each pair dovetail, but in practice they tend to be loose at the edges. (Try finding, for example, any reference to ‘prime minister’ in our Constitution.) The ongoing efforts within Australia to reconcile the theory and practice of government are at the centre of this important book, which was released to coincide with the South Australian Constitutional Convention (held in August 2003).

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