KEY POINTS:
Queensland, like much of Australia, has been in the grip of a worsening water shortage this summer. Until a few days ago the state government of Queensland planned to ask its voters by referendum whether they were prepared to drink recycled water. Last Sunday the state premier announced
the referendum was cancelled and the people of southeast Queensland would get recycled water whether they wanted it or not. This decision may not be democratic, but it contains a lesson in good government.
We live in an era of endless public consultation, when every unpopular step is put to a popular vote. Do you want to pay road tolls? Do you want a prison built nearby? Do you want to drink purified sewage? When citizens of Toowoomba were polled on water recycling in October, the answer was unequivocally no. Since then, the dams in southeast Queensland, home to most of the state's population, have became so low that by last week possibly a majority would have said yes if they had been asked. But their government decided not to take the chance.
Had the answer been no, responsible people would have had to ignore it. As the premier, Peter Beattie, said: "These are ugly decisions but you either drink water or you die. There's no choice." When the only wise and proper choice is clear to people in power they should take it.
Public consultation exercises can be worse than useless when those elected to make decisions are probably going to do the right thing anyway. Even voters who recognise it is the right thing are liable to resent the charade and respond contrarily. Any consultation exercise that is less than a binding referendum is hard to take seriously. Public meetings, postal surveys and email questionnaires are fine for public education but they are not a reliable measure of majority opinion.
Surveys using statistical samples are a better measure but the result can be influenced by the way the question is phrased. Polls commissioned by an interested party have an uncanny habit of producing the desired result. Similarly, when a developer or department of state is obliged to prove public support for a project by some means of its own devising.
Direct democracy has its place, particularly where basic constitutional arrangements are to be decided. But most political decisions are best made by elected representatives who will study the subject in sufficient depth. Representative democracy is capable of making unpopular ("undemocratic") decisions when it is confident they will turn out to be right.
Recycling sewage may be an unpalatable suggestion for most people, but if it is done and nobody suffers for it, the decision makers might well be re-elected. If it does not work, they are doomed. They have every incentive to make the right decision. The public at a referendum have no such incentive. If the majority is short-sighted or fearful of change, none pays a personal price for the decision. Nothing changes, nothing improves and nobody can be blamed.
Everyone would like to believe that progress is possible by politicians laying bold programmes before the electorate and winning a popular mandate for them before they start. But it seldom happens that way. Most of the far-reaching reforms of recent decades, from economic liberalisation to Treaty recognition and the education system, have been foisted on the electorate without prior approval. Democracy has ruled some of their advances to be a step too far, but none of them would have happened had they been left to a referendum.
Nowadays it seems harder than ever to get a mandate for change. The more politicians hide behind public consultation campaigns, the more hamstrung we become.