These are key features of our committee system of government, which encourage open policy debate. They’re strengths, not weaknesses, and should never be undermined by presidents pretending they’re ministers, or imposing some sort of quasi collective responsibility through coercion or physiological pressure.
Of course that freedom for all committee members to openly speak their mind can lead to awkwardness. I’ve been a committee president with a vocal dissident member, and have also been that dissident myself. It’s human nature that such situations can strain relationships a tad, but with maturity and respect it’s no big deal. Nobody dies because of a frank difference of opinions, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
That may be a cliche, but genuine policy dissent really does make a committee stronger. Not snide personality spats, or quarrelling for the sake of it, but robust argument over policy, is exactly what our committees are there to provide.
There’s no point in having committees rammed full of yes men or women. You may as well just leave it to individuals to wield ministerial powers. The reason we don’t is that so much of government goes on at committee level that it’s crucial for the process to provide appropriate checks and challenges.
Some may say such dissent is fine within confidential committee meetings, but once a decision has been made all committee members should swing behind it. In other words they want them to blatantly lie to the public about what they believe. It’s a point of view I suppose, but my mum always told me honesty was the best policy.
It’s more fundamental than that. Once any committee policy decision is unveiled, there will inevitably be a public reaction to it, and public debate about it. It is not that unusual for a strong, unfavourable, response to lead to that decision being amended or even scrapped.
But for that public debate to be properly informed, it is vital the community hears the views of all of those who have spent months looking at the issue in depth. Any convention which allowed the majority on a committee to explain their rationale, while muzzling any minority views, would dangerously undermine our tradition of community political discourse.
It’s vital that committee presidents remember that they have no more official power than their members. Of course in reality they have significantly more soft power. They preside over committee meetings. They present and reply to committee proposals in the States. They are the public faces of their committees with the media – although I notice that’s all too often ‘a committee spokesman’ these days.
To presidents I say ‘allow dissent’ – it’s a sign of strength, not weakness. To dissidents I say ‘stand your ground’. You may or may not be right – but you’ve been elected to argue for what you believe in.
