Model 6 - Executive Presidency

In the five previous models we have assumed that the President will fulfill much the same role as the Governor-General. He or she would be Head of State but the Prime Minister would remain Head of Government.

In the United States, however, the President is both Head of State and Head of Government. Some would say that if we are to have an elected President in an Australian republic, he should run the country rather than a Prime Minister whose legitimacy is the product of his commanding a majority in the House of Representatives.

If Australia were to adopt an American style republican system, it would be a very major change from our current system of government. At present there is a close nexus between the executive branch of government and the legislature. The Prime Minister controls the executive branch because he controls at least the lower house of the legislative branch. In the United States the President controls the executive branch but his party may not (and often does not) control the legislature.

It is easy to dismiss an American style of government as being "too hard" or "too radical"; and perhaps it is. However as an elected President continues to be discussed in Australia, people will inevitably ask why we would so arrange our affairs as to have the only directly elected federal official be a powerless figurehead. Why, they might ask, would we insist that only the people can be trusted to choose a ceremonial figurehead but nonetheless permit those allegedly untrustworthy politicians to choose the people that actually run the country?

Westminster style systems like our own are often criticized as lacking the necessary checks and balances. This is particularly the case where there is either no upper house of parliament (such as Queensland and New Zealand) or where the upper house is effectively powerless (as in the United Kingdom.) A British Prime Minister, for example, is a much more powerful figure in his own country than the American President is in his. Tony Blair is not only fully in charge of the executive, but can pass pretty much any legislation he wishes.

Australia is in a somewhat different position however. Ever since proportional representation was introduced for the Senate, only rarely have Governments commanded a majority in both houses. The House of Representatives may be a poodle of the Prime Minister but the Senate has proved, on occasions, to be quite an effective watchdog over Governments.

Nonetheless, there is a logic and elegance in the US system with the executive completely separate from the legislature. The two branches have to work together if the government of the republic is to function. This often produces conflict, but more often compromise.

There are paradoxes however. Is an Australian Prime Minister less susceptible to scrutiny because he controls the House of Representatives? Defenders of our system would note that an Australian Prime Minister faces daily questions from his political opponents on the floor of the House. American Presidents are subject to no such indignity. It is true that Congress can impeach an American President; but the burden of proof is high and the process ponderous as was seen recently with President Clinton's failed impeachment. An Australian Prime Minister can be pole-axed by his own party room in an instant.

How would an Australian republic look with a US style system? There is an endless range of constitutional variations possible on this theme, so we shall limit this description to the major features.

An elected President would be both Head of State and Head of Government. He would appoint his Ministers who would not serve as members of parliament while in his cabinet. This would reduce their accountability to parliament, but on the other hand it would vastly widen the range of people available to serve in cabinet. An Australian Prime Minister has only his parliamentary colleagues to choose from when forming a ministry. An American President can call on the best talent in the country and often does. Are American Cabinets more talented than Australian ones?

The Parliament's duties would be limited therefore to passing legislation, either on the initiative of its members or at the request of the President and to overseeing the conduct of Government. The United States Congress spends much of its time monitoring the activities of the Government. Because the Congress controls the appropriation of money (without which the executive cannot function), it has enormous leverage over Government policy and the types of programmes and initiatives upon which public money is spent. Parliament would also be responsible for ratifying or approving certain executive decisions such as the signing of treaties and the appointment of senior public officials including cabinet ministers, ambassadors and judges.

Political culture would probably become somewhat less partisan and confrontational. The Westminster system constitutes two teams, seated appropriately facing each other, each with their own leader. The Prime Minister has a permanent opponent in the Leader of the Opposition who is quite rightly described as the alternate Prime Minister. In the United States, while the President invariably has many political critics, between elections he does not face a single opponent who is the alternate President. This may be why, in the United States, party discipline is less rigid than in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Voters, when electing members of parliament, would be focusing on the particular candidate's skills as a legislator. While the identity of the local member is often very important in Australia, most voters see their vote for Smith or Jones as being, in effect, a vote for the party they would like to form a government.

From a formal, constitutional perspective parliament would be better able to oversee and investigate the doings of Government. Would that be the case in practice?

Another paradox of such a radical move is that in some respects it would be less of a leap into the dark than either of the other two direct election models. The executive presidency model has the distinct advantage of having been given a trial run of more than 200 years in the United States, a country with very strong cultural and historical similarities to Australia.

Why would we make this move? Such a big change would hardly seem to be justified by the need to become a republic. Australians would need to be convinced that they wanted to elect their Government, and its leader, directly and not indirectly via their local members of parliament. They would need to be convinced that our system could do with a more formalized balance of powers so that the legislature was completely independent of the executive government. They need not follow the United States experience slavishly of course. It would be perfectly possible to provide that the President and his ministers attend question time in the House of Representatives for example.
Australians would be likely to ask a practical question. Is this actually going to make for better government?