After almost five months in Australia as the Fulbright Flinders University Distinguished Chair in American Political Science, what have I learned about Australian politics in my time here?  Not enough to become an expert, but as an outsider, some things may well be worth noting.

First, the parties here are ideologically positioned far more closely together here than are those in the U.S., but they battle as if their world views were miles apart.  The resulting politics are scarcely inspiring. Second, Australians basically ignore their senate, but they shouldn’t. Indeed, given the partisan yapping in the lower chamber, they should find ways to encourage much more senatorial deliberation.  Third, sooner or later Australians are going to have to face this issue of how much government they can afford – a fight that Americans have fought energetically, if unproductively, for more than 20 years.

Still the one thing that has truly overwhelmed me about Australia and its politics is how cosy everything is.  Despite its vast physical expanse, the country’s political life seems remarkably in-bred.  Party cliques determine candidate selection in mysterious ways, highly reminiscent of tightly held 19^th Century machine politics in the U.S.  Sure there are rules, but in many cases a handful of party leaders make the decisions, often in obscure and informal ways.  In contrast, American primary elections give voters their say. It’s hardly a perfect system, as ideological groups can hijack candidate selection in low-turnout primaries.  Still, even these elections attract tens of thousands of voters, and we get elected officials who aggressively represent their constituencies, rather that being provided with party favourites, parachuted into safe seats.

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The cosiness continues with campaign finance.  The singular Australian combination of private funds larded on top of public financing makes for a system that produces a lack of transparency and a willingness to make insider deals, such as the stunning election-eve agreement to raise the amount of public funding per vote, a deal that turned to vapour once seen in the light of day.  I won’t endeavour to defend the glutinous American approach to money and politics, but there you can usually “follow the money” between donors, parties, and candidates, given the government’s reporting requirements.

Thus, if I look up, say, Representative and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the invaluable Center for Responsive Politics website, in less than a minute I learn how much she raised and from whom for any of her election campaigns.  If, on the other hand, I look up MP Wayne Swan on the government’s campaign finance website, I discover, well, nothing. Zero, zilch.  So who funded his campaign?  With Pelosi I can tell, immediately. Not so with the Treasurer.

Moreover, the overall reports of the Australian Election Commission are a technological shambles; there is no easy way of accessing and manipulating data.  After decades of political reform (sic) and legislation on funding, I can only assume that the mess has been created purposefully, so that the cosy relations between candidates, parties, associated entities, and private donors (who can strategically give around $100,000 with no disclosure) can be maintained.  To its credit, Labor donations are disclosed at the $1000 level, but that doesn’t make disentangling them any easier, or determining who ultimately benefits, save from the party as a whole.

The cosy nature of Australian politics continues when it comes to lobbying, especially in Canberra.  In the U.S., despite some loopholes, most lobbyists must register, report on expenditures and contacts, and update their reports quarterly.  It’s not perfect, but we know a lot about who lobbyies whom, and journalists can write sophisticated stories, relying on this information.  But in the Commonwealth, Australians and their journalists get only a pathetically incomplete roster of lobbyists, with lists of clients but no information on actions or expenditures.  In-house corporate lobbyists don’t have to register, nor do heads of powerful outside groups such as politically active religious organizations.  In the end, journalists and academics can tell occasional stories about lobbying, but cannot produce any kind of systematic analysis.  And even though the lobbyist register does identify those who have previously served in government (the “revolving door”), it tells us nothing about what these privileged lobbyists do or with whom they interact.

Combining the relatively restricted nature of the political class, the  great growth of staff, the lack of transparency in lobbying and campaign finance, and the purposeful obscurity of preselection, the cosiness of Australian politics is continually reinforced.  While occasional scandals (Burke, Obeid/McDonald) throw a bit of light on the cosy relations among political elites, such illumination dims quickly, as “politics-as-usual” reasserts itself.

In part, the parliamentary two-party competition does offer a policing of the policy process, but given the intimacy of most political elites and the absence of adequate transparency, it is often difficult for policy-makers to identify what constitutes an appropriate deal (e.g., NDIS) and what doesn’t (e.g., pre-election hikes in public campaign funds).

In the end, one direct result of politicians enjoying the political cosiness of Canberra may be their unwillingness, or even inability, to identify this condition as any kind of serious problem at all.

Burdett Loomis occupied the Fulbright Flinders University Distinguished Chair in American Political Science until June and has returned to the University of Kansas (USA) where he is a professor of political science.