The past decade in Australian politics reads poorly: leadership instability; potential constitutional crises; declining trust in institutions; and an electorate that is increasingly cynical about the motives of the political class.

Challenges to Parliamentary Legitimacy

Parliamentary legitimacy is based in principled representation that reflects the diversity of the electorate and creates the capacity for meaningful, responsive, systematic change.

A crisis of legitimacy stems from the political system’s inability to connect with its citizens: to hear their concerns, develop policies appropriately and fairly, and communicate the effects of such governmental actions as they relate to people’s lives.

Declining Trust in Leadership

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, only 29% of Australians trusted the Federal Government to act in the best interests of the public; during the pandemic, this number rose to 54%. The Australian response to the Covid-19 pandemic may have proved to be a circuit breaker for what has been a global trend of declining trust in government, but it remains to be seen whether this optimism will hold without the geopolitical and economic uncertainty of a global pandemic.

In 2017 66% of Australians agreed that ‘our elected representatives do not seem to be serving my interests’. Despite apparent increases in the level of trust in government, post-pandemic only 46% of Australians believe that Prime Minister Scott Morrison ‘cares about people like me’.

This is the crux of representation: do you feel like your interests matter to those in positions of power?

If fewer than half the country perceives this to be true - however accurately - the representative system is disconnected from those it claims to represent.

This level of dissatisfaction with the representativeness of parliamentary leaders is also reflected in the competence and trustworthiness scores of major (Australian Labor Party and Liberal Party of Australia) and minor (Australian Greens and One Nation Australia) party leaders prior to the 2019 Australian Federal Election. No leader averaged higher than five on a scale of one to ten in either category.

The sexual assault allegations that currently plague Australian Parliament have further damaged the electorate’s trust in its political leaders. Of the respondents to an Essential Poll conducted in March 2021, 65% believed that the government held higher regard for protecting its own interests rather than those of potential victims; and only 34% trusted that political offices were safe workplaces for women.

So how do we regain Australians’ trust in government and avoid a crisis of legitimacy?

Diverse Representation

The answer lies in improving descriptive parliamentary representation; in creating a real or perceived connection between parliamentary representatives and the electorate.

In 2016 66% of Australians agreed that ‘our elected parliaments should better reflect the diversity of community on ethnicity, culture, age, profession and education’; by 2019 that number had risen to 71% of Australians who want to see a more diverse Australian Parliament.

Currently, our elected representatives do not reflect our population in significant ways:

• 52% of Australian residents are women; only 41% of Federal Members of Parliament are women

• 18% of Australians live with a disability; less than 1% of Federal MPs have publicly declared that they are living with a disability

• 30% of Australian residents were born overseas; only 10.5% of Federal MPs were born outside Australia

These baseline statistics also underrepresent the problem: non-traditional political actors are less likely to hold safe seats and face cultural obstacles to engagement in parliamentary work.

Quality Representation

Increasing the diversity of parliamentary membership strengthens the quality of representation.

Introducing non-traditional political actors to the political system can lead to:

• Identification and promotion of different issues;

• Higher levels of belief in non-traditional political actors’ ability to govern;

• More sensitive and responsive policy design; and

• Changes to parliamentary culture, including higher levels of collaboration.

Systems designed to include non-traditional political actors:

• Attract candidates with higher levels of education and skill;

• Increase societal human capital; and

• Do not lead to the election of lower quality parliamentarians; in fact, groups with more functional diversity outperform groups with a higher combined ability.

In the business world, more diverse boardrooms:

• Earn higher profits;

• Record higher levels of outperformance; and

• Record higher levels of employee satisfaction.

Representation may also have a symbolic effect, boosting educational attainment and professional aspirations even without policy changes that structurally enhance opportunities for non-traditional political actors.

Of course, increasing the diversity of individuals in parliament will not necessarily see individuals make different decisions, focus on different issues, or prioritise values differently. The complexity of political systems produces conflicting incentives and permission structures; within the dynamics of the political system non-traditional political actors may continue to access and entrench adaptive behaviours that perpetuate rather than transform institutional culture.

Despite these challenges, and in light of the gains already evidenced, the potential for transformational systems change should be enough to drive policy solutions seeking to create more diverse parliamentary representation.

Principled Representation

Beyond these real, tangible reasons for creating better policy outcomes through a more diverse parliamentary system, proportionally representative parliaments are a fundamental aim of liberal democratic political systems, of which Australia is one.

In a really equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately but proportionately.

As majority of the electors would always have a majority of the representatives; but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority.

Unless they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege; one part of the people rule over the rest; there is a party whose fair and equal share of influence in the representation is withheld from them contrary to all just government, but above all, contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its very root and foundation.

John Stuart Mill, founder of modern liberalism, in Representative Democracy (1861).

In evaluating and proposing reforms for Australian representative democracy, The Principled Parliament Project draws upon common procedural elements of liberalism that bind our political parties to re-conceptualise representation as a systems problem. This conceptualisation provides a principled basis for systems reform congruent with the philosophies of the major players in the Australian electoral system and sensitive to the historical legacy of representation in Australia.

Populism has no borders and its roots are in disaffection and distrust. Australians must feel like they matter to our political leaders: rebuilding parliamentary legitimacy is the only way to strengthen our political system against the global tide of populist, reactionary, majoritarian sentiment.