Epilogue

Overview

From the beginning of this book, I have argued for a greater priority to be given to parliamentary management, taking my cue from Bevir and Rhodes’ interpretive approach and, specifically, constructing parliamentary actors as situated agents, garnering stakeholder support for informed management decisions, capable of effective and enduring implementation. At the conclusion of a five-year research period, from 2015 to 2019, I had gathered enough evidence to demonstrate that in comparative terms the United Kingdom’s governance arrangements placed its parliament in a better position for the exercise of situated agency and to suggest that the Australian Parliament would benefit from adopting similar arrangements. Such claims may have been diminished by later events that appear to have regressed the advances towards prioritising management and engaging members in collective responsibility. In the same period, events affecting the Australian Parliament, such as the Jenkins review into parliamentary workplace culture (AHRC 2021) and the failure to establish a federal integrity commission thus far (Doran 2021), have also adversely affected public perceptions. But claims of regression and further dents in public confidence should not mean we have to throw up our hands and accept, fatalistically, that path-dependency or management by crisis is the only way for parliaments to evolve. Path-dependency does lead to change Kelso (2009), but there is also a role for situated agency as well as external participation and for understanding that, for parliamentary actors, there are myriad ways of putting the institution first.

I acknowledge that many will see gaps in the issues I have presented. By putting forward new management approaches, I may have entered an intellectual cul-de-sac. This might be unavoidable if one agrees that parliament’s responsibilities are far-reaching and characterised by layers of complexity, and that parliamentary effectiveness will always be a contested concept. But culs-de-sac often have pathways out that can be travelled on foot. I have presented a view of parliamentary administration within a public management context, citing an array of contemporary public management literature to encourage further debate or study of how parliament might be managed into the future and, more aspirationally, how it might, by getting its own houses in order, increase its influence in the fields of public policy and democratic reform.

Implications for theory development and new research

This research has built on historical scholarship on parliamentary reform by focusing on the influence of management issues on parliament’s effectiveness. It has addressed a large gap in the literature by analysing the complexities and challenges of the many aspects of managing a parliament—a ‘constitutional terra incognita’¹—and the relationships between parliamentary actors. Rather than approaching the subject from a historical institutional perspective, which might have sought to explain administrative reforms using a path-dependent approach, I have used Bevir and Rhodes’ (2003, 2006) concept of dilemma to demonstrate and interpret the effects of the conflicting beliefs and practices of parliamentary actors on dilemmas of parliamentary governance, management and procedural and cultural reform. I have taken the research further by advocating public management approaches that could assist in addressing parliament’s management dilemmas, challenging conventional claims that parliament is a unique institution for which these approaches are not appropriate. I have suggested that when parliamentary management is viewed through lenses of public management favouring public value, collaboration and co-production, and not solely the pursuit of relentless efficiency, opportunities arise to improve strategic management, build symbiotic and productive relationships, internally and externally, and work collaboratively across organisational boundaries. Competition between parliamentary actors may thereby be reduced, even in a public institution that is defined by contest. Consequently, parliament may be in a better position to fulfil Crick’s ideal of parliament as a deliberative forum and a broker of ideas, engaging with an informed public. Further study may help to validate (or moderate) these claims.

Bringing the study of parliament under the public management ‘umbrella’ opens a range of theoretical opportunities for further study. The boundaries of this research have not permitted an exhaustive analysis of all the public, or non-public, management approaches that could assist parliamentary management, neither have they allowed for a detailed historical and comparative study of management reforms across the parliamentary and public spheres. It is not possible either to conclude that the findings from the study of management effectiveness in two Westminster parliaments can be generalised across other parliaments. But the findings do suggest a direction for further research into how public management practice could help to build a more representative democratic process, with parliament as the key actor. This could include wider studies of the success or otherwise of governance and management arrangements in other parliaments, outside the often narrow and critical confines of parliamentary research—an invitation, perhaps, to ‘walk on the bright side of [parliamentary] governance and [parliamentary] service’ (Douglas et al. 2021). Studies in the burgeoning field of democratic governance and citizen participation could focus specifically on parliament, thus avoiding the tendency to conflate parliament, politicians and government within public judgements of democracy. Further research might include studies on organisational behaviour in parliaments and contribute, for example, to the limited work on the characteristics and psychological wellbeing of politicians and their staff and the effects of psychological stressors on policymaking (Flinders et al. 2018b; Baldwin et al. 2020; Weinberg 2020). The roles of parliamentary actors, including elected officials, would also provide a rich source for case studies of public leadership. At the very least, surveys of satisfaction with government and public institutions should include parliament to assist in evaluating its efforts in public engagement and education. Advocates of democracy could learn from the UK Hansard Society in this regard.

There is a role, too, for public administration/management scholars to take a greater interest in parliamentary administration and parliament’s continuing and potential contribution to public deliberation and subsequent policy development. Again, I note many examples in the United Kingdom such as the Crick Centre, the Hansard Society, UCL’s Constitution Unit and the Institute for Government, and collaborations between scholars and practitioners addressing how the UK Parliament is managed and led (HOCGC 2014; HCPACAC 2019). There is little evidence of attention to parliamentary administration in Australian studies of public administration and management, despite its potential to offer a rich field of study. Organisations such as the Institute of Public Administration Australia, the Australasian Study of Parliament Group and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government have great potential to forge new relationships between parliamentary and public management scholars. There is an opportunity for parliament’s internal discussion forums to be more open and inclusive.² Future public service reviews would ideally include parliamentary departments, as would recently mooted calls for a specialist Australian Public Service college (Easton 2019).

Reflections on unfolding events

When I began my research in 2015, there was little evidence of academic interest in the topic of parliamentary administration or management, although there was a large body of scholarship on procedural and political reform, some of which I have drawn on. Public interest was piqued temporarily by the ‘Mills affair’, but this was largely stimulated by media embellishment of hostile relationships and a struggle for supremacy between parliamentary actors rather than being of genuine public interest. During the study, I was encouraged by the increasing attention paid to parliamentary administration by parliamentary scholars, particularly in the United Kingdom, and an implicit acknowledgement that administrative outcomes were inherently related to parliamentary effectiveness and parliament’s public standing.

Close observers of parliamentary affairs may not have anticipated that the unexpected and unplanned-for result of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom would highlight the stark contrast between the role of the government in seeking to implement a perceived mandate and that of the parliament in protecting the perceived public interest, or that it would increase tensions between representative and direct democracy from a premise of ‘parliament versus the people’ (Russell 2019c). Russell (2020) has since described this relationship as the anatomy of a perfect storm. Nor may they have predicted the continuing instability of Australia’s Coalition government and its subsequent re-election in 2019, an increasing tendency to elect Independent members, misuse of parliamentary entitlements and heightened criticism of members’ personal behaviour. The knock-on effects of these events on the perceptions held by an already disenchanted public, combined with revelations of unacceptable workplace cultures, have influenced the direction of travel of this interpretative study, away from a more routine performance-related concept of parliamentary administration towards the more encompassing dilemma of how to manage parliament’s long-term internal and external relationships and purposes.

Increasingly, through the duration of the study, other writers have started to address these issues. For instance, a study by the Institute for Government (Thimont Jack and White 2019: 7) found that in the UK Parliament, after the Brexit referendum, ‘where strategic direction is absent and no one is sufficiently in charge to drive it’, people with sufficient political capital and buy-in from both government and opposition need to establish new processes and address fundamental questions about parliament’s relationship with government. They advocate establishing a joint committee to do just that, as I have advocated a joint parliamentary commission for the Australian Parliament to bring a cross-party approach to addressing strategic administrative issues that cannot be entirely divorced from the political arena. Evidence given to the HCPACAC (2019) inquiry into role of the Speaker has lent further support to claims made in this book. As well, more attention is being paid to parliament’s capacity for deliberation and its relationship with the public, more than half a century after Crick expounded these themes.

Similarly, no one could have anticipated the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has seemingly swept away Brexit’s predominance in political discussion in the United Kingdom and challenged the capacity of executive government in both countries. One constant of the aftermath of Brexit and the tumultuous and ongoing events linked to the pandemic is, however, increasing alarm about a further threat to parliament’s role, and concerns in both countries that parliament has, in fact, been sidelined during the pandemic response by the adoption of emergency government powers (Wright 2020).³ An Australian scholar, Stephen Mills, claimed the Australian Parliament’s lengthy adjournment at the height of the pandemic and ‘severely pruned’ attendances demonstrated a ‘growing capacity and willingness … to govern without parliament, and an acquiescent parliament unable to define a more assertive role for itself’ (Mills 2020: 7–8; see also Warhurst 2020). Parliament has been deemed a non-essential service and its deliberative role, which might have contributed to defining the strategic and implementation challenges presented by the pandemic, has been substantially compromised. Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney, advised that there is good reason to ensure that continuing scrutiny and representation within Australia’s national parliament can occur by virtual means and, notably, there is no constitutional reason why it should not (Twomey 2020). The Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly, concerned about the potential for reduced parliamentary sittings and the number of members in attendance to ‘cripple a central pillar of democracy’, urged the NSW Parliament to instead meet virtually (O’Dea 2020: 27).

The Australian Parliament has an abundance of administrative and technological capacity to enable it to stand up a robust virtual or hybrid parliament fulfilling all its functions, including voting by electronic means; all it requires is administrative and political will. Here was an opportunity for the parliament to raise its public standing as it led by example in being innovative and adaptive, while also abiding by the significant social restrictions faced by the community, including limited cross-border travel. Instead, the arrangements adopted for the August 2020 sittings (although much heralded by the presiding officers) fell short of the ideal, particularly in the absence of the ability for members to vote remotely, as some of its members have acknowledged (Karvelas 2020).⁴ Aversive constitutionalism has continued to dominate and concerns have been expressed about parliamentary privilege and potential interference in the voting process. Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (Karvelas 2020) claimed the threat to party discipline was a key factor; another appears to be a recurring threat to the capacity of members to continue to assemble in person, despite widespread acceptance of the need to adapt in the wider community (F. Kelly 2020). Associate Professor Tom Daly (2020) from the University of Melbourne provided a compelling argument for pragmatism in terms of keeping parliament running.

In the United Kingdom, parliamentary actors initially responded rapidly to the technological and procedural challenges presented by the pandemic by creating a hybrid parliament that enabled up to 50 MPs to participate from the UK House of Commons chamber, with 120 more joining in virtually and others able to vote remotely. Its acceptance, however, appeared to have been short-lived when the government moved to discontinue virtual proceedings, requiring all members who were able to travel to return to Westminster, at the expense of those who were vulnerable or shielding an at-risk member of their household. The move was criticised as a departure from the principle of equality and the Leader of the House citing a need to progress the legislative program was called an unfounded excuse (White 2020a, 2020b). These events accelerated ongoing division between the modernisers and the traditionalists and led to a group of senior democracy specialists expressing grave concerns about the suspension of the hybrid House of Commons (Russell et al. 2020). On the other hand, the House of Lords continued to use hybrid proceedings to allow its members to participate, particularly those who were vulnerable, and it has been suggested that working from home might become a normal part of its operations (Beamish 2020). The House of Commons Procedure Committee (2020) related examples of ongoing vacillation by the Johnson government, represented by the Leader of the House, in relation to the continuation and expansion of the hybrid system of both physical and virtual participation, despite the obvious capacity of parliament’s managers to provide the necessary infrastructure and support. On a brighter note, the 2020 World e-Parliament Report noted that the pandemic had brought about a rise in funds for technology, a shift away from siloed digital strategies and an increase in innovation since the pandemic. However, it also acknowledged that some changes may have been temporary and parliaments would need to make permanent changes to procedural rules, take an institution-wide approach integrated into the fabric and culture of parliament, and proactively retain and adapt realised efficiencies (Williamson 2021).

Further evidence of the UK Parliament’s resistance to change is the about-face on the House of Commons’ 2019 decision that members should ‘decant’ from the Palace of Westminster to allow a full restoration to be carried out (Meakin et al. 2020). According to the BBC, the Sponsor Body has freely acknowledged that a change of prime minister and a new set of MPs with different priorities are major factors, quite apart from the expected argument against the project arising from the threat of recession that the pandemic has posed (Wheeler 2020; HC Debates 2020). The ongoing saga of restoration and renewal is a sorry example of an inability to make difficult decisions and implement them. As outlined in a House of Commons Library Briefing Paper (R. Kelly 2022), the Sponsor Body was required to develop an outline of the costs for two ‘bookended’ objectives: ‘do minimum’, encompassing essential work, or ‘variant’, encompassing more aspirational plans. It was hampered by the House of Commons Commission’s approval of a requirement for a ‘continued presence’ in the Palace of Westminster during restoration works, citing the absence of an approved decant strategy for the House of Commons as presenting a significant challenge (R. Kelly 2022). Faced with an unpalatable preliminary estimate of the cost of essential works, halfway through the time previously agreed for developing a detailed and costed restoration plan, the House of Commons Commission (with the implicit agreement of the House of Lords Commission) has called for the abolition of the Sponsor Body and for its work to be brought inhouse (Johnson 2022). Meanwhile, estimates of the ongoing cost of the program vary between £2 million per week (House of Commons Public Accounts Committee 2020) and £10 million per month.⁵

In terms of responses to claims of bullying and harassment and a toxic workplace culture, both parliaments continue to attract criticism (see, for instance, Webber and Calver 2020; Milligan 2020). It is in this area that we can see in both parliaments—if only in response to public outrage—a capacity, through collaborative, cross-party and whole-of-parliament mechanisms, to embed behavioural and cultural change that meets societal expectations. The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme operating in the UK Parliament since mid-2018 was reviewed after 18 months, leading to a renewed commitment to build a workplace culture of dignity and respect, with simplified procedures and greater support for complainants (Stanley 2021). In Australia, the Jenkins review into Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces (AHRC 2021) has now provided a comprehensive assessment of a workplace culture based on adversarial and competitive behaviour with manifest examples of bullying and sexual harassment. Resonating with UK inquiries, the AHRC heard that within parliamentary departments people were sometimes placed in leadership positions based on their technical or legal knowledge, rather than their people leadership skills. The DPS was seen as being driven by fear:

Participants … told the Commission that DPS employees feared senior leaders in DPS, who in turn feared parliamentarians. Some participants told the Commission that parliamentarians consider DPS a ‘whipping boy’, especially during Senate Estimates … [T]he result of this fear was a culture of ‘cover up’ and silence. (AHRC 2021: 98)

The Jenkins review has taken its cue from the UK Parliament’s model and recommended, inter alia, establishing an Office of Parliamentarian Staffing and Culture, reporting to the parliament’s presiding officers, to oversee the recruitment and ongoing management of parliamentary staffers; a code of conduct for members and their staff;⁶ and an independent Parliamentary Standards Commission with delegated power ‘to operate a fair, independent, confidential and transparent system to receive disclosures and handle informal and formal complaints’ (AHRC 2021: 25).

The Jenkins review has undoubtedly offered an opportunity for the Australian Parliament to manage its workplace culture on a cross-party, bipartisan and whole-of-parliament basis, envisioning collaborative engagement among the presiding officers, political leaders, parliamentary department heads and external experts. It remains to be seen how its recommendations will be taken up by the new government. Even so, the Australian Parliament will still lack the governing architecture that exists in comparable jurisdictions (Maley 2021; Podger 2022).

The events that have unfolded—and are still unfolding—since the start of this research have increased both the need for and the potential of public management expertise to engender a more nuanced and sophisticated public understanding of parliament’s roles, enhance the institution’s public value and build a more effective and sustainable parliamentary institution that has the capacity to contribute to public policy and democratic reform. Retreating to insularity and old arguments in the face of massive challenges will not assist. The key, rather, will be greater internal and external collaboration among parliamentary actors, including scholars and public administrators, managers and procedural specialists, MPs and officials, and between a collective parliamentary leadership and the public.

---