Cheap Votes Part 4 – candidate quality

An American political consultant friend of mine once commented to me that he was a bit stunned by the clear lack of oratorical skill of Australian politicians.

As I said to him: ‘that’s not the only thing that’s lacking’.

The quality of political candidates in Australia is really quite poor on all sides of politics. Whether they aren’t good speakers, or media performers, or can’t engage with detailed policy issues, or can’t remember things they need to remember, or aren’t very good at empathising with and advocating for their constituents, or because they are arrogant and don’t have the right attitude for the job, and lots of other reasons right through to those that seem unable to do anything other than recite the party line like a trained monkey.

There are some good ones, absolutely – there are good people on all sides of politics. But there are some absolutely atrocious ones too.

So how does it happen that the vast majority of Australian voters are given a choice which is little more than chosing the least worst of a fairly mediocre bunch?

Well, I’d argue the system likes it that way. Really talented and able people tend to have a brain. Brains like to question things, and parties don’t like that, so it is often very difficult for the truly engaged mind to run the pre-selection gauntlet.

On the other hand, the loyal staffer who always sings the party aria in tune is likely to walk it in, because the party operations know them, know they will be easy to manage and, in the event there is an actual vote to select them, the party staffer is usually endorsed by existing leaders in the party and the party members generally follow the lead. (When they don’t you get brilliant results like Wyatt Roy.)

The parties don’t recruit any more. There’s no one tapping local heroes with high profiles and lots of respect on the shoulder to have a chat about their future. There is no looking beyond existing membership for someone who would be great at the job. In a sickness not dissimilar to the practices of many factory recruitment firms, parties tend to choose the most easily accessible candidate with a text-book resume rather than the best person for the job that had a different way of getting to this point.

Of course it is always very hard to recruit people in to a job where they will have to work harder for less money. Whether you like it or not, most politicians – even the backbenchers you don’t see in the media – work very hard. They are away from their family for half the year, the spend a lot of time travelling and work a helluva lot longer than 9 to 5 most days. And the vast majority of people in parliament would be on well over $200k in their other work – whether that be as CEOs, or lawyers, or doctors, or senior public servants.

You do get a bit of a pay bump if you become a minister, but your pay is utterly dwarfed by the senior executives of the departments that answer to you.

Plus you don’t get to argue your case for a pay rise each year or for a bonus… your pay rise will be determined by an independent body, is anchored to the general pay rises awarded to the public servants award, and often is vetoed by the parliament to win political points.

We absolutely must pay our politicians more to get the calibre of people we deserve, but also to compensate them appropriately for the work they do. I mean really, your average general manager of a small local council is on more than a back bencher. Some members of the utterly useless glorified local council that is the ACT legislative assembly are on more money than a federal back bencher. There are plenty of easier ways to make a lot more money.

Of course, we don’t want people to be in it for the money – and they clearly aren’t. But we could also support them better in other ways. Ask any staffer of a politician if they like their work and they’ll say yes. Ask them if they like the fact they would more than likely double their salary by taking any mid level job in the public service and they’ll more than likely say no.

Are we really surprised that so many politicians have pretty average media advisors when the most they are allowed to pay their media advisors is not much better than graduate starting salaries? Similarly, should we be surprised that they are loath to go into complicated policy debates because more often than not their well-meaning chief of staff or policy staffer lacks the intellectual depth or experience to be able to support them in that way… predominantly because they simply can’t pay enough for anyone that does have the intellectual capability and experience?

I know of plenty of cases of politicians spending their own money to either top up staffers salaries somehow or employ additional people – Democrats Senators often employed additional people out of their own pocket to help deal with the policy workload. Senators are allowed 4 staff each, back benchers 3, more if you are minister – but they are all fairly lowly paid and they do most of the same hours and punishing schedule of the politician they work for. I won’t go and do it, I’m too bloody lazy – but I applaud those who do. (Although I don’t applaud them quite so much when they are doing it primarily to get a nice seat for themselves without stepping out in to the real world for a while first, but that’s just a personal thing.)

Then of course there are many candidates who are just roped in so the party has a name on the ballot. Particularly in snap elections, the nearest warm body they can con in to it will do. They aren’t real candidates though, so their quality shouldn’t matter, but one could and should argue that they shouldn’t be on the ballot if they’re not a real candidate. Standing real candidates in every seat, not just the key ones, forces the party who are favoured in the seat to find better candidates to ensure the seat doesn’t slip from safe to marginal.

If the parties really respected the voter they wouldn’t put up dummy candidates. If they really valued the voter they would do more to make sure their candidates are the best possible people for the job. Additionally the system would better support quality candidates when they do get elected, so the voters could have the best possible people running the country.

This post is part of the Cheap Votes series. See more here.

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