8.7 The Myth of Democracy
Australia’s electoral idiosyncrasies are often portrayed as a proof of a special
Australian commitment to democracy. Australia is said, on their account, to
be a‘pioneer’of democracy, and officials of other Western countries even, it
has been said, take‘pilgrimages’to learn from Australia.^23 This chapter rejects
this contention. With the possible exception of the emergence of the
Country Party, none of these idiosyncrasies seem to breathe the spirit of
democracy.
But what is democracy?‘Democracy’is understood here as the pre-eminent
ideology of legitimation of the modern state, and, in consequence, amounts
to a reconciliation of those domains that a successful state must reconcile: that
of societal technology; that of fraternity; and that of autonomy (the sphere
self-determined, and self-ended, activity).
As an anthem of the modern state, democracy must honour what societal
technology esteems: the rationalistic, the systematic and the uniform. Here
lies the special strength of Australian democracy. An electoral mechanism is
an exemplar of‘social technology’, and Australian democracy is second to
none in the completeness and accuracy of its electoral rolls, the orderliness
and efficiency of its polling days, and the sophistication of its many methods
of voting and electing.^24
As an anthem of the modern state, democracy must exemplify the aspir-
ation to oneness and equality. This powerful sentiment is gratified by a wide
franchise, as such a franchise confers an equality that is impossible to secure
elsewhere in life. The strength of fraternity in Australia has, then, manifested
itself in the encouragement of a wide franchise, even if, contrary to the myth-
making of Australian democracy, Australia cannot be deemed the‘pioneer’of
mass franchise.^25 Perhaps the aspiration to oneness and equality has been
even better gratified by compulsory voting: this provides the supreme theatre
of oneness, as all vote as one.
Finally, as an anthem of the modern state, democracy must respect the self-
assertion of the sphere of autonomy.
(^23) ‘British electoral experts have made pilgrimages to both Canberra and Wellington’(Sawer
2001, p. vi). 24
‘Australia has probably the most thorough provisions in the world for the maintenance of
electoral rolls 25 ’(Wright 1980, p. 30).
By 1828, a generation before the advent of manhood suffrage in NSW and Victoria, the
‘principle of universal manhood suffrage (at least for whites)’had been formally established in
eight US states (Ratcliffe 2013, p. 284). That the southern states of USA maintained de facto racial
disqualification into the mid-twentieth century needs no comment. Queensland formally
excluded Aboriginals from the franchise until 1965 (Wear 2005). South Australia was thefirst
Australian state to enfranchise women, in 1895; Idaho was thefirst US state, in 1896.
William O. Coleman