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Conscience Votes and the Party Faithful

Steven Tudor

They might go back to their electorates and try to find out what the majority of their constituents want. This seems to be the most democratic approach: the MP is merely the conduit of the electorate’s wishes.

How should a parliamentarian’s religious views influence the way they vote? With both John Howard and Kevin Rudd anxious to display their Christian credentials in the lead up to the federal election, this issue has been raised to a height not seen in Australian politics for many years. We need to ask what and who an MP represents when they take their religious beliefs with them into parliament.

Recently the NSW Legislative Council’s Privileges Committee decided that Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, was not in contempt of parliament when he had publicly stated in June that Catholic politicians who voted for the Human Cloning and Other Prohibited Practices Amendment Bill 2007 “must realise that their voting has consequences for their place in the life of the church”. Whether or not Cardinal Pell was really ever at risk of being in contempt of Parliament is now a moot question. But the controversy raises a broader and perhaps more important issue: what is the place of the church in the life of parliament?

Was, for example, any Catholic member of the NSW parliament persuaded to vote against the cloning bill by Cardinal Pell’s “consequences” comment? If an MP did in fact vote — or was even seriously considering voting — in accordance with Catholic teaching because they feared for their position within the church or simply because they wanted to follow Catholic teaching, what implications does this have for that MP’s role as a representative of their constituents?

Most of the time MPs vote in accordance with their party’s line. Sometimes, though, there is no party line on a particular issue, and the party allows its members the freedom to vote how they wish, a so-called “conscience vote”. In these situations what happens to the notion of MPs as representatives of their electorates?

There seems to be three main ways an MP might decide how to vote when given a conscience vote. First, they might go back to their electorates and try to find out what the majority of their constituents want. This seems to be the most democratic approach: the MP is merely the conduit of the electorate’s wishes. How these wishes might be truly ascertained is, of course, a problem. One suspects few MPs do accurate polling, as opposed to simply listening to what various self-selected lobbyists and activists may have to say and then making a rough judgment call.

Second, MPs might look only to their own sense of right and wrong and vote according to their own consciences. That may be a carefully articulated and principled outlook or perhaps a more case-by-case approach, maybe involving getting in touch with their feelings on the day. Either way, the MP is not representing the electorate’s wishes but following their own personal views. Of course, in principle at least, the electorate can retrospectively endorse or disapprove a purely personal conscience vote by voting for or against the MP at the next election. But it must surely be a rare thing for an MP to lose their seat because of how they voted when following their own conscience.

Perhaps things are different in the case of a well known MP who is trusted by their electorate. Their general moral and political outlook may be known to some degree by their constituents when they are elected, and, as a trusted individual, they are given a prospective endorsement to vote as their private conscience may dictate. This is perhaps more a matter of delegation by the electorate rather than representation of it. But maybe democracy is a large enough idea to accommodate this.

Finally, an MP may take guidance from — or even seek instruction from — a third party, such as a church or lobby group. It is here that we encounter more serious issues about democratic representation. If an MP who is a member of a party and also a devout Catholic intends to use their conscience votes to vote in accordance with Catholic teaching, then it would seem a democratic requirement to make this clear to their electorate when campaigning. For, in an important sense, that MP is intending not simply to be a representative of their political party when they get into Parliament but also a representative of the Catholic Church. They would certainly seem not to be representing their geographic electorate when they vote along Catholic lines.

When most people vote for a candidate they are not voting for the candidate personally but for the political party that endorsed them. Obviously this is because they want that person to vote in accordance with that party’s policies. If a candidate is consistently going to vote in accordance with a particular religious teaching when released from party discipline, then that is not within their brief if it has not been part of their election platform. If a candidate for Parliament intends to represent Catholic (or Hindu or Anglican or Islamic or even atheistic utilitarian) views when given a conscience vote, then that should be made known to the constituents before the election, so that they can judge whether this is indeed how they would prefer their parliamentary representative to vote when released from party discipline.

This is not to argue against religious views being permitted to influence parliamentary debates. In a democracy all voices should be heard. It is simply to argue that democracy should also require that candidates for parliament be up front and honest about when and how their religious views will influence them so that their constituents can be properly informed when casting their vote.

This will be an issue if and when Victorian parliamentarians vote “according to their consciences” on a bill to decriminalise abortion. Does any Victorian MP intend to vote according to the teaching of a particular church or lobby group? If so, they should have told their constituents that when they were campaigning.