A Conscience Vote in Parliament

Can there be such a thing? Really?

Not if it is a public vote. Because there will inevitably be some Members who will be persuaded by various pressures and political considerations steering their vote away from a pure conscience response. A genuine conscience vote demands the secret ballot in parliament.

Think about it. We have a secret (conscience vote) ballot at each election. As a result politicians must be careful to avoid hubris and other offensiveness in their stance for election. But, what happens in parliament? Push comes to shove and the votes are regimented on party lines, and the House is notorious for its worse than schoolboy behaviour and, let’s face it, less than complete honesty. With a secret ballot in parliament, the behaviour in the House would equal MPs civility during elections.

The resulting equality of voting with the secret ballot would not hinder passionate advocacy on each issue as necessary, but give each decision to the whole parliament. Thus each issue, no matter how serious, would be fully and honestly canvassed without any undue delay, with all the final voting clear, as all the arguments would have already been heard. In any event, in such a freely arguing and voting parliament, any issue could be revived if some change indicates that should be considered some time later.

Our democracy gained international respect because of the secret (Australian) ballot.
Its only shortfall is the need for ballots in parliament to govern all our decisions and enable our parliaments to decide—not parties leaders.