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But it isn’t the Australian system, really: it’s the Westminster system, the classical parliamentary model as it applied until 1919 in Canada, and until much later than that at Westminster itself. It is also the system by which caucus leaders are chosen in the U.S. House and Senate.

The premise on which it is based is that the job of a party leader is to lead his party in Parliament. That presumes that what goes on in Parliament matters, but what goes on in Parliament matters, in large part, to the degree that party leaders are answerable to its members. An Australian party leader knows that he can be deposed at any time by his caucus. That’s not only a strong incentive to treat them with respect. It makes each of them more important figures in their own right.

That may seem less democratic than our own system. In fact it is rooted in unassailably democratic principle: government with the consent of the governed. Before one presumes to lead a caucus, to hire and fire its members and order them about, it would seem only democratic to first obtain their authority.

Whereas in our system the leader of the party in Parliament is chosen by an entirely different group of people, most of whom he has never seen, nor ever will: a body that is brought together for the sole purpose of voting, and having voted, disappears. Under the Westminster model the leader is accountable to caucus; under our system, the leader is effectively accountable to no one.