Politicians' Inability to speak freely on issues that matter leaves democracy all the poorer

There is a strange paradox at the heart of modern Australian politics. We want our politicians to engage in reasoned debate, to exercise judgement, to be other than cogs in a machine. We love it when they say things on Q&A that suggest irreverence about the party line. We treat the occasional parliamentary debate in which a free or conscience vote is allowed by the parties as superior to the usual shouting at ten paces. Yet the same political culture that yearns for debate also demands a complete unity among its parliamentarians and, in the context of an election campaign, among its candidates for office as well