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If you don't want to answer questions, you should get out of the democracy business.

The Premier's been trying to avoid questions from the Opposition, not to mention the newspapers, on everything from the Stonington/Coco Reef Hotel contract and Cabinet Ministers' travel expenses, to tourism promotions at the Playboy Mansion.

But he ought to be happy when the Opposition and the media ask these kinds of questions, because the alternative is so much worse: The same questions being asked by ordinary people, behind closed doors, and answered God-knows how.

That was one of the great discoveries of democracy - that it's far better to have impertinent questions asked out loud and in public than whispered and muttered in dark corners.

It's better for a country's leaders to answer questions, confront rumours and challenge innuendo straight on, than not even know what's being said about them behind their backs.

Far better to answer questions, than to have opponents make up their own answers behind your back.

The great triumph of democracy as a system of government isn't just the theory of "one man one vote".

It's a system that makes sure the losers - the Opposition, and other people for whom the victors think they have no time or need - don't end up mumbling and grumbling and festering and plotting behind closed doors.

They stand up and ask questions.

"Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" is a phrase that sounds almost offensively outdated. But it's an apt description of how our system works.

It defuses opposition by empowering it.

The Opposition doesn't get to run the country, pass its own legislation or veto Government's own proposals.

Its main power is to question and criticize the Government - to ask questions and expect answers.

When the Premier dodges questions from the media, or weasels his way out of Parliamentary Question Time, he's violating the democratic principles upon which our system of government is based.

More immediately and personally, though, he's damaging a system that allows citizens to have trust in him and his Government.

He's feeding suspicions. By refusing to answer the questions that are presented in public, he's driving them behind closed doors and leaving them unanswered.

The objectors, like the questions they raise, will still be there, whether or not the Premier hears them and answers them.

There will always be people who think they know better, and can do things better than the people in charge.

Anybody in public life will tell you that, no matter what you decide, around half the people will disagree with you.

So it's no surprise that the UBP won almost half the vote in the last three elections, or that the PLP won close to half the vote in the three elections it lost before then.

The last thing the Government ought to want to is drive objectors underground, to have them muttering and festering somewhere in the gloomy background.

It's not that the objectors are stupid or racist or jealous. Sometimes they are, but sometimes the powers-that-be are stupid or racist or jealous too.

It's just that they are human beings and insist on behaving as such.

The best way to avoid parliamentary questions is to make sure the answers are out in the open before the questions are even dreamed of.

Leaders who don't want to answer questions about what they've been doing - be it hanging out at the Playboy Mansion, or making deals with Coco Reef Hotel, or anything else - are viewed with suspicion for very good reason.

For all the Government's indignation, the fact is that it continually insists on doing things that are 100 per cent guaranteed to make people ask questions.

Because they're questionable.[[In-content Ad]]

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