It is no “mystery” that the Senate saved citizens from Rudd’s massive ETS legislation tax scheme involving handing Australian’s money over to undeveloped countries run by despots for absolutely no effect on climate. If it were not for the Senate, our elected dictatorships would have a completely free hand. And, we would now be the only country burdened by huge taxes on business and individuals for a faddish cause.

While the Senate is the only protection we have against the excesses of whichever party is in government, it would work much better if lazy Australians voters actually took a little longer to vote intelligently – not just put a number above the line. They might like to think about voting for independents. The only drawback that haunts the Senate is the fact that party members are far more interested in their party than they are in their states.

The United States Senate was ordained by the Constitution to get the smaller states to agree to the Constitution. The United States started out as a loose confederacy of states. The framers of the Constitution wanted all the states to ratify it. The United States Senate has two senators from each state regardless of population.

If you fill in the box above the line for senators on the Australian ballot then the party determines the allocation of preferences. I am unwilling to let them do that so I research all the candidates running. Then I fill in the 80 or so numbers to indicate preferences. I found all parties and candidates on the ballot have info on their policies on the net. Of course one must do this research before going to the polls. Parties should make public the information on their preferences for the senate.

Whatever the intentions of the framers of the Constitution, the Senate has become the more democratic house as it is elected by proportional representation. This means that the major parties are represented roughly in proportion to their votes and that minor parties, almost always excluded from the House of Representatives, have some say.

The only argument against this point of view is the equality of representation of the states. However, as the states are pretty much copies of each other in political views, this equality of representation has little practical effect.

Contrary to popular belief, the word 'democracy' is not mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, nor in its Constitution. Democracy was on the nose with the founding fathers, who intended to create a republic, a government limited by law, rather than a democracy, a government of majority rule which they did indeed identify with tyranny – with good reason.

Any provision limiting the power of government is a bastion against democracy: freedom of speech, religion, association, trial by jury, and so on. According to the logic of democracy, there is no reason why the government should not be able to override these freedoms at will, because the government presumptively represents the will of the majority, and the will of the majority presumptively represents what is good and should be lawful.

The problem with this view, is that the majority can be wrong, and prejudiced, and and violent, and greedy, just as much as any minority. If we take as our starting point that the law, and the actions of the government, should be whatever the majority wants it to be, then we are on the slippery slope to a tyranny. Democracy makes their violence and greed both legal and safe.

Indeed, what is tyranny but the idea that the rights and freedoms of the people are whatever is left over after the government has done whatever it wants? That is why we now live in a society in which the state presumes to dictate what kind of lights we can have in our own bedroom - (all for the greater good of course), what consensual relations we can enter into (the state knows better), and state controls increasingly intrude into any and every area of life. In short, we are over-governed and over-policed in every possible way. Under the aegis of democracy, we have forgotten the very concept of freedom.

The reason democracy was held in such low regard for the last two thousands of years is because it was regarded as the institutionalisation of tyranny, and who can say the ancients got it wrong?

Dear Peter Hume,

You wrote: "Indeed, what is tyranny but the idea that the rights and freedoms of the people are whatever is left over after the government has done whatever it wants?"

On page 3886/3 in the Current House Hansard of 16 December 1992 Lionel Murphy was quoted as saying, "Free speech is only what is what is left after due weight has been accorded to the laws relating to defamation, blasphemy, copyright, sedition, obscenity, use of insulting words, official secrecy, contempt of court and of parliament, incitement and censorship..." "Only what is left over" means free speech has no value in itself. Any other consideration can override it.

Robert Maxwell shielded his activities from public view until after his death by threats of defamation suits. Jo Bjelke-Petersen prevented scrutiny until the Fitzgerald Enquiry.

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

Sedition acts generally exist where there is no loyal opposition. They do not belong in Australia.

Violence on television is obscene, but is it a reasonable subject for legislation?

"Use of insulting words" requires extensive definition.

The UK used "Official secrecy" to ban a book called "Spy-Catcher" which is available in other English speaking countries.

Contempt of parliament and the system have also been used to stifle criticism

Antiracist works have been censored in Australia. In 1953 "Children of the Wasteland" was banned for its criticism of the treatment of Aborigines. J D Salinger, James Joyce, D H Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Daniel Defoe, George Orwell, John Dos Passos, Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin, William Burroughs, Jerzy Kosinski and Philip Roth have all been banned in Australia. Literature in Australia is "only what is left over" when the censor is through.

Meaningful free speech is always what someone doesn't want spoken. Nikos Kazantzakis wrote "The Last Temptation of Christ". From it a serious movie was made including scenes with views of the nature of Christ which Christian thinkers had expressed. Queensland banned it. A woman I know remarked, "Let's use censorship for good. We can ban references to racism and sexism." She had little concern for the values of a free society.

I'm actually almost satisfied with our senate:

I would definitely agree they WOULD be a bastion against democracy if they had the power to reject referendums and referendum results- but as we're somewhat lacking in such actually-democratic input, it (occasionally) serves the exact purpose it claims to and acts as a bulwark protecting a powerless public from the excesses of a not-quite directly-elected and otherwise completely unaccountable boy's club in Parliament. In short, making our rather not-quite-democracy slightly less severe.

Of course, I don't deny the assumption that the Senate was only intended as an anti-democratic measure. As the whole Westminster system CLEARLY shows such purpose (a three-tier government in which the two higher tiers- hereditary lords keep the only elected tier in check).

The answer again, is binding CIR.

The problem with the Senate is that the Senators' voters are not so much the people but the pre-selection panel of their party. If that panel gives you a good spot on the party ticket, you're guaranteed to be "elected". In practice, only a few Senate seats are up for grabs each time. For these two reasons, the Senate has more party hacks than is healthy and too many Senators that hang around for far too long. It is beyond me what some Senators actually do to earn their salary, because most certainly don't spend a lot of time in the real world of ordinary people.

Here's a thing to illustrate my point. At your next Quiz Night, ask the people to name all their State's current Senators. I bet few will get more than two or three. On the two occasions I've had that question asked at a Quiz Night down here in Tasmania, the most common answer was Senators Bob Brown, Eric Abetz and Brian Harradine (who hasn't been a Senator for years). Only one table got three names correct - they got Senator Milne as well. Which begs the question, if nobody has heard of the other nine, what on earth do they do ? Well, they hang around the party machine and suck up to the handful of party loyalists on the preselection panel to ensure they get a good spot on the ticket at the next election. Providing they get that, they don't have to do anything as crass as talk to (or listen to) ordinary people.

The Senate's a good idea in theory. But, given the system that elects them, there's a lot of truth in Paul Keating's description of the Senate as "unrepresentative swill". In practice, most Senators don't represent us and certainly don't represent their State - they represent the party that has the say in whether they get a winnable spot on the ticket next time around.

Huonian,

There is nothing wrong with the system by which senators are elected. It is not compulsory to accept a party’s choices. It is not compulsory to vote above the line. If people do so, they are indicating their agreement with the party’s choices. Since 1955, many people have voted for DLP, Democrat, Green and independent candidates, all of whom have won seats in the Senate but none of whom has won a House of Representatives seat in a general election. It is even possible for a party supporter to vote for his or her own party’s candidates in an order different to that recommended by their party. That is the essence of STV. If they do not do so, that is their democratic choice.

The argument that the Senate was created to be anti-democratic falls down on the fact that its franchise has always been the same as that for House of Representatives. Unlike various state Upper Houses, there was no property restriction on voting. Women in South Australia and Aborigines in SA and Victoria voted in the first Commonwealth election for both Houses.

The senators represent everyone who voted for them, including the above-the-line voters who could not be bothered checking where their preferences went.

Huonian,

I should have said, “ Since 1955, many people have voted for DLP, Democrat, Green candidates, all of whom have won seats in the Senate but none of whom has won a House of Representatives seat in a general election” as I know that independents have won seats in the House of Representatives at a general election. I made a mistake as I changed what I had originally typed.

Australian two party system: "In any event...the real need for reform is not so much in the institutions of government as in the political parties. They have become narrowly based, factionalised, undemocratic oligarchies, apt to be controlled by too few people, closed to public view but open to manipulation and outright corruption. Reforming them would make the institutions of government work better without changing those institutions, but without reforming them the institutions cannot work very much better than they do at present." - Harry Evans, Clerk to the Senate in 'The Australian' 10 March 1997.