If we cannot get rid of the senate then at least the elections for the House of Reps and the Senate should co-inside so can rid ourselves of things like this CO2 tax.

Philo,

Voters do not have to place “1” above the line. They freely choose to do so. They have the constitutional right to vote below the line (“constitutional right” because the Constitution says that parliament must be “directly” chosen). If they choose not to do so, they explicitly endorse their chosen party’s preference flow, a decision their party has made to its own advantage and therefore presumably to the advantage of that party’s supporters. I know they complain later, but whose fault is that?

Above the line voting was brought in to reduce the number of informal votes. The compulsory marking of preferences (whether manually or by the endorsement of your party’s choice) prevents votes exhausting. It is everyone’s democratic duty to vote and it is everyone’s democratic duty to make a choice all the way to the bottom of the list, however distasteful the choice between the Socialist Equity Party and the Citizens Electoral Council is.

Chris Curtis

Chris C,
I see your point. The faithful to major parties just vote above the line whild those voting for minor parties vote below exaust their votes below the line to minor parties before placing a major party up their list. Hense minir parties with the highest preferences are elacted.

Everald Compton is banging a very tinny populist drum here. It's true that the people can vote out a government. But it's also true that government in a complex and pluralist society should not effectively be a dictatorship between elections. On that score alone it is valuable to have a house of review.

Australia is a federation. There may well be too many senators. But that is a requirement of the arrangements in the Constitution, which would require amendment.

The constitutional position is that the six states are sovereign entities confederated by agreement. Centralising power in Canberra de jure as well as de facto by changing that arrangement might be an option Australians would choose, though I doubt it is a likely prospect in the foreseeable future.

The senate is unrepresentative, but a house of review is a good idea. Democracy is not a corporation. Parliament is not a commercial organisation.

Indeed the problem is that neither the senate nor the lower house represent the common good, but have both been largely (not completely) captured by narrow big money interests.

People, attitude is everything.

i enjoy the fact that voting below the line gives me an opportunity to number the candidate or party i disaprove of the most, last, second last etc.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12527#216472

Philo, i hear what you are saying about preferences but what i said above makes a big difference. Take Pauline Hanson as an example. The "real" problem was that she & her campaign manager had not stitched up good preference deals with other minor parties & independents before the election. if she had she would be in the NSW upper house now.

Most minor parties & independents make that mistake, if they all preferenced each other ahead of the major mistake parties they would be more successful.

Personally i think the "problem" should be tackled the other way around. Abolish the lower house power to legislate, make them administrators, or public servants only.

The truth is that the reps have an apalling record of terrible laws which are reviewed, moderated, ammended by the senate. EG, the GST was passed by the democrats in the senate after "essential" items like food were excluded. The government got its mandated laws passed with the worst elements taken out.