In 1992 I met a member of the Victorian upper house. At that stage the upper house met in the evening thus enabling the parliamentarians to work as stocker brokers during the day. Although he was a pleasant fellow he didn't strike me as being interested in reviewing legislation or being representative of the people of this state.

I have always envied Queensland not having this waste of space that is an upper house.

I am in two minds about this issue.

I recognise the argument of the value of a house of review. However, my real life experience in government has been that there are no systems of election that provide "good" answers.

Proportional representation makes for totally bad government with policy having to be watered down to meet the criteria of small groups who often represent a miniscule number of electors. You only need to look at the Greens and Democrats in the Senate or, even worse, Brian Harradine, to see how bad things can become when small groups have the clout to pass legislation or not. The beloved WA Greens whom we fortunately lost used to stand up and talk about what changes they wanted to legislation on behalf of 1/4 of 1% of the Australian electorate. Steve Bracks is absolutely insane to choose to inflict this travesty on the Victorian electorate without even a referendum.

Direct election simply tends to mirror in the upper house what is in the lower house. Again, looking at the Senate, how many people take the time or have the discernment to vote below the line to rank candidates in the large type of electorates that Uppoer Houses have. Most people will simply vote above the line for whichever hacks the factions of the major parties have approved.

Given that we constantly complain about major parties not legislating for needs beyond the next election, there is a counter argument for the value of one party dominating the Parliament for some time. Although I can't credit Beattie for taking advantage of his majorities to push through reform of health and other areas when he should have done, nevertheless a system where a Premier needs to negotiate with what Keating liked to call "unrepresentative swill" is far from perfect as well.

Regards

Kevi

Does anyone care about this issue, the Queensland Government is and has been for a long time more efficent, less costly, than the other states. If anything the Federal Parliament should adopt our model. No more snouts in the trough, in the Senate, which is only an expensive rubber stamp, at best.

We in Queensland need an Upper House. The crude nature of democracy in this State has been made even worse by the 'Just vote one' campaign instituted by the present government. Effectively the House is elected by a super primitive First Past the Post system. We endured the Jo gerrymander and got rid of that, but there is still no real scrutiny of executive government, and under current arrangements there never will be. It makes no difference which of the major groups wins an election here, the essential result is the same - 4 years of almost unfettered power.

The method of election of an Upper house would need to ensure that the outcome more truly represented the wishes of the people. I am a supporter of the Hare Clark system with Robson Rotation.

Come on Queensland. Wake up.

Don't do it queensland, don't do it. Look at the NSW Legislative Assembly as an example of what the major parties will do to a house of review. Some of the dilemma government's most senior ministers are MLA's, answerable to no one but their fellow party hacks. And the length of sinecure these people get is a disgrace to a so-called democracy. If it has to happen, make it all independents on a stipend and a subsidised bus pass during the minimal sitting days.

Nicholas,
Your argument seems to be that the Qld lower house has severe problems because of its electoral system, so why not institute an upper house with a better electoral system to review and keep a check on the disfunctioning lower house.
You also talk about voters not having an alternative set of voting preferences that they might have with an upper house. With due respect Sir, that part is dumb. Each person has only one political preference. If you vote different parties in either house then the legislation your party in the lower house passes may well be blocked by your party in the upper house and vice versa.
The financial cost and administrative logjam of adding another house does seem to be a rather long way around to address the misrule. Why not just fix the problematic lower house in the first place. Introduce proportional representation to elect members to the one necessary house of parliament. If you want to spend money then increase the number of representatives in the house. A member for every 25,000 people is by nature more democratic than one for every 45,000 people.
If, as some claim, there will be instability with governments always trying to keep their majority in the house then simply do what you already do with your Brisbane City Council. Have the executive (Mayor or Premier) directly elected by the people.

Despite what my learned fellow poster Kevi implies, small parties (in State Houses) don’t have more clout than their true proportion of the electorate’s will. If major parties can’t get legislation through without kowtowing to minor parties then that means that they don’t even have a majority in the first place, so what justifies their legislation? If it is eventually “watered down” to get through then that means that representatives of a majority of the population approved of and passed specific legislation. Isn’t that what democracy is all about