I agree. The Senate, especially since the Murphy reforms in the 1970s, has made a significant difference to the Federal Parliament. A return to a Queensland upper house might assist our own beloved deep north.

Ye gods, please no. The opposite is true, lets have a referendum to abolish the states/territories instead, passing most of what they do down to local government. The last thing we need is more corrupt politicians.

While I'm open to the idea of the restoration of an upper house in Queensland, I'm not completely sold. And this article has done nothing to change that. The basic suggestion is that the restoration of the upper house would enable opposition parties to gain power more easily. Does this mean that we should fork out huge sums of money to pay for another layer of government, just to make regime changes easier? I would suggest that the LNP is more likely to assume control of government if they can get it together, present a united front and find a charismatic and competent leader.

There are many reasons for the existence of an upper house, however this article has missed most of them.

I support a Senate in Queensland.
My reason is that because political party members are so totally obedient to their party bosses that they and hence Parliament become mere cyphers, lap dogs. What we have here is executive government with periodic elections just to look democratic. The situation is made worse by the so called Optional Preferential system introduced by Beattie, a system that, with it's 'just vote 1' adjunct further emphasises the power of the parties - which in their turn do as they are told from on high.

Another thing that might help would be the adoption of the Hare Clark system of voting (with Robson Rotation). That makes those awful 'How to vote cards' useless.

As things are and have been since I came to Queensland in 1970 I have endured the Bjelke Peterson era and longed for an Upper House; and nowadays watch a Parliament that is Blighs lackey and again long for a Senate or equivalent.

Anybody any idea how to bring it about?

‘Queensland is also the only Australian state to lack an upper house. It is not difficult to connect the dots.’

But Scott and Nicholas, is Queensland really significantly worse than other states?

The classic problems that indicate poor governance are pretty much uniform across the country. I refer to things like health, education, roads, police, etc that are not keeping up with the ever-increasing demand, let alone getting better over time as they are supposed to be if we are to believe that constant growth is good for us all, as our government of both persuasions keep telling us.

And I refer to the mindless absurdity of continuing to pack more and more people into regions that are suffering serious basic resource issues, especially water, which is just critically stupid but which is just what the real estate fraternity and other big business interests want.

If corruption is worse in Queensland, the end effect isn’t any worse, or so it seems.

I strongly support the restoration of the upper house in Queensland. It will have some effect, and it is ridiculous for the fundamentals of our governmental system to not be uniform across the country.

But it could just be that the net effect of a senate would be to help legitimise the cosy business–government relationship, rather than be a significant step towards severing it and improving the independence of government.

The answer is not another bunch of corrupt politicians, but REAL electoral and government, structural reform.

It does not matter whether you think Global Warming, Aboriginal poverty, Economics or whatever, is a problem. These are all symptoms, the real problem, is that our system is broken and it needs fixing. The time has come to stop treating symptoms and go for a cure, electoral and structural reform.

Abolish the states. Nobody will convince me that if you asked voters, (Would you like less politicians or more?) that they would not vote yes by a 2/3's majority in all states and territories. We also need to be involved in how the parties themselves, are run. End branch stacking, the imposition of "star candidates" from afar, as opposed to local branch members of long standing, who are well known in the local electorate.

Scott, if you or anybody else have other, similar suggestions, i am sure they would be far more popular with voters than bringing back the QLD upper house.

I fully support establishing a Qld upper house. Upper houses are particularly useful in that they have inquiry powers, and are often not under the control of a government.

Establishing a Qld upper house may or may not improve policy development or execution (most of which would be done in the public service), but it would provide another avenue for information and openness about government processes.

In addition, an upper house may result in legislation passing parliament only if a members representing a majority of voters (under a proportional voting system) support the legislation – as opposed to the current situation in which legislation passes if a majority in the Legislative Assembly supports it.

There may also be the benefit of having a larger number of people from ministers could be drawn – possibly increasing the calibre of ministers.

I went on a tour of Qld Parliament house in the mid ‘90s with a then-MP (Labor). He said that abolishing the Qld Legislative Council was one of the best things Labor had done. This may have had merit when the upper house (which was wholly appointed) systematically frustrated policies supported by a majority of the electorate, but it’s a moot point when the upper house is elected on a reasonable basis by voters (as all are except WA). A reconstituted Qld upper house could be elected on whatever basis is considered desirable – probably using proportional representation. It may be reasonable to elect the entire upper house each election, electing nine members each from three regions, or seven members each from five regions.

A Qld upper house is likely to only assist Qld public administration – the monetary cost would be miniscule given the likely benefits.

Another house, brim full, of the same sort of people?

Full of ALP drones, ex-union hacks, and National Party fundamentalist Xtians, not to mention Liberal real estate goons and the ubiquitous solicitors from both sides?

What will that do but cost us more money?

No, let's take a different route and having one expanded house with multi-member electorates, preferential voting, an end the first-past-the-post facility we have now, introduced by Goss, of course.

But deeper than the shape of the electoral maps or machinery is the still very 'backwoods' nature of Qld thinking, partially a result of a shocking 19th century education system and partially the result of being a primary industry state - with no thinking required.

Let's face it, too many Qlders are as thick as two short planks, fed by the Courier Mail, commercial TV and radio jocks, plus we know that there is a high level of acceptance of religious mumbo-jumboism here, from the Premiers acceptance of ID and Creationism in state schools to the 'what's wrong with?' attitude to still having Bible lessons OK'd in state schools, not to mention having reformed alcho's and druggies running the chaplains in state schools.

As I recall, NSW suffers years of corrupt Liberal governments followed by years of incompetent and corrupt ALP governments, as does Victoria-both with two houses. WA is a bad joke, with the same sort of 'government', seemingly all corrupt all the time. Tasmania appears to be run by-and-for Gunns alone, SA reached something of a peak under Dunstan, building on his conservative forebears work but has slipped to being run by a PR-focussed goon... what's left? NT and ACT, well, really, what can be said about those two deadend themeparks?

If we gave state government responsibilities to local councils, we'd be back in the Tory darkages (not that we aren't in one already under Bligh)in no time as National drones and clones took control all over the state- no thanks.

Solution?

A real education revolution and a multi-member single house electoral system, with some sort of 'intelligence' test to weed out more psychotic MLAs.

Blue cross, i tend to agree with everything you have said, i used to kid myself that the system worked, found myself handing out, how to vote cards, to people who did not even know the difference between a state and federal election.

But just because the local governments are equally as corrupt as the states/territories that does not mean we should not be abolishing them. Why not introduce the electoral reforms you spoke of, into local government? Clean them up, and abolish the states?

The only people i have ever encountered, who seriously advocate bringing back the upper house, are members of political parties, eying off, another gravy train.

We are the most over governed nation in the world, per capita. Our constitution leaves far too many grey areas of joint responsibility, or opportunities for blame shifting. A trick that bureaucrats and lefties learned from feminists.

Formersnag

I know what you mean about thinking the system 'worked'. But, of course, it did, for those who gain directly from it.

Clearly, we are unable to do without a Commonwealth Government, so I agree the states are the most obvious to go.

And maybe the new regional council structure is able to be expanded to create a 'county' type of council system as in the UK, where county councils deliver the social services?

Keating organised the nation into 'Area Counsultative Committee' divisions too, which, with a little imagination, could have become a system of regional government beyond mere councils.

But maybe, in this era of privatisation and PPPs, we could simply contract government to LinFox, or TNT,and as 'shareholders' we could all share in the 'profits' they got from running the state.

Come contract renewal, it'd be the same grab-bag of empty promises we get anyway.

And the benefit would be that instead of having to pretend government was for 'the people' we'd all know up-front it was for making business rich, and we could stop pretending democracy had any role to play at all?

Blue cross you are on to something. Instead of leasing govt out to linfox why not sell the whole of Australia - lock stock and barrel? We should be able to get at least 20 trillion for it - enough to make us all millionaires. Of course we may all have to migrate....

Several people here are worried we would be over governed with an upper house.

Here are some states:

QLD: 89 pollies, 4.42 million people = 1 pollie per per 50 thousand.

NSW: 135 pollies, 6.89 million people = 1 pollie per 52 thousand.

Fairly similar. But: NSW has an upper house, and those 135 pollies consist of 93 in the lower house, and 43 in the upper house.

So, here is a suggestion. Keep the number of pollies the same, but split them over an upper and lower house.

NSW Population: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/1338.1~June+2009~Main+Features~Statistics+News+NSW?OpenDocument
QLD Population: http://www.oesr.qld.gov.au/
NSW Pollies: http://www.elections.nsw.gov.au/electoral_education_and_resources/elections_in_australia/state_government
QLD Pollies: http://www.qld.gov.au/government/system-of-government.html

As the corruption seems to be prevalent amongst labor pollies, a simpler solution would be to vote them out. However, the Queensland populace seems happier with a gov that says nice things but is more interested in feathering their own nests, than good governance.

When s/he signs off as 'Shadow Minister' one has to wonder if that is a title from a jealous incumbent, or perhaps a past Nat-Lib drone from the Joh era of politics.

What was that nice fellow called? 'Fitzgerald' wasn't it?

Let's not get precious about party politics and which is the worst in Qld.

We have institutionalised corruption built in to the capitalist system. We have politicians who see nothing wrong in getting a 'sling' for meeting lobbyists. We have business people happy to pay-off politicians. We have free-kicks given to poorly run private industry, like the car industry, and untold examples of states handing out cash and benefits to attract business from one state to another.

They all do it, none of them regard it as corrupt, and all pretend they are engaged in 'free trade' and that private industry is somehow superior to public.

Howard bailed out his brothers firm with our taxes, now Combet wants to extend that even further.

Rudd bails out private banks and rails against paying a pensioner tuppence extra, while giving bucket loads to wealthy self funded retirees and denying anything to those few people on the dole.

So much for his Xtian principles...

Shadow MInister, and his/her ilk, would do well to reject corruption, never mind who it comes from, and not bother to pretend that the new Qld Liberal Party, the one that has somehow hidden the gormless Nats within its new name, are as pure as driven snow.

We all remember 'Sanitary Bay', the White Shoe Brigade, 'Joh promised me the jail job', 'Sir Terry', the quarries and gravel businesses of Russ, and on they roll.

Wake up!

quite a few "pie in the sky" ideas in the above comments. Good ideas, sure. But where is the avenging angel who can discover the secret of successful referenda in Australia? Without motivating the voters, how can we possibly get rid of a level of government? The easiest one to get rid of would be the federal parliament. Most states would back that referendum, so just enough people might vote for it. Where would we be then?