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