The Pied Piper,

the House of Representatives
is a men's legislature
the Senate would be a women's legislature.

your experience with DoCS
is consistent with the view
that the Constitution of Australia
requires that men supervise women.

“the House of Representatives
is a men's legislature
the Senate would be a women's legislature.

your experience with DoCS
is consistent with the view
that the Constitution of Australia
requires that men supervise women.”

This is one of things it is going to take me ages to understand. I’m still trying to come to grips with how Peter explains the Law stuff that he wants put back.

Is legislature and law the same thing? But laws and acts don’t have genders in them…?

Do we have a senate here?

Whistler can I ask what it means if you're told "a question will be asked in parliament"? This seems to be more important than how it comes across.

The Pied Piper,
you can see questions being asked
in the Federal Parliament on ABC TV
usually for an hour early afternoons
when the Parliament is sitting.
the Federal Parliament
will next be sitting from 11th to 20th of August.
you can also go to Parliament in Canberra
and see for yourself from the public gallery.

here's a spoof on question time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yto5dNvptbI

legislatures discuss legislation as Bills
which become law as Acts when a vote is taken
and the majority agree.

the Constitution of Australia,
an Act of the British Parliament
passed in 1901 when women were prohibited from Parliament,
provides for two men's legislatures
the Senate and the House of Representatives.
law is enacted when a vote is taken
in both legislatures and they both agree.

in 1902 Australia's Parliament passed a law
to allow women to be elected to the Parliament under male supervision.
women were first elected to the Federal Parliament 1943.

a Referendum, a national vote,
is required to change the Constitution
to provide for law to be enacted
by agreement between a women's legislature and a men's legislature
so that Australian women can enjoy equal rights with men
at the source of power in the nation.

hope this helps.

Thank you Whistler. I wont pretend to understand it more than at a surface level. Would NZ be the same? The video I did understand.[smile]

So a question is just a question, do they often lead to anything else? Or does everything else have to start with a question? But they don’t happen often. It was that I was told that if an NGO has multiple complaints against it and its treatment of children then the only thing anyone can do is get a question asked in parliament. Seemed a bit on the dangerously pathetic side to me as far as enforcing the care and protection act but I thought maybe I wasn’t understanding the importance of these questions.

The Pied Piper,

the British Parliament at Westminster in London developed the use of questions:

"Parliamentary questions are tools that can be used by Members of Parliament
to seek information or to press for action.
They oblige Ministers to explain and defend the work,
policy decisions and actions of their Departments."

and ...

"It is generally thought that the first recorded question was asked in the House of Lords.
In 1721, Earl Cowper asked the Government whether there was any truth in the report
that the Chief Cashier of the South Sea Company, Robert Knight,
had fled the country and had been arrested in Brussels.
A reply providing the facts of the case was given by the Earl of Sunderland."

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/P01.pdf

"New Zealand’s Parliament is unicameral.
This means it has only one chamber (the House of Representatives)
and there is no upper house such as a senate."

http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/AboutParl/HowPWorks/OurSystem/1/8/e/00CLOOCHowPWorks111-Our-system-of-government.htm

the state of Queensland has the only unicameral parliament in Australia.
all the other states, the territories and the Federal parliament are bicameral,
as with the Westminster model, with upper and lower houses.

bicameral parliaments attempt to reconcile competing interests
as with the feudal lords and the common people
in the origins of the Westminster model
and the States and the Commonwealth in the Australian parliament.

hope this helps.

It helps Whislter, the more I can understand is extremely helpful and I thank you for taking the time.

Why isn’t it taught from young in schools how the country is run. Courts as well, I have met too many people (myself included) who have no idea what processes are in place to help when we see people suffering and a government that is unreachable.

What I have come across is departments that use a standard couple of weeks before they answer anything. They will not talk in specifics and have no concern for any human individuals, only the process.

They will ignore you completely until you go further up the chain and then the only response you get is questions regarding why you took things any further. I think they go back to their bosses and say we had a meeting but they don’t tell them that nothing was done.

I read some of the “Job” thread before; I can empathize and see no difference between Job dealing with god and your average person trying to get the government to help its people. A lot of “coincidences” start happening to a person who complains.

I figure I need an MP that has their own agenda that will help me just because it suits their own purposes. It took me awhile but I do now grasp that DoCS, NGO’s, Ombudsman, NSW Children’s Guardian etc aren’t interested in the actual children.

Accepting this concept alone has taken months.