Federal Election 2013

[Runner]

Oh dear, but they were meant to come out in force against the carbon and mining taxes. End of the day, fact is they miss judged the mood of the electorate.

So it is better to have a green and ALP senate which watches Australia crash. Or along might come PUP with his own little agenda.

Didn't anyone watch the chaos that is the US senate and congress impass.

 

[Braveheart81]

So it is better to have a green and ALP senate which watches Australia crash.

[citation needed]

Sent from my HTC One XL using Tapatalk

 

[boyo]

A vote for confusion
Greens leader Christine Milne celebrated the WA Senate election results and said the new Senate will be Tony Abbott's ''undoing''. What is wrong? We elect a government to govern, we elect a Senate to stop it governing and then complain the government is not governing. What has the Senate become?
Phillip Huthnance Penrith

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-l...-with-japan-20140408-zqs8s.html#ixzz2yRyCBCrO

The response:-

Watching the other lot
There's a simple answer to Phillip Huthnance's rhetorical question (Letters, April 9). In electing groups to form national government, we don't automatically grant them carte blanche to do whatever takes their ideological fancy, be they left, right or centre oriented. A good Senate provides balance and forces governments to justify, negotiate and compromise on key legislation. A Senate of reason and science is exactly what this country needs right now to at least partly offset the illogical, unfair and unsustainable belief-based systems of the lower house incumbents.
Jon Stirzaker Latham (ACT)

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/nsw-art-gallery-should-go-west-20140409-zqsnp.html#ixzz2yRyh6EUE

 

[Runner]

A vote for confusion
Greens leader Christine Milne celebrated the WA Senate election results and said the new Senate will be Tony Abbott's ''undoing''. What is wrong? We elect a government to govern, we elect a Senate to stop it governing and then complain the government is not governing. What has the Senate become?
Phillip Huthnance Penrith

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-l...-with-japan-20140408-zqs8s.html#ixzz2yRyCBCrO

The response:-

Watching the other lot
There's a simple answer to Phillip Huthnance's rhetorical question (Letters, April 9). In electing groups to form national government, we don't automatically grant them carte blanche to do whatever takes their ideological fancy, be they left, right or centre oriented. A good Senate provides balance and forces governments to justify, negotiate and compromise on key legislation. A Senate of reason and science is exactly what this country needs right now to at least partly offset the illogical, unfair and unsustainable belief-based systems of the lower house incumbents.
Jon Stirzaker Latham (ACT)

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/nsw-art-gallery-should-go-west-20140409-zqsnp.html#ixzz2yRyh6EUE

Perhaps we change them to 3 year terms and see if the bastards are cooperative

 

[Braveheart81]

Perhaps we change them to 3 year terms and see if the bastards are cooperative

Why should the senate be cooperative?

They are there as a house of review which will normally have a more diverse and varied representation than the house of reps.

It is up to the government to propose good legislation that stands up to the scrutiny of the senate. They are not just there to wave through whatever the government deems appropriate.

The Coalition government seems to be living in some fantasy land where they think it is appropriate that they push through as much ideological change as possible. The whole point of having the senate is that it isn't possible to completely change the fabric of society each time there is a change of government.

 

[Gnostic]

Fully agree with what BH81 says.

Also if you take the philosophy espoused earlier on this thread that the public ultimately gets it right and this senate is a repeated pattern, perhaps even to a greater degree to what we had at the previous corrupted effort it leads me to think that the public has intended to provide this check to the Abbott Government.

As much as I dislike and distrust the whole system, because in my view it is unrepresentative and undemocratic, as might have been understood from my previous posts, this independent senate may be a good thing, excepting of course for the unknown factor of a certain miner.

How I wish the democrats were still around, thanks to Cheryl Kernot's apostasy keeping the bastards honest is so much harder.

 

[Runner]

Why should the senate be cooperative?

They are there as a house of review which will normally have a more diverse and varied representation than the house of reps.

It is up to the government to propose good legislation that stands up to the scrutiny of the senate. They are not just there to wave through whatever the government deems appropriate.

The Coalition government seems to be living in some fantasy land where they think it is appropriate that they push through as much ideological change as possible. The whole point of having the senate is that it isn't possible to completely change the fabric of society each time there is a change of government.

That may have been correct 60 years ago. Now it is a place of party politics with folks elected on such slim margins that a telephone booth ( for those who remember) would be excessively large.

Keating are right about the present senate mix. Unreprosentative swill

 

[Runner]

Fully agree with what BH81 says.

Also if you take the philosophy espoused earlier on this thread that the public ultimately gets it right and this senate is a repeated pattern, perhaps even to a greater degree to what we had at the previous corrupted effort it leads me to think that the public has intended to provide this check to the Abbott Government.

As much as I dislike and distrust the whole system, because in my view it is unrepresentative and undemocratic, as might have been understood from my previous posts, this independent senate may be a good thing, excepting of course for the unknown factor of a certain miner.

How I wish the democrats were still around, thanks to Cheryl Kernot's apostasy keeping the bastards honest is so much harder.

Good is not a view I would hold about this senate at the moment. PUP will have a price. Remember Haradine and the billions wasted in Tasmania and his right wing religious views.

 

[BPC]

On the other hand, take a good look at Queensland and the bastardry around the CMC and Dr Ken Levy and try to make a case that an upper house to review the government actions is unnecessary. Those with longer memories can also draw on the excesses of Joh's government.

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[Ruggo]

I found this today reading reading After Words by Paul Keating. It is a bloody good read over many topics.

Another looming constitutional problem for the nation is the long-term impact on our democracy of the provisions of section 24 of the Constitution, which provides that the House of Representatives will always be as nearly as possible twice the size of the Senate.
This nexus means that every time the House of Representatives gets new members because of natural growth in the population, the Senate will also grow in numbers. As it does so, the number of votes needed to secure a quota for representation will fall.
The result will be that the balance of power will increasingly fall to ever smaller and more unrepresentative minority and single-issue parties, parties and individuals who will be able to shape national policy powerfully while representing no more than the fringe of national thinking.
This is not a recipe for good government and it is not a good recipe for improving the standing of the political system generally.
The Senate does not operate now in the way the founders of the constitution imagined it would, that is as a body representing the states. Senators vote along party lines, not as representatives of Victoria or Queensland or Western Australia.
We either have to break the constitutional nexus between the two houses, or if that is impossible, move away from elections at large—by establishing regional electorates for Senators within the state, a change that would not require change to the constitution. The aim has to be to make the election of Senators as representative as possible; where a clear majority is needed to secure election.
Senators who secure a primary vote of something like 5 per cent or less, and who wait to be topped up in the distribution, are kidding themselves and us with it.

http://www.keating.org.au/shop/item...on-beyond-the-celebrations---30-november-2000

The speech in full is worth reading.

 

[Lindommer]

Good point Keating made there, Ruggo. However, I find it amusing PK has the time to comment on the vagaries of the Senate, the same lot he branded "unrepresentative swill" some years ago. If anything the Senate's MORE representative then the House of Reps: Greens (or Australian Democrats in years past) get about 10% of the votes and end up with, about, 10% of the senate seats. Any votes of 10% in the lower house result in 0 seats, every time.

The breaking of the nexus between the Senate and a twice-as-large House of Reps was put to the Australian people in 1966, same referendum as Aboriginal rights. It was voted down, unfortunately. The Country Party and the DLP were then the smallest political parties and fiercely objected to the proposed change to the constitution. It might be time for the major political parties to have another look here. There's a lot to be said for the Septic system of two senators per state.

 

[Runner]

A more important issue, particularly for the Greens, may be how many trees will need to be cut down to make the senate ballot paper when these population rises lead to more senators. It will lead to 5m ballot papers and the need for hiring assistants to help people carry them to the polling booth, bigger ballot boxes, better security and hundreds more counters so we don't get another WA

 

[Braveheart81]

A more important issue, particularly for the Greens, may be how many trees will need to be cut down to make the senate ballot paper when these population rises lead to more senators. It will lead to 5m ballot papers and the need for hiring assistants to help people carry them to the polling booth, bigger ballot boxes, better security and hundreds more counters so we don't get another WA

That's one of your best non sequitur's yet!