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Platypus and Parliament
The Australian Senate in Theory and Practice
Dr Stanley Bach has
published extensively on the United States Congress and other legislatures and
has worked as a consultant on parliamentary process in Asia, Africa, South America
and Eastern Europe. For more than 30 years he worked with and provided advice
to Senators and Representatives on the operations of the US Congress. From 1988
to 2002 he held the office of Senior Specialist in the Legislative Process for
the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.
In 2002 Dr Bach was awarded a Fulbright
Senior Scholar Award to study bicameralism in Australia. While in Canberra he was a Fellow in the Political Science Program of the Research School of Social
Sciences at the Australian National University. He was also awarded a
fellowship in the Department of the Senate which enabled him to observe the
operations of the Commonwealth Parliament at first hand.
This book is published as part of the
Department of the Senate’s program to promote public knowledge and awareness of
the role and activities of the Senate. The views expressed in the book are
those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Senate or its
staff.
PLATYPUS AND PARLIAMENT
The Australian
Senate in
Theory and
Practice
STANLEY BACH
Department
of the Senate
Published by
The Department of the Senate
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600 Australia
First published 2003
© Stanley Bach
This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted
under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process
whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher and the copyright
owner.
National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data
Bach, Stanley.
Platypus and parliament: the Australian
Senate in theory and practice.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
ISBN 0 642 71293 X.
ISBN 0 642 71291 3 (pbk.).
1. Australia. Parliament.
Senate. I. Australia. Parliament. Senate. II. Title.
328.94
Printed in Australia by Canprint Communications
Fyshwick ACT
... having called into existence two strong
houses, and especially a senate the like of which will not be found in any
constitution that is in existence, or has ever been in existence in the world,
we ought to make provision for great, important, probably historical occasions
when those coordinate houses may be brought into serious conflict. ... Now, in an
ordinary constitution, where we have an upper house not elected by the people,
or not elected on the same basis as the lower house, that second chamber would
be disposed to yield to the pressure of the lower chamber elected upon a
popular basis; but here, where we are creating a senate which will feel the sap
of popular election in its veins, that senate will probably feel stronger than
a senate or upper chamber which is elected only on a partial franchise, and,
consequently, we ought to make provision for the adjustment of disputes in
great emergencies.
Dr John Quick
Sydney, 1897
We are creating in these two chambers,
under our form of government, what you may term an irresistible force on the
one side, and what may prove to be an immovable object on the other side.
Alfred Deakin
Sydney, 1897
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