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Overview:
Institutional Design and
the Role of the SenateMarian SawerOn
10 December 1949 proportional representation (PR) was used for the first time
for the election of the Australian Senate. The election saw not only the landslide
in the House of Representatives that swept away the Chifley government, but also,
as a first consequence of PR, the new Menzies government's failure to achieve
a similar landslide in the Senate. It was the beginning of a new era, one that
eventually led to the rebirth of the Senate as a parliamentary institution controlled
neither by government nor opposition. When the founding fathers were debating
last century what should be the nature of the new federal institutions, William
McMillan was a leading advocate of the role of the Senate. He was also to become
an active member of the Proportional Representation Society of NSW, founded in
1900. In the debate on means to deal with deadlocks between the two houses, he
argued strongly against any provision that would weaken the power of the Senate
as a `revising chamber' and preventer of unwise legislation. He said: …
the only check we have on hasty legislation, the only check which the people of
the country have upon the tyranny of the house of representatives, is the check
of another chamber; and we must be very careful that, while allowing for those
extreme cases, we do not do anything to weaken that great necessary check on our
government. [1] From the beginning, the Senate had the authority
of a house of parliament directly elected by popular franchise, unlike any other
upper house in Australia or indeed in the world. The establishment of a disciplined
two-party system from 1910 meant, however, that the anticipated functions of the
Senate as a house of review were largely put on hold. The Senate was to achieve
its destiny as the check on the tyranny of the House of Representatives or, rather,
of the executive that dominates the House of Representatives, only after the adoption
of PR. Even then, it took some time before the situation was achieved where no
government was able to control the Senate. Campbell Sharman argues in his chapter
that we should essentially date this modern era from 1955, when the Democratic
Labor Party (DLP) raised awareness of the potential for minor parties in the Senate.
[2] The Barton government's 1902 Electoral Bill
included PR for the Senate, and a small group of Tasmanians and South Australians
led by Sir John Downer even wanted PR in both houses. Although strong arguments
were mounted for PR, including the strengthening of opposition as well as representation
of minorities, they were ahead of their time as far as the federal parliament
was concerned. The President of the Senate, Sir Richard Baker, argued persuasively
that the old system of block voting was not broke, so there was no reason to fix
it. [3] By 1948, block voting was largely seen
as broke, given the unbalanced and unrepresentative chamber that resulted from
it. It created what John Uhr refers to in his chapter as the `windscreen wiper
effect'. At the 1946 election, Labor had won 43 per cent of the vote for the Senate
and 84 per cent of the seats. At the forthcoming election, when the Senate was
being enlarged, the swing was rightly predicted to be in the other direction;
as well as providing a more credible electoral system, the introduction of PR
would limit the scale of non-Labor gains and Labor losses. So, despite its long-time
philosophical commitment to majority government, Labor introduced PR—which
had the short-term result that Labor maintained its majority in the Senate and
the long-term result that Labor never again achieved a majority in the Senate
in its own right. As Sharman argues in his chapter, the role of PR in creating
the situation of today, where neither the government nor the Opposition control
the Senate, has been of primary significance in strengthening the Senate as an
instrument of accountability. The minor parties, which have come to the fore in
the Senate in the last twenty years, will never themselves be in a position to
form government. [4] Therefore they have an in-built
interest in upholding the functions of parliament vis--vis the Executive, whether
in terms of strengthening legislative and executive scrutiny or broadening community
participation in the legislative process. As Francis Sullivan notes in his paper,
the minor parties and independents have used their pivotal role in the balance
of power to become the brokers of community concerns. While the Coalition
and the Labor Party still attract three-quarters of the Senate vote, it is the
minor parties and independents that have played a disproportionate role in parliamentary
reform. The development of the Senate committee system, including the increased
independence from government since 1994, has been the most notable institutional
change resulting from PR. The Senate is now able to refer matters, including legislation,
to committees with non-government majorities and non-government chairs, against
the wishes of government. There have been a range of other reforms, including
time limits on questions and answers in question time and controls over last-minute
introduction of legislation or non-proclamation of legislation. Major developments
in the Senate and associated reforms are summarised in Tables 1.1 and 1.2. Table
1.1 Milestones in Senate history since 1949 1949 First use of proportional
representation 1955 Democratic Labor Party (DLP)* shows new minor parties
can be elected 1971 First Aboriginal Senator, Neville Bonner, chosen to
fill casual vacancy 1974 First joint sitting of both houses of parliament
to resolve legislative deadlocks 1975 Senate blocking of supply precipitates
downfall of Whitlam government The ACT and NT elect senators for first
time—two each, with three-year terms 1977 Constitutional change to
ensure casual vacancies filled by same party First Australian Democrats
senators elected 1979 ALP drops platform commitment to abolish the Senate
(after 60 years) 1981 Minor parties and/or independents hold balance-of-power
from now on 1984 Number of senators rises to 12 per state Group
ticket (`above-the-line') voting introduced Names of political parties
printed on ballot papers 1986 Senator Janine Haines becomes first woman
to lead a parliamentary party 1993 Minor parties negotiate changes to Labor
Budget to increase equity 1996 Senator Margaret Reid becomes first woman
President of the Senate * Initially called the Australian Labor Party
(Anti-Communist) Table 1.2 Milestones in Senate reform since 1949
1949 First use of proportional representation 1970 Establishment
of standing committee system (general purpose and estimates committees specialising
in different portfolio areas) 1981 Scrutiny of Bills Committee established,
to apply civil liberties criteria to legislation 1986 Deadline for introduction
of bills (`Macklin motion') to avoid end-of-sitting rush 1987 Parliamentary
Privileges Act covers evidence given by witnesses at hearings and documents submitted
by them 1988 Citizens' right of reply to statements made under parliamentary
privilege 1989 Annual Reports of departments/agencies to be scrutinised
by standing committees Procedures to ensure timely proclamation of legislation,
including biannual tabling of provisions not proclaimed Permanent procedure
for absolute majority of senators to recall Senate New procedures adopted
for regular referral of bills to committees 1990 Selection of Bills Committee
starts operating, to decide on referral of bills 1992 Time limits imposed
on questions and answers in Question Time 1993 Double deadline for bills
initiated by Senator Chamarette, to prevent bills being rushed through House of
Representatives to meet Senate deadline `Family-friendly' sitting hours
Public servants to receive training in accountability to parliament 1994
Restructuring of standing committee system into legislation and references committees,
the latter with non-government chairs and non-government majorities 1996
Permanent order requiring production of indexed lists of government files to facilitate
FOI requests Source: Information in Odgers' Australian Senate Practice,
9th edn, 1999. Governments have responded sharply to some of these
developments, arguing they should be allowed to get on with governing, as though
parliament was somehow dispensable between elections. This proposition, that parliament
should not interfere with the business of government, including its legislative
program, raises the question that forms the title of Fred Chaney's chapter, `Should
parliament be abolished?' This is the logical conclusion that follows from governments
insisting they have a mandate that renders illegitimate any modifying of majoritarianism,
including interference by parliament or the courts. By contrast, Elaine
Thompson looks at the indispensable role the Senate has come to play as a champion
of democratic accountability, through estimates hearings as well as other proceedings.
The Senate has constituted a counterweight to managerialism in the public service
and the general impatience with democracy that has accompanied the age of competition
policy, contracting out and commercial-in-confidence. The policy role of the public
service has been shrinking, not only because of contracting out, but also because
the balance of policy advice has been shifting in the direction of ministerial
offices. No adequate mechanisms have yet been devised for making ministerial staffers
accountable for their policy advice. The debate over whether ministerial staffers
can be summoned to appear before Senate committees does appear, however, to have
been resolved in the affirmative. Such staff have appeared either voluntarily
or under summons, as with the Director of the National Media Liaison Service (known
as animals) in 1995. Harry Evans underlines the pivotal role of strong
bicameralism and upper houses independent of government in achieving accountability.
He believes the rise of disciplined political parties led to the demise of the
basic tenet of responsible government, that the executive should be responsible
to and removable by the lower house. In addition to the role of party discipline,
the increased size of the executive relative to parliament (the expansion of the
front benches relative to the back benches) has also contributed to executive
dominance. Evans sees accountable government, government that can be forced to
account for its actions by a chamber it does not control, as the modern-day substitute
for responsible government. It is PR that has made this independence from government
possible and given a pivotal role to minor parties and independents. Independence
alone might mean a chamber dominated by an obstructionist Opposition with no capacity
for negotiated outcomes on process or policy. [5] In
his chapter, Evans sets out the range of accountability measures that have been
introduced by the Senate, down to the requirement that departments place lists
of their files on the Internet, to assist Freedom of Information requests. All
of these accountability measures (see Table 1.1) have been resisted by the governments
of the day. Evans sketches the range of strategies that can be employed by parliament
to ensure that governments comply with accountability demands. Most of these involve
some degree of disruption to the government's legislative program until the demand
is met, for example an order for production of a document. In October 1999,
the Senate imposed sanctions on a minister for refusing to comply with just such
an order. Senator Jocelyn Newman had refused to table a document requested by
the Senate, namely a discussion paper on welfare reform that had been suppressed.
The Minister was censured by the Senate on 13 October and two proposals were put
forward for further sanctions. Initially, the Democrats proposed that Newman be
gagged until she purged her contempt—that is, that the Minister be unable
to progress legislation or be heard on any other matter relating to her portfolio.
Labor did not support this gagging, which it described as a `holiday from
accountability' and proposed a different strategy that was successfully moved
by the Democrats on 19 October. The motion was to lengthen question time to give
the Opposition and the Democrats one additional question each (eight and three
questions respectively) until the Minister purged her contempt. In other words,
rather than silencing the Minister, she would be penalised by having to answer
more questions. This was the first time this particular sanction had been tried.
Some of the chapters in this volume, while applauding the vigour with which
the Senate is upholding principles of accountability, also express concern at
the degree to which party discipline is now prevailing over other principles.
Several authors note that the role of the minor parties has become a substitute
for the kind of independence previously displayed by Liberal backbenchers. In
1970, Senator Lionel Murphy's proposal for the creation of the Senate standing
committee system succeeded because the Opposition was supported by one Independent
(Senator Reg Turnbull) and one government Senator (Senator Ian Wood). [6]
Again in 1981, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee was established against
the wishes of the Coalition government, on the motion of Liberal backbencher,
Senator Alan Missen. Former Senator Fred Chaney describes, in his chapter, the
somersault he was forced to perform on this occasion (not the first in his career).
As a minister, he was forced to speak against a proposal he himself had initiated
as a backbencher. His Liberal colleagues, senators Neville Bonner, David Hamer,
Robert Hill, Don Jessop, Kathy Martin and Peter Rae, crossed the floor to support
Missen's proposal, which resulted in a large majority for this new civil liberties
watchdog. Few believe that this kind of independence would be displayed by government
backbenchers in the 1990s. Evans suggests in his chapter that governments `now
regularly oppose all accountability measures and can rely on their backbenchers'
unwavering support in doing so.' The role of minor parties is an irritant
to the major parties and during the 1990s there has been a series of `mandate
wars' over whether the Senate has a right to dispute policies that have been part
of a government's election platform. As Murray Goot details in his chapter, the
Australian electorate clearly supports (and indeed rewards) the role of the Senate
in blocking unpopular policies. The fact that a government has achieved a majority
of seats in the lower house (sometimes, as in 1990 and 1998, with less than 40
per cent of the primary votes) does not mean that the electorate wants the Senate
to rubber stamp all government policies. A significant number of Australians vote
differently for the two houses of the federal parliament and, of those, a percentage
are quite explicit in seeing a minor party vote in the Senate as an insurance
policy against overweening government.
Les
Tanner, Age (Melbourne), 6 November 1992 The frustration experienced
by the Keating government over Senate independence and obstinacy famously led
Paul Keating to describe the Senate as `unrepresentative swill'. Tasmanians do
have, as a result of the wheeling and dealing over Federation, the equivalent
of plural votes for the federal parliament—votes that are each worth 12 NSW
votes. In other ways, however, the Senate is more representative of the social
and political diversity of Australia. In my chapter I describe how questions of
political representation have become more complex in recent times as social movements
have mobilised new political identities alongside and cutting across old party
cleavages. The Senate has been better placed to reflect this increased diversity
than has the House of Representatives with its single-member electorates. The
suggestions by governments that only the House of Representatives reflects the
popular will and that the Senate lacks legitimacy for its policy role are not
borne out by survey evidence or by the outcomes of Senate activity. As Melissa
Langerman points out, governments frequently make use of Senate processes to plaster
over faults in legislation that has been rushed through the lower house. During
the 37th parliament (1993–1996), 33 per cent of bills were amended in the
Senate; most of these were government amendments, although often under pressure
from or co-sponsored by the Democrats. Of the non-government amendments, 15 per
cent were from the Opposition, 9 per cent from the Democrats, and 4 per cent from
the Greens. [7] Senator Andrew Bartlett makes
the point that since the Australian Democrats gained the balance of power after
the 1980 election, the Senate has operated in a far less hostile manner than it
did in the past when controlled by the Opposition. During the 38th parliament
(1996–1998), 427 pieces of legislation were passed and only two ultimately
rejected. More election promises remain unfulfilled because governments hope the
electorate has forgotten about them than because of Senate obstruction. Of course
the discovery of financial `black holes' is another way of disposing of inconvenient
election promises. None the less, as Senator John Faulkner notes in this volume,
Keating was sufficiently enraged by the need to negotiate his 1993 Budget with
minor parties that he contemplated replacing PR with preferential voting in 12
single-member electorates in each state. The debate over whether the Senate
had a `mandate' became even more heated when the Coalition won a large majority
of lower house seats in 1996. The new government inherited parliamentary reforms,
such as Senate control over legislative timetables, that they had supported when
in Opposition. These reforms (initiated by Senator Christabel Chamarette and described
by Prime Minister Keating as a `constitutional impertinence') had imposed a double
deadline for the introduction of new legislation into the House of Representatives
and the Senate, to enable adequate legislative scrutiny. In Opposition, the Coalition
had both supported the cut-off points and been intransigent about the amount of
time set aside under standing orders for government business, as contrasted to
general business of the parliament. Now that it was in government, the Coalition
did not want to be held back by cut-off points for new legislation and wanted
much more time for government business. The Prime Minister, John Howard,
wished to brook no delay in implementing his `huge mandate'. Senator Noel Crichton-Brown,
on the other hand, used his new-found freedom as an independent Liberal senator
to raise doubts. He commented that minor parties such as the Australian Democrats
also had a right to stick by their campaign policies, for example on Telstra:
`their vote went up on the basis of their policies and the presentation of their
leader. They can hardly roll over now, and justify the vote and support they got.'
[8] Government impatience with the Senate increased
markedly after the 1998 election, when both the government and the financial press
saw Senate independence as an obstacle to the speedy introduction of a goods-and-services
tax (GST). Senator Helen Coonan, Deputy Government Whip in the Senate, brought
forward controversial proposals for reform. She claimed that delays imposed by
the government's lack of a working majority in the Senate were threatening Australia's
economic performance. [9] Coonan endorsed a proposal,
previously put forward by Liberal MPs Tony Abbott and Wilson Tuckey, for the introduction
of a threshold system into Senate elections so that parties with a small percentage
of primary votes could be removed from the count. Some such change was needed
to end the `rule of minorities', which she described as getting in the way of
effective government and making Australia uncompetitive. The proposal for
a threshold (80 per cent of a quota or 11.3 per cent of primary votes) was also
endorsed by the Liberal Party Federal Council in July 1999. Many Labor identities
joined in the call for Senate `reform', including Stephen Loosely, Peter Walsh,
Gary Johns, Bob Hogg and Peter Barron: `Both parties hate Senate restrictions
while in government. The trick is to get them to realise that the pain suffered
while in Opposition is a small price to pay for the pleasure of being able to
govern with real freedom…' [10] It was odd to hear the rhetoric of `letting the
managers manage' not only intruding into the public service, but also being applied
to institutions of representative democracy. It should be noted that it
was not only in relation to federal parliament that major parties were attempting
to change the electoral rules to remove minor parties from houses of parliament
elected by PR. Indeed, it was the success of such moves in Tasmania, birthplace
of the Hare-Clark system of PR, that gave momentum to the calls for Senate `reform'.
In Tasmania `both sides of politics' (note how majoritarian discourse reduces
politics to a two-party adversarial game) united in 1998 to remove `minor party
obstruction'. [11] The Tasmanian Greens had held the
balance of power during both Labor and Liberal minority governments and had used
this position to promote a number of reforms to strengthen the parliament vis--vis
the executive. In 1998, the minority Liberal government and the Labor Opposition
united to reduce the number of members of the lower house from 35 to 25. This
raised the quota needed for election to 16.5 per cent, making it very difficult
for minor parties or independents to be elected. At the time of the election the
cross benches were physically removed from the parliamentary chamber, symbolically
reinforcing the intent of the change. One Green did succeed, however, in being
re-elected; she brought in a folding chair to sit in the gap between government
and opposition. In her chapter in this volume, Coonan extends her argument
that delays imposed by Senate processes on, for example, the government's financial
reforms are incompatible with the speed of decision-making in the global economy.
She quotes Paul Kelly of the Australian to the effect that `Compared to
the speed of decision-making in the market-place, parliamentary democracy is hopelessly
old-fashioned.' By contrast, Arend Lijphart had demonstrated, in his keynote address,
the absence of any correlation between faster majoritarian decision-making and
economic performance. Indeed, he suggested that fast decision-making was not the
same as good decision-making, offering as an example the disastrous British poll-tax
decision made by the majoritarian Thatcher government. Coonan brings forward
further proposals, including one first put forward by the Joint Standing Committee
on Constitutional Review 40 years ago, that the Constitution be amended to enable
joint sittings of the houses to resolve deadlocks, without a prior double dissolution
election. [12] While this would certainly facilitate
the enactment of the policies of a government with a large lower house majority,
it was seen by most of the conference participants as unacceptable for its effects
on Senate independence. As Evans points out in his chapter, it is the power of
the Senate over government legislation that gives it the leverage to extract accountability
from government. Any weakening of that power would also be a move backward in
terms of openness and transparency of government. One issue Coonan raises
that has wider resonance concerns the intrusion of partisanship into Senate committee
processes. In her chapter in this volume, Anne Lynch quantifies the erosion of
consensus and the growth of partisanship on Senate committees over the last 20
years. In 1978, all Senate committee inquiries resulted in consensus reports,
whereas by 1998 consensus had evaporated and partisan dissent had become the norm.
Whereas there had once been a stark contrast between the `ritual stag fights'
of the chamber and relatively non-partisan work out of the spot light, this was
no longer the case. Lynch concludes that neither the structural changes
to the committee system (which have reduced government control) nor the increased
volume of work are responsible for the increased acrimony. She postulates that
one reason for it is the increased media attention that has accompanied the more
activist role of the Senate, and the temptation to play to the gallery. Consensus
politics is regarded as poor media. Paul Bongiorno discusses the interesting relationship
between the media and political styles in his chapter on the introduction of television
to the Senate. While the media love conflict, the public react strongly to seeing
their political leaders brawling. Michelle Grattan confirms that media
interest has moved to the Senate, and the `cracking good stories' generated by
the unpredictability of outcomes where the government is not in control. She points
to the irresistible attraction of the dirty linen brought to light through Senate
committees, but also notes the difficulty of keeping up with the wealth of information
committees generate. Langerman observes the dulling of media interest where committee
reports do not focus on bills immediately before parliament or where there is
a long delay in the government response. So the media coverage of committee work
is very uneven, regardless of the quality of reports, the cogency of public submissions
or the importance of the subject matter. Australian Associated Press (AAP) is
the only news service providing full-time coverage of the Senate, and even AAP
has to prioritise its coverage. As noted in a number of the chapters, particularly
those by Peter Sekuless and Francis Sullivan, partisan behaviour in Senate committees
now extends to the treatment of witnesses, with members of the community being
subjected to bullying and other forms of partisan attack. Sekuless reminisces
about attending his first committee hearing in the late 1960s, when Dame Ivy Wedgwood
was chairing the Public Accounts Committee: she saw it as her role to protect
witnesses, even public servants, from over-zealous and partisan questioning. Today,
the behaviour of politicians during committee hearings is seen as contributing
to a general cynicism about politicians and parliamentary institutions. This,
in turn, fuels movements to bypass the representative and deliberative elements
of democracy in favour of forms of plebiscitary democracy such as citizen initiated
referenda (CIR) or popular election of a president. Other problems that
threaten the functioning of Senate committees include those highlighted in Dee
Margetts' chapter—budget cuts that undermine the independence of committees
and lead to replacement of staff by departmental personnel or even private contractors.
She cites as an example of the blurring of separation of powers a serving military
officer becoming acting secretary of the Defence Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and saluting other officers during
a committee inspection of a defence establishment. Nevertheless, Sekuless
claims that Senate committees and their secretariats often have more corporate
memory of policy areas than do the continually restructured public service departments
that are supposedly responsible for them. He uses the example of the Senate committee
that put together a new regulatory regime for the export of education services,
after the collapse at the beginning of the 1990s of the unregulated industry.
Ian Marsh also has a more optimistic view of the potential of Senate committees,
which he sees as the primary vehicle for a regime change in policy development,
now that political parties have abdicated their earlier roles in interest aggregation
and agenda setting. Marsh sees the potential for Senate committees to involve
a broad range of policy protagonists and community interests in the strategic
phase of policy development, before positions harden and consensus becomes impossible.
Ideally, Senate committees should conduct much of the consultative phase of policy
development currently left to bureaucracy. This would enable the refurbishment
of methodologies of consultation once regarded as exemplary in global terms, but
currently atrophying under managerialist regimes. The potential of Senate
committees to help broaden community input into policy development is also referred
to by Sawer. The referral of legislation to committees enables much broader participation
in the deliberative process than is possible where legislative review is restricted
to parliamentarians. Sawer discusses this contribution to more inclusive representation
and deliberation both in terms of the Senate's own processes, and its potential
to oversee the adequacy of consultative mechanisms across government. Just as
the Senate oversees other forms of accountability, so it should ensure that consultation
protocols are adequate to ensure those most affected by policy have the opportunity
and capacity to participate in the policy process. One aspect of this is capacity
building, through public funding of community-based peak bodies and other forms
of strengthening weak voices, so that all sections of the community can be effectively
represented to government and to parliament. This more optimistic note
is continued in Senator Kate Lundy's contribution, which looks at the potential
of cyberdemocracy in broadening the interaction between citizens and senators
as well as enabling current developments such as the live webcasting of proceedings.
Lundy argues for the introduction of the new information and communication technologies
to the floor of parliament, suggesting the current restrictions are anachronistic
in the face of ways the Internet and Intranet are transforming the political landscape.
In terms of electronic democracy, the Senate led the way in 1997 with the
acceptance of electronic petitions, provided the senator presenting them certified
that the full text of the petition had been visible to the signatories. In 1999
the House of Representatives baulked at taking the same step, concerned, among
other things, that the gathering of signatures through the Internet did not involve
the community in the same way as gathering signatures at shopping centres or community
activities. [13] The latter suggests that cyberspace
is in some way not true public space where active citizenship can be encouraged
and social capital accumulated. The volume concludes, as did the conference,
with Geoffrey Brennan's observations on perennial issues of institutional design
such as whether the virtue of PR is inherent—in which case should it be extended
to the House of Representatives as urged by Bartlett—or whether the virtue
consists in the achievement of a different party composition in the two houses
and, in particular, the independence of the Senate from either government or opposition.
Brennan also draws attention to the honourable place of PR among the many democratic
experiments and institutional innovations that have found a home in Australia.
It is too often forgotten that long before its adoption by the Senate, it was
Australian colonies that were responsible both for the first public use of PR
and its first parliamentary use—not Switzerland or Belgium. [14]
The conference ended, as does this volume, with the celebration of a milestone
in the evolution of our democracy.
Footnotes[1]
William McMillan, Australasian Federal Convention Debates, 15 September
1897, p. 548. [2] Originally under the name Australian
Labor Party (Anti-Communist). [3] Sir Richard
Baker, Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 19 March 1902, p. 11007.
[4] This distinguishes them from the National
Party, which although a minor party in terms of vote and parliamentary representation,
is always either actually or potentially in government due to Coalition arrangements
with the Liberal Party. [5] In other words, without
multipartism, strong bicameralism and a different party composition in the upper
house might not be sufficient to achieve the modification of entrenched majoritarian
modes of behaviour and the shift towards what Lijphart has defined as the consensus
model of democracy. [6] There was some complicated
manoeuvring over the creation of the committee system, as a result of which the
opposition (Murphy) motion to create seven standing committees and the government
motion to create five estimates committees were both successful. Since 1994 the
standing committee system has been split into eight legislation committees, with
government chairs and majorities (through the chair's casting vote) and eight
references committees, with overlapping membership and a shared secretariat, but
with non-government chairs and majorities. Democrat senators chair two of the
references committees. [7] John Uhr, `Generating
Divided Government: the Australian Senate', in Samuel C. Patterson and Anthony
Mughan, eds, Senates: Bicameralism in the Contemporary World, Columbus,
Ohio State University Press, 1999. [8] Radio National,
Background Briefing, `The Senate: What Goes Around Comes Around', 5 May
1996. [9] Senator Helen Coonan, `The Senate: Safeguard
or Handbrake on Democracy?' Address to the Australia Institute, Sydney, 3 February
1999. It should be noted here that the government had received only 37.7 per cent
of the Senate vote, so the lack of a working majority was seen by many as a fair
outcome. [10] Peter Barron, `Why reforming the
Senate is the priority', Australian Financial Review, 5 October 1998. A
different route to eliminating minor parties is currently being mooted in NSW,
where the government attracted only 35 per cent of the vote for an upper house
elected by PR and a number of `micro' parties won seats. The NSW proposal involves
erecting significant barriers in terms of the cost of party registration as well
as the size of membership (1000) required. [11]
Stephen Loosely, `End the mandate muddle', Sunday Telegraph (Sydney),
4 October 1998. [12] A former national secretary
of the ALP made a similar suggestion in 1998, with the further gloss that during
such joint sittings the Senate vote might be weighted on a basis consistent with
state populations, so that the 12 NSW senators would comprise a vote worth 35
per cent of the total. [13]House of Representatives,
Standing Committee on Procedure, Its Your House: Community Involvement in the
Procedures and Practices of the House of Representatives and Its Committees,
Canberra, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1999, p. 13. Cf. Odgers'
Australian Senate Practice, 9th edn., p. 446. [14]
In Australia, PR was used for the election of the Municipal Corporation of Adelaide
in 1840 and was adopted for the election of Hobart and Launceston Members of the
Tasmanian House of Assembly in 1896. It was used at the Tasmanian elections of
1897 and 1900 and for the Tasmanian members and senators of the new Commonwealth
Parliament in 1901. In Switzerland, PR was used for elections in the Canton of
Ticino in 1891, and the d'Hondt system of PR was adopted for Belgian parliamentary
elections in 1899. 
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