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The time has come to get rid of the Unrepresentative Swill

By Everald Compton - posted Friday, 26 August 2011


While I felt that the plebiscite was a political stunt, Tony Abbott had every right to feel aggrieved that a Senator, who won office by an electoral aberration, had the power to sink his proposed legislation.

I could give you dozens more examples to prove the point that it is plain wrong to have minorities deciding what is good or bad for Australia.

How did this distortion of democracy ever get into our Constitution? At the time of Federation in 1901, the smaller States were afraid that New South Wales and Victoria would dominate the Government in the House of Representatives, and so they insisted on an Upper House in which each State had an equal number of Senators irrespective of population.

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This would mean that a small state like Tasmania could have their Senators vote together to potentially block legislation that they felt would harm their State.

Similarly, all the smaller states could vote together to block an initiative from New South Wales or Victoria that they did not like.

We all now know, in hindsight, that this safeguard was never used.

From day one, Senators always voted with their political party, never for their State.

The reality is that a Party could lose an election in the Reps, but could often control the Senate and curb the power of their opponents.

The concept of the Senate being the House that protects the States is an absolute joke.

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The need to remove it from the scene became an issue for action when a very unstable Governor-General, John Kerr, illegally dismissed the Whitlam government because it could not get the Senate to pass the money bills needed to give it Supply, even though Whitlam had a majority in the Reps and had just won a vote of confidence in the House.

Action to rectify the matter was not taken up by the electorate because the Whitlam government was so discredited that few people wanted to use them as the reason to abolish the Senate.

Australia does not need a Senate — neither does any State need an Upper House.

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About the Author

Everald Compton is Chairman of The Longevity Forum, a not for profit entity which is implementing The Blueprint for an Ageing Australia. He was a Founding Director of National Seniors Australia and served as its Chairman for 25 years. Subsequently , he was Chairman for three years of the Federal Government's Advisory Panel on Positive Ageing.

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