Australian Senate
|
Australian Senate chamber |
The
Senate is the
upper of the two houses of the
Parliament of Australia. The
lower house is known as the
House of Representatives.
The
Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act of
1900 set up the Australian Senate as part of the new system of
dominion government in newly-federated
Australia. From a comparative governmental perspective, the Australian Senate exhibits distinctive characteristics, in that unlike upper houses in other
Westminster system governments, the Senate is not a vestigial body with limited legislative power, but rather plays and is intended to play an active role in legislation. Rather than being modelled after the
House of Lords, as the
Canadian Senate was, the Australian Senate was in part modelled after the
United States Senate, by giving equal representation to each state. The Constitution intended to give less populous states added voice in a Federal legislature, while also providing for the revising role of an upper house in the Westminster system.
Although the
Prime Minister answers to, and must, by convention, serve as a member of the
House of Representatives (the "lower house"), other ministers may come from either house and the two houses have almost equal legislative power. As with most upper chambers in
bicameral parliaments, it cannot introduce
Appropriation Bills (bills that authorise government expenditure of public revenue) or impose taxation, that role being reserved for the lower chamber. That degree of equality between the Australian Senate and House of Representatives is in part due to the age of the Australian constitution - it was enacted before the confrontation in 1909 in
Britain between the
House of Commons and the
House of Lords, which ultimately resulted in the restrictions placed on the powers of the House of Lords by the
Parliament Act - but also reflected the desire of the Constitution's authors to have the upper house act as a 'stabilising' influence on the expression of popular democracy (much as the colonial
Legislative Councils functioned as at the time). The smaller states also desired strong powers for the Senate as a way of ensuring that the interests of more populous states as represented in the House of Representatives did not totally dominate the government.
In practice, however, most legislation (except for "
Private Member's Bills") in the Australian Parliament is initiated by the Government, which has control over the lower house. It is then passed to the Senate, which may amend the bill or refuse to pass it. In the majority of cases, voting takes place along
party lines (
see also:
conscience vote).
There are detailed conventions and rules regarding situations in which the Senate and the House of Representatives disagree. If the Senate repeatedly refuses to pass legislation initiated in the lower house, the Government may either abandon the bill, continue to revise it, or call a
double dissolution (election for both houses of Parliament) and attempt to pass the bill at a subsequent
joint sitting of the two houses.
The constitutional text denies the Senate the power to originate or amend appropriation bills, in deference to the conventions of the classical
Westminister system, under which the
executive government is responsible for its use of public funds to the lower house, which has the power to bring down a government by
blocking its access to Supply - ie.
revenue appropriated through
taxation. The arrangement as expressed in the Australian constitution, however, still leaves the Senate with the power to reject supply bills or defer their passage - undoubtedly one of the Senate's most contentious and most powerful abilities.
The ability to block Supply was the origin of Australia's most significant
constitutional crisis,
that of 1975. The
Opposition used its numbers in the Senate to defer supply bills, refusing to deal with them until an election was called for both Houses of Parliament, an election which it hoped to win. The
Prime Minister of the day,
Gough Whitlam, contested the legitimacy of the blocking and refused to resign. The crisis brought to a head two Westminister conventions that, under the Australian constitutional system, were in conflict - firstly, that a government may continue to govern for as long as it has the support of the
lower house, and secondly, that a government that no longer has access to Supply must either resign or be dismissed. The crisis was resolved in November
1975 when Governor-General
Sir John Kerr dismissed Whitlam's government and appointed a caretaker government on condition that elections for both houses of parliament be held. This action in itself was a source of controversy and debate continues on the proper usage of the Senate's ability to block Supply and on whether it should exist.
The voting system for the Senate has changed twice since it was created. The original arrangement involved a
first past the post block voting mechanism. In 1919 preferential block voting came in. Block voting tended to grant landslide majorities and even "wipeouts" very easily. In 1946, the
Australian Labor Party government won 33 out of the 36 Senate seats. In 1948, partially in response to this extreme situation,
proportional representation became the method for electing the Senate.
Senate Ballot Paper
The Australian Senate voting paper under the
single transferable vote system resembles this example, which shows the candidates for
Tasmanian senate representation in the
2004 federal election.
| Senate election - Tasmania |
| A
[_] LiberalB
[_] CEC | C
[_] Democrats | D
[_] Family First | E
[_] CDP | F
[_] Ind. | G
[_] | H
[_] Greens | I
[_] ALP |
Ungrouped |
| [_] Abetz E
[_] Barnett G
[_] Parry S[_] Larner R
[_] Watts A | [_] Onsman Y
[_] Cass S | [_] Petrusma J
[_] Bergman L
[_] Smith L | [_] Mitchell D
[_] Fracalossi M | [_] Murphy S | [_] Martin S
[_] Newman J | [_] Milne C
[_] Cassidy K
[_] Millen T | [_] O'Brien K
[_] Polley H
[_] Price D
[_] Wells N | [_] Newitt R
[_] Gargan E
[_] Ottavi D
[_] McDonald J
|
Electors must either:
* Vote for an individual party by writing the number "1" in a single box above the line - this means the elector wants their preferences distributed according to a party's or group's officially registered
ticket.
* Vote for all candidates by writing the numbers 1, 2, 3, through to the last number (in this example, 26) in all the individual boxes below the line.
Because each state elects 6 senators at each half-senate election, and the quota for election is only 14.7%, some states have upwards of 70 candidates on their ballot papers, and the voter must individually number every single candidate for a "below the line" vote to count. As a result the "above the line" system was implemented. Over 95% of electors vote "above the line".
Note that the ungrouped candidates in the far right column do not have a box above the line. Therefore they can only get a primary (number 1) vote from electors who vote below the line. For this reason, some independents register as a group, either with other independents or by themselves, such as groups F and G in the above example.
The "Unrepresentative" House
As a body intended to provide greater representation to smaller states, the Senate (like many upper houses) is necessarily relatively unrepresentative;
Tasmania, with a population of 450,000, elects the same number of Senators as
New South Wales, which has a population of 6 million.
Paul Keating called it an "unrepresentative swill". But the proportional election system within each state ensures that Senate incorporates much more political diversity than the lower house, which is basically a
two party body. Consequently, the Senate frequently functions as a
house of review, intended not to match party political strength in the lower chamber but to bring in
different people, in terms of geography, age and interests, who can contribute in a less politicised manner to the process of legislative enactment.
The size of the Senate has changed over the years. The
Australian Constitution requires that the number of Senators approximate as nearly as possible to half of the number of members of the House of Representatives, and it has therefore grown periodically.
Currently, each of the six States of Australia has 12 Senators, while the
Northern Territory and the
Australian Capital Territory have two each. The Senators for the Northern Territory also represent voters from Australia's Indian Ocean Territories (
Christmas Island and the
Cocos (Keeling) Islands), while the Senators for the Australian Capital Territory also represent voters from the
Jervis Bay Territory.
Normally, half of the Senate is contested at each election, for terms of up to six years, but during a
double dissolution, every seat faces re-election. Senators from the territories only serve half-terms, and must stand for re-election every three years. Unlike the House of Representatives, Senators serve fixed terms which expire on the 30th of June every three years. Thus, while the voters elect Senators at the same time as lower house members, such Senators' term of office does not begin until the 1st of July following their election. As a result, the new Parliament will often sit for some time with the old,
lame-duck Senate.
Parties which currently have representation in the Senate:
*
Australian Democrats*
Australian Greens*
Australian Labor Party*
Family First Party*
Liberal Party of Australia*
National Party of Australia*
Country Liberal PartyParties which have held Senate seats in the past include the
Democratic Labor Party,
Liberal Movement,
One Nation and the
Nuclear Disarmament Party.
Due to the need to obtain votes statewide, independent candidates have difficulty getting elected. The one exception in recent times was the Tasmanian
Brian Harradine.
The Australian Senate serves as a model for some politicians in
Canada, particularly in the Western provinces, who wish to reform the
Canadian Senate to take a more active legislative role.
See also:
Australian House of Representatives,
List of longest-serving members of the Australian Senate The 2004 election saw a significant change in the composition of the Senate, which began on
1 July 2005.
*
President of the Australian Senate*
Women in the Australian Senate*
Members of the Australian Senate, 2005-2008*
List of longest-serving members of the Australian Senate*
Canberra Press Gallery* John Uhr,
The Senate and Proportional Representation: Public policy justifications of minority representation, Working Paper no. 69, Graduate Program in Public Policy, Australian National University, 1999.
*
Official website of the Australian Senate
