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Face off: is the Senate the new governing house of our parliament?

One hundred and ten years after Federation, the Senate today helps to ensure that the Australian Parliament more closely reflects the will of the people. But despite assurances by Bob Brown in his speech to the National Press Club that the Greens will be “a secure rock in the Senate” capable of wielding…

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Brown talking up the Green’s role in the new Senate AAP/Alan Porritt.

One hundred and ten years after Federation, the Senate today helps to ensure that the Australian Parliament more closely reflects the will of the people. But despite assurances by Bob Brown in his speech to the National Press Club that the Greens will be “a secure rock in the Senate” capable of wielding the balance of power, the problem remains that with an ideologically driven party in the Senate, the house may overreach its review role and become an initiator of policy.

Bob Brown at the National Press Club

Moving beyond a house of review

With the Greens, a party to the left of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), gaining the balance of power in the Senate from 1 July, we have the prospect that Government policy will reflect the composition of the upper chamber rather than the lower house where governments are formed.The upper chamber will move effectively from reviewing government legislation to taking a role in initiating it.

In terms of voter first preferences, the composition of the Senate more accurately reflects the will of the people than the lower house. In the 2010 election, the Greens received around 12 per cent of first preferences in the lower house but won only one seat (Adam Bandt, Melbourne), less than one per cent of the 150 seats up for grabs. With a slightly higher vote in the Senate, the Greens received 6 of the 40 open positions, or 15 per cent.

Are they still ‘unrepresentative swill’?

The Australian Senate is probably the second most powerful upper house in the world, surpassed only by the US Senate on which it was modeled. Like the US Senate, it is the product of Federation and was intended to protect less populous states.

In Rome, the Senate protected the interests of that city’s great founding families. In the Australian colonies of the 19th century, upper houses protected the propertied from the redistributive ambitions of the working classes. There was even a brief attempt to replicate the British upper house by creating a “bunyip” aristocracy.

Unsurprisingly, early Labor policy was to abolish these reactionary bulwarks. But only in Queensland did ALP members of an upper house vote themselves out of existence.

Nor has the national ALP had much success in moving the party’s internal organisation away from the state-based federal model it adopted in 1900. Still, the tribal hostility to the bosses’ chamber is evident in Paul Keating’s famous “unrepresentative swill” remark of November 1992, long since a part of Australian political folklore.

Following the introduction of proportional voting for the Senate in 1949, and the rise of independents and third parties in recent decades, the Senate has become less of a States house and more of a challenge to the two party monopoly, which is exacerbated by tight party discipline.

It mixes things up a bit, and ensures that more of the policy negotiation takes place in public, including in the Parliament.

With a hung parliament, a house of review adds to the deliberative quality of Parliament.

Nevertheless, the Senate was never intended to be the driver of government policy and legislation.

There is a vast difference between a chamber where independents, or a centre party like the Australian Democrats, free of caucus voting, push amendments to improve Government legislation, and remove some of the nastier ideological bits, and a situation where the Government can get nothing through unless it is approved by the Greens or the conservative Coalition (unlikely with Abbott as leader).

Are the Greens the new Democrats?

For thirty years, the Australian Democrats, formed by a Liberal defector, tried to occupy a position in between the Coalition and Labor, with that quintessentially Australian slogan “Keeping the Bastards Honest”.

The Democrats fell apart when they got deeply involved in policy formulation, over the GST, rather than just the more equivocal role of review.

Many party insiders from both sides will tell you that a centre-biased Senate is a good thing for any Government because it provides an excuse for Governments to duck the demands of their ideological supporters.

When Howard won a majority of the Senate in 2004, so the argument goes, ideology took over and the result was the political disaster of WorkChoices.

Some commentators have speculated that many voters see the Greens as the new Democrats, an insurance policy against the Cabinet of the day having too much power. If that is true, then these voters could be in for a shock.

The Senate: Gillard’s new challenge

The Greens have ambitions well beyond reviewing other people’s legislation. They have their own policy ambitions, which attracted 1 in 8 voters at the last election, and their voting record in the Senate suggests they are not comfortable with compromise. After all, the Emissions Trading Scheme would be in place now if they were.

The Greens are also a disciplined party and will negotiate with the Government as a bloc, not as individuals.

Gillard’s challenge will be to get legislation through both houses of Parliament without allowing the Greens, with just nine Senators, to drive the bus. Gillard must ensure that the newly-constituted Senate does not push her Government off centre.

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Comments (16)

  1. Permalink
    Felix MacNeill

    Felix MacNeill

    Felix MacNeill (logged in via email @grapevine.com.au)

    Are you joking?
    Any article that begins by describing the Greens as 'ideologically driven' - as if the other parties weren't - is so naive as to be risible.
    I guess the free market pricvate entrprise view of, say, the Coalition, is actually the view of God, rather than an ideology.
    If you want to be taken seriously, you have to be capable of a level of analysis a tad deeper than this.

    1. Permalink
      Trevor Cook

      Trevor Cook

      (PhD candidate at University of Sydney)

      Thanks for the advice. Ideologically driven is not necessarily pejorative. I think you'll find that the appeal of the Greens for many of its supporters is that it is ideologically driven and that many ex-ALP supporters see this as one of the strengths of the Greens. Certainly, people on the left of the ALP have told me that. The major parties are seen as too willing to compromise, and too quick to bow to corporate interests. This is why Brown refers to LNP as the COALition, and the ALP accuses Abbott of being influenced by Big Tobacco. Of course, both major parties hold to some ideology at least nominally but the criticism often made of both is that they are more driven by focus groups rather than ideology. The recent Faulkner ALP review suggests this is a frequent criticism made by ALP members themselves.

      1. Permalink
        Felix MacNeill

        Felix MacNeill

        Felix MacNeill (logged in via email @grapevine.com.au)

        Fair enough and I take your point, but the fact is that 'ideological' frequently IS used as a pejorative and as a rhetorical device to imply that anyone driven by an ideology is an extremist and out of touch with normal people. For these reasons, I still think you need to be much more careful in your choice of words - I suspect that you can use a word like 'ideals' or 'principles' but 'ideology' has become so tainted by dog-whistling that it should be avoided.

  2. Permalink
    wilma western

    wilma western

    (logged in via email @bigpond.com)

    While A Bartlett sees the demise of the Democrats as resulting from GST decisions that contravened core values, I beleive there were genuine dilemmas. Chipp used to clearly state that the balance of power should not be exploited toblock legislation for which a government had a clear mandate as measured by the election platform and results. Members whose memories of the dismissal of the Whitlam government were still raw did not believe the party should completely stymie the GST for which Howard arguably…

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  3. Permalink
    wilma western

    wilma western

    (logged in via email @bigpond.com)

    A comparison of the representation of the Greens ( and previously the Democrats) in the Senate vs Reps bears out the theory of proportional representation voting systems with multiple candidates compared with the results of the preferential system with single member electorates. However the freakish results of senate preferences resulting in Senators from Family First and the DLP can really upset this relationship , with outlandish results when such Senators hold the balance of power . Good to see A Bartlett joining the debate criticizing rather facile oversimplification in the article and other comments.

    1. Permalink
      Trevor Cook

      Trevor Cook

      (PhD candidate at University of Sydney)

      yes and wasn't it good that Andrew Bartlett was able to make criticisms without resorting to cheap unsubstantiated insults. In a 700 word article, there is necessarily some simplification and exclusion of detail etc. That's life kiddo

  4. Permalink
    Andrew Bartlett

    Andrew Bartlett

    (logged in via Twitter)

    I don't understand the assertion made at the start of this piece that the new Senate "may overreach its review role and become an initiator of policy."

    The Senate has often been an initiator of policy, as well as a house of review. The Democrats did plenty of it, and so also did Senators from the larger parties via the work of Senate Committees.

    I also think it would be odd to infer that the Democrats were not also an "ideologically driven party" in the Senate. It is arguable (although I'm not…

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    1. Permalink
      Trevor Cook

      Trevor Cook

      (PhD candidate at University of Sydney)

      I think the Senate is understood by most Australians to be a house of review, with policy coming from the lower house where governments are formed, and policy mostly comes from the government. I don't think voters will welcome the prospect of a small party in the Senate having a significant role in formulating / determining govt policy. It's great to have a few different voices in the Senate, and sure the occasional policy idea might arise from that chamber, but in a democracy the lower house (one…

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      1. Permalink
        Andrew Bartlett

        Andrew Bartlett

        (logged in via Twitter)

        I agree that most people think of the Senate as a house of review, but I'd be surprised if people thought that's all it did. In any case even if that is all that people think the Senate does, the evidence shows that it does plenty of initiating.

        I am not even sure how you can effectively separate review from initiating - part of any meaningful sense of reviewing things is being able to reject things, or amend them with your preferred initiatives.

        It's true the Democrats had some trouble articulating…

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  5. Permalink
    Gavin Fialkowski

    Gavin Fialkowski

    Mr (logged in via email @abvconsultants.com.au)

    I don t think the senate is in any danger of becoming the governing house, but it will certainly make the government work harder to justify their legislation. No doubt the greens will extract every green drop out of any legislation they can.

    I think your last three paragraphs sums it up quite well.

    In regards to the Gillard gov having to steer the bus without getting pushed around, i think their trial by fire in recent times should hold them in good stead. They seem to be getting a bit better at setting their positions and defending it with proper justification despite public opinion being pretty low.

  6. Permalink
    Barry Calderbank

    Barry Calderbank

    (logged in via Facebook)

    Paul Keating's description remains true. Most of the Senators are, in reality, "elected" by their party machines - those that get the choice spots on the Senate team ticket get elected. So, for most Senators, the "constituency" is the party preselection panel, not the likes of you and me.

    It's how we end up with the situation where so few people know who their Senate representatives are. Try asking at a Quiz Night "Name the Senators for our State" - most would struggle to get past three, which…

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  7. Permalink
    John McLean

    John McLean

    (logged in via email @connexus.net.au)

    Nice article. Informative, unbiased, and with well-developed lines of argument.

    I suspect that the reality will be that Labor tweaks its policies to meet the approval of the Greens, open expressed or not, in order to get legislation through. Unfortunately when this is coupled with the Green's track record of an emphasis on ideology and a lack of fundamental understanding of many issues (e.g. economics) does not bode well for Australia.