On a Queensland House of Review

March 24, 2012 was a historic day in Queensland's history, writes Michael Smyth

Not only due to the utter devastation for the ALP, but also due to its ushering in of "conservative" rule in this state; a sign that the Right in Queensland has shaken off the spectre of Joh.

Before the apologists of Joh get outraged by such a statement, I want to clarify what I mean.

Joh did some good things for Queensland, but his government was ultimately undone by the shortcomings of some of its members.

Whether you love or hate the memory of Joh is irrelevant. The reason that I cite this is that Joh would not have been able to do so much had there been an upper house.

In 1922, the ALP won a landslide victory and decided to abolish the Legislative Council, a move that was questionable from a constitutional point of view.

This led to the ALP holding government for decades, until the 1950s, when the Coalition parties finally won back the Legislative Assembly. This ultimately led to the Joh era, and the expansion of Queensland, but the issue here is the means by which it was expanded.

Due to the fact there is no Upper House, Joh was able to implement his reforms without any opposition from the parliament.

This sounds good in theory, except when you fast forward to the Beattie and Bligh years (1998-2012), where bad laws were made and such an appalling lack of transparency became so apparent that even Tony Fitzgerald complained about it.

Tony Fitzgerald, for those that don't remember is the guy who ran the Fitzgerald inquiry that exposed corruption in Joh's ministry.

So when the proverbial horses mouth comes out and says something along the lines of Labor makes Joh look vaguely translucent, you know you've got a problem.

Freedom of Information requests were frequently ignored by the Beattie government.

So how do you fix this problem? How do you prevent abuses of power - by either side - in the face of only having a unicameral parliament?

You can't really prevent it, once you've cleared the Legislative Assembly, it goes to Government House for Royal Assent, and under our conventions, it is signed into law.

To prevent Joh happening again, and to prevent Beattie from happening again, an Upper House should be restored as a check and balance of our Westminster system.

It is good for constitutional democracy to have the powerful kept in check by a proportional representation of the people.

QUESTION: Won't this mean that reforms don't get pushed through as quickly if they are obstructed by a recalcitrant Upper House?

ANSWER: Yes, but the payoff is that bad policy gets filtered out, or turned into good policy, by consultation with the other parties. It is not healthy to have one party controlling the political and policy agendas.

QUESTION: Why should we allow the Greens (or any other minor party) representation in the parliament if they don't have enough votes to gain a seat in the Assembly?

ANSWER: Because the way our system works in Australia, as a clone of the old Westminster system, is that the state (or country) is broken up into electorates with a roughly equal number of voters, and then to protect the rights of all citizens there is proportional representation for each State (at federal level), and each group of people who feel a certain way at State level.

QUESTION: Won't this cost us more money?

ANSWER: Everything costs money these days, but realistically speaking, we have not increased the number of State electorates for more than two decades. Surely, when we have the money again, we could easily facilitate a restoration of the Upper House, so that no group of voters can make the claim that the government does not represent them.

However, if money is a concern, and at this time it is, it would be feasible to reduce the number of MPs – even if only for a short time – in order to facilitate the restoration of accountability.

QUESTION: What about the Parliamentary Committee system that has been set up?

ANSWER: The Parliamentary Committee system that was set up merely serves to rubber stamp the government’s decisions. There is also the remuneration aspect of each Parliamentary Committee, and each MP sitting on each Committee. Finally, in regards to committees, it detracts from the representative work that each MP does for their constituents.

The 14 years of Labor government serve as a cautionary tale, to those of us who love liberty.

It is our civic duty as citizens, to ask for accountability from our politicians, instead of waiting every three years to undo any policy that could be put through in the night.

There are people with similar complaints about the incumbent LNP government. We need accountability from our politicians, and accountability that does not come just once every three years.

Michael Smyth is the Queensland Branch Treasurer of the Australian Monarchist League

Comments

[Nick]

1.

Queensland needs to restore our upper house, but I think people often jump the gun to talking about an upper house before considering reforms that could strengthen the ability of the lower house to check the executive. The lower house is the representative house, after all, the supreme house.

Above all, using open primaries to select parties' candidates would greatly weaken the hand of the whips over MPs, and thus the hand of the executive over the legislature. Also, opening up other avenues for a career in Parliament other than becoming a minister would stop every backbencher from wanting to become a frontbencher: election of committee chairmen (by secret ballot) by the whole House and a salary for committee chairmen at least as much as a junior minister. Members of committees should also be elected by their party caucuses rather than hand-picked by the whips...

[Anton]

2.

A cheaper and more effective solution would be to have recall elections and/or citizens' initiated referendums.

[ibbit]

3.

I vote for comment 2.

This, given the present mob in Canberra, is something desperately needed in Australia in order to keep government law makers within the bounds of decency and honesty.

The current legalised theft from peoples' bank accounts after three years of non-activity is just one law which needs to be rectified by a new, and hopefully, honest, decent government.

[Oscar]

4.

That still wouldn't achieve the same purpose as an upper house.
In fact, the people of Queensland may be left worse off since infrastructure planning is usually tied to the government of the day, and if that government only lasts a day then nothing will get built.

[Anton]

5.

The people will still get the infrastructure they want (i.e. are prepared to pay for). It is the waste, unnecessary and usless infrastructure that will not be built - as it should be.

The prospect of being "recalled" will ensure the elections seldom actually occur and politicians adhere to their mandate and limitations. The Swiss constitution provides for recalls, but because of this they are seldom invoked.

Deterrant. Accountability. Consequences

[Oscar]

6.

But without an upper house recall elections will have little effect on what legislation gets passed.
Bad legislation can still get passed and the government of the day can still remain in power.
An upper house needs to me implemented before anything else

[Anton]

7.

Recalls will stop politicians introducing bad legislation in the first place.

The Swiss have a system where citizens can repeal bad legislation and sack the politician that introduced it.

An upper house is not imune from passing bad legislation

[Oscar]

8.

But an upper house is part and parcel of helping to prevent bad legislation because it still needs to pass two houses of parliament.
Recall elections on their own would not be as effective, they need to be introduced in conjunction with an upper house if they are to prove effective at all.

[Jim Witt]

9.

Whichever way it is done, it is important that there is some strong opposition to the ruling party, no matter which party that is. Even when the ruling party has control of both houses, the opposition has to be strong enough to offer up genuine criticism and a credible alternative policy. While I am politically conservative, I would not like even a conservative party to have unlimited control with no opposition. Not that it would ever happen in Australia as there is no conservative party here.

[Anton]

10.

The makeup of the upper house is likely to be close to the makeup of the lower house - that is how people vote.

A recall election/CIR is like an undo botton - any legislation or politician can be eliminated at any time.

Why do you think recall electeions/CIR are less effective than an upper house of more politicians. I would think that the ability to remove any legislation or politician at any time is a bit stronger than relying on integrity of a politician.

[Oscar]

11.

Both an upper house and recall elections fulfil different parts of the same end result, more accountability.

An upper house does not necessarily match the outcome of a lower house since, as opposed to electing a regional representative, it represents a state wide picture of what parties or independents the public want. Many smaller parties that don't have the support at a regional level e.g. the Shooters Party, would be allowed representation at a state level through the introduction of an upper house.
This addition adds dialogue to the legislative process and if there was a piece of controversial legislation being passed through, it would offer a chance for it to be critiqued for a longer period of time and more thoroughly than a unicameral legislature could.

On the other hand, the threat of recall elections would add public discontent as a means to improve performance and refine policy if it were implemented in a fashion that is both easy for the public to contribute to but it also has to be resistant to improper use, and critical infrastructure plans laid out by the previous government, if significant capital has already been contributed to it, should be continued as part of a good faith measure.

[Anton]

12.

History shows that the upper house does not achieve an average representation, but either the same majority as the lower house (an becomes a rubber stamp) or evenly split with some loony or single issue extremist holding the balance of power.

I agree that Queensland needs some mechanism of constraint on the government, but fortunately technology advances have made it possible to replace politicians with silicon chips.

The public is not going to stop good infrastructure investments or force elections every month. Invoking a recall or CIR required a petition with significant public support, at the cost of the initiating party. The cost and effort moderate the actions of activists, the threat of recall moderate the actions of politicians. The public just go on with their business until they get pissed off.