Is the Senate real? Have you touched it? Have you licked it?
Sure, there’s an edifice, a room draped in a loud, garish red decor but does the institution itself exist? Perhaps more to the point, should it?
These existential puzzles have arisen after four politicians this year – two from the Greens, one from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and one from Family First have been sent packing. They are persona non grata. If they thought they were senators they now know they were not and their representative careers have been or will soon be stricken from the record.
Section 44 of the Constitution stipulates the following of any person wishing to take a seat in the federal parliament:
Any person who:
(i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power; or
(ii) is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer; or
(iii) is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent; or
(iv) holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth; or
(v) has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty-five persons;
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
Full column here.
Um, did someone say pause? It is all a socialist plot according to many. Keep your heads down this may singe your eyebrows.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2017-unexpectedly-warm-freaking-climate-scientists-22022/
Hmm. Maybe JB is right. All over in 10 years.
Kinda looks like exponential growth to me but there again one is never too sure how the figures have been massaged.
Academic friends of mine, JS, are, frankly, terrified. They reckon it’s all over bar the shouting.
fkn good….sick of the shouting….bipedal ground lice…..
Off topic. china installed more solar power in the last 6 months than Australia’s entire ageing and outdated coal fired power produces..
It’s all relative. China is a vastly bigger place
One can do anything Dismal when debt and money do not matter.
That’s an awful lot of renewable energy and one has to wonder if the featils are typical of a country that produces quarterly economic statistics within a week of the quarterly close when it takes more advanced countries weeks.
Chinese statistics are a bit like the old joke. What is 2+2 – the engineer and computer person asked further questions while the accountant asked “what do you want to make it?”
firstly you have to understand that China is trying to solve an immediate problem.
they have people dying from particulate pollution at an amazing level, well, you can chew it as you walk around.
not much to do with AGW.
Yes Jack, in the order of 740,000 deaths a year in China attributed to pollution.
Trying to hold up China as a doyen of clean energy production is just plain stupid. Just go there, like flying into Guanjou at dusk, it is darkness from 5000 feet down.
China is still the third biggest coal producer in the world, and the largest user. Any comparison to Australian energy production is beyond dumb.
Bill Shorten on an Election footing already, Mr Insider, as the smell from the rotting “carcase” that is Turnbull and the hopeless Liberals gets stronger day by day. “Inequality Kills Hope” his early slogan and very apt for todays Australia imho.
http://tinyurl.com/yc55rmwo
Clem Who?
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/clementine-ford-whats-really-behind-the-suns-decision-to-publish-jodie-whittaker-nudes-20170719-gxe8mi.html
Have heard the name before but not acquainted myself with her work. Had a glance through that piece a couple of days back. What a stupendously smug, idiotic, *wrong* woman. With horrible tatts I might add.
My thoughts exactly Trivalve. I looked at her twits one day, ’nuff said.
It looks as though Labor’s left is doing it’s level best to make Labor unelectable with border protection policies, death duties, higher taxes and all other kinds of ratbag ideas.
The Liberals are doing it to themselves from all sorts of directions.
Time for a new centerist party?
Just wondering – are there any Australian Greens?
That passed through my mind to TV.
there are Australian environmentalists? Not answering your question huh?
The last thing we want is any Lower House to have potentially unfettered power: that’s how you end up with Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
That it looks like the one from Star Wars before Jar-Jar Binks ushered in the Empire with applause – and filled to the brim with Jar-Jar Binks’ – is one of those unfortunate occupational hazards, particularly of the fracturing of the Right over the last 20-30 years (possibly since Joh for PM or even before, but accelerated since the Keating era).
For mine, I have a strong philosophical preference for a freak show than an elective dictatorship probably run by a different bunch of freaks, even if the Parliamentary committees are strong enough to act as something of a brake and not just somewhere to park the backbenchers so they don’t get bored and do something really stupid other than opening their mouths.
I’d echo the sentiments of the Voltaire on here.
I still think they should wear togas to befit their ‘status’.
You end up with Joh with gerrymanders and other abuses of the electoral system, Rhys.
Labor having the QLD Upper House abolished in 1922 means, then, you can’t rein such abuses as extending Ned Hanlon’s (ALP) malapportionment in anywhere near as easily.
This is true but it doesn’t mean monocamerals are less democratic. I would argue they are more so provided there is a robust independent electoral commission.
“provided there is a robust independent electoral commission.”
NOT FOR SALE
Rhys,
The upper house in NSW is a total waste of space and contributes nothing.
Proportional voting at the moment has allowed special interest groups to exert power.
The way this society is going with calls from the HRC to have quotas in industry based on community ethic make up and non-assiimiilation policies, it will not take much for the special interest groups in upper houses to morph into ethic group representation.
After that we are on a spiral to nowhere.
By the way, an upper house would probably have been in Joh’s pocket along with everything else in QLD at the time.
It’s certainly a conundrum there: more, say, Fred Niles or the Muslim/Jewish/Hindutva equivalent or less trammelling and checking and balancing of power for the Governments of the day, even if you can mix the systems like in NZ or build up the committee systems and anti-corruption and accountability bodies like up here post-Joh. The robust electoral commission is one piece of the puzzle, but not enough of a check, for mine.
In philosophical terms, I think mine’s more a liberal argument against the concentration of power.
The real trick is to be able to design a system where the pre-selection process becomes more representative of the population as aggregated individuals, not as communities or collectives (and particularly not where the self-appointed community leaders get the whip-hand like in parts of the UK), and so Upper Houses don’t become a repository/suppository for the otherwise unelectable or essentially a reward for long service or an up-and-coming ideologue. I suspect that comes down to political culture as much as anything (even with the best institutions in the world, an autocratic culture promulgated from the top-down can still start the slippery slide of a country down/back to autocracy and dictatorship and worse, cf. Chavez in Venezuela).
I can also see how if the ALP hadn’t got rid of the Upper House, it might’ve ended up full of mini-‘Top Level Teds’ for most of the 42 and 32 years, respectively, of alternating major party dominance, too.
I think one of the problems with Upper houses today is the rigid party system.
They are pretty also pretty well anonymous.
At the state level, maybe the way out is base the upper house elections on a combination of lower house electoral districts.
That way those elected to the upper house are at least answerable to a defined set of people.
At the Federal level, base the number of Senators on the population of the states.
There are very few Senators filling the constitutional aim of protecting state’s rights.
Do not get me going on “community leaders”. they are usually old men with a mind set established when they left their country of origin. As a native born with no ethnic allegiances in my background, immigrant groups have one extra level of access to the political parties than I do. They are free to join any organization that I can join but the reverse is not true. If I was to form an organisation that banned ethnic groups, there would be hell to play.
As people like me are fast becoming a minority, it is time to look at the whole stupid set up.
The House of Representatives is meant to be based on population, the equal numbers in the Senate is to make sure Victoria and NSW don’t dominate any more than they already do.
I think the Victorians might run their Upper House on Proportional Lines based on regions, but don’t quote me. It might be a way to go.
No one has yet explained why Abetz was and is allowed to stay in the Senate when at the time of his initial election he was not eligible.
Probably because it isn’t true. Under almost all circumstances, a German citizen who becomes a citizen of another country with the exception of Switzerland or a member nation of the EU, automatically ceases to become a German citizen. There are some exceptions but Abetz would not qualify for any of them.
There you go Dismal, an explanation………
Australia’s gross debt finished the financial year at $501 billion, an increase over the 12 months of $80.6 billion — the highest in Australia’s history. The second highest increase in any financial year was $62.1 billion in Joe Hockey’s first year as treasurer, 2013-14. That contrasts with just $23.4 billion in Labor’s last full financial year, 2012-13.
Disposable income has dropped more than $2000 per home since 2013. Household Savings have dropped again. Government investment averaged 8% between 2000 and 2013 has plummeted to 3%.. underemployment is at record highs, Youth unemployed is off the charts and getting worse. GDP growth half of what is was in 2013 with Australia dropping from the top to 27th across the globe.. Corporate profits are soaring yet corporate tax take has flat lined . coalition better economic managers? Pigs arse.
Just shows what a mess they inherited Dismal. Many of their remedies have been blocked by Shorten who has only one purpose in life – get into the lodge at all costs and stuff anything else – including the national interest.
JS. Sigh. Labor’s last year added $23 billion debt. The coalition have at least Doubled that each and every year to date $80 Billion last financial year? . The PEFO at the time of the 2013 election. You know the Independent Fiscal summary, had the country in Surplus last year 2016 and debt dropping after peaking at 13% of GDP that was with Labor’s settings and spending. The coalition have taken debt to 19% of GDP. 80% of the coalition polices have passed the Senate. Abbott too blocked savings measures for 5 years. Man seriously you just refuse to accept facts because it does not suit your ideology. Is it your position the PEFO at the time of the 2013 election was falsified by Treasury? Tax receipts have grown each year since 2013. We see turnbull wants to push ahead with his unfunded corporate tax plan. the government own modelling shows NO economic benefit. NO extra jobs. NO extra growth just bigger Deficits to be funded Income tax on the middle income earners. We have seen this week the coalition deceitful plan all along to gouge Australian Share holders for about $3 billion a year through the imputation credit scheme. JS. Seriously Open your eyes.
Alex Keath former Victorian cricketer might just make his AFL debut against Geelong this week. Well done Mr Keath. He is pretty mobile for a guy at 198cm, good long left foot kick also. I hope he goes well.
Give the lad a call, champ. A couple of pointers and some words of encouragement from you and the sky’s the lads limit.
And I don’t want to hear any of your false modesty!
I’d have no doubt a call from the Dismal one would be just what this chap needs Milt.
No false modesty here. When you know, you know. Oh and again I repeat dual citizens get NO say around these parts.
Is this ‘dual citizen’ thing your latest echo chamber, Dismayed? Getting boring – move along
Your obsession is out of control. You are even repeating my meme’s. Do you have allegiance to another country or figure head from another country?
Have you any idea of how childish and immature that response comes over as, Dismayed. Obviously not, I guess.