In a comment on my Fin Op-ed piece on the aborted Telstra inquiry (coming to the Web Site soon – I plan to try and move to a two-week lag), Gary Sauer-Thompson discusses the broader issue of executive dominance over Parliament and endorses checks and balances and the role of the Senate. As a ‘born-again’ process conservative, I agree.
In fact, I think the system we have evolved with a constituency-based lower house that can generally provide stable executive government, combined with an upper house, elected on the basis of proportional representation and having a veto on legislation is a pretty good compromise. I’m also glad we have a federal rather than a unitary system of government. On the other hand, I don’t think the intersection of these two, that is the fact that the Senate is elected on a State basis is desirable, though it’s not so undesirable as to justify the massive changes that would be required to fix it. A proportional representation system with the whole nation as a single electorate would be preferable.

Update Ken Parish responds, making the point that the system I propose might lower the quota for election to the point where numerous fringe candidates can be elected. He suggests that the quota for election would fall from 14 per cent in a standard half-Senate election at present to near 1 per cent. Actually I think the correct number would be closer to 3 per cent, but Ken’s point is valid. However, his argument assumes we make no changes to the existing Hare-Clark system. It would be easy to impose a requirement for, say, a 5 per cent primary vote, and lots of PR systems in use around the world do this.

I should emphasise that there is no chance of this actually happening. Although Tasmania is, as far as I can tell, the only state that has ever actually gained any benefit from being over-represented in the Senate (and then only for the brief period when Brian Harradine’s vote was critical) the smaller states would undoubtedly oppose this deal. Since the benefits would be pretty modest, I can’t see it ever happening. Gradual growth may get us to the point where the quota is 10 per cent (9 senators per state) or a bit less, which would give more accurate representation than at present.