Some Senate Statistics
The Coalition government is planning to once again push a huge pile of legislation through the Senate in the space of a few days. This week, there will be 30 pieces of legislation debated and passed through the Senate – presumably with zero non-government amendments.
Most people assume this action indicates the government clearing the decks before calling an election in the next week or two. If the government does hold off the election until December and have the Parliament sit again on 15th October as scheduled, they won’t have much legislation around to debate. However, it is still not certain when the election will be – which to me is a good reason why having fixed terms, with a fixed election date, is a good idea. Then everybody, including the Parliament, can have a clear idea of how much time they have available to do their job.
According to the statistical summary on the Senate’s website, up until the end of last week, the Senate had sat for 37 days this year and passed 154 pieces of legislation. This week’s version of legislative sausage machining will see a tally for the year of 41 days to debate 184 pieces of legislation.
13 Comments, Comment or Ping
paul walter
I once emailed Jenny Macklin concerning something and the end result of the conversation was a comment by her concerning constitutional reform.
I think what she was getting at was, that in the century since Federation, the politicians and vested interests have figured out ways to bypass many of the safeguards originally built into the system to ensure diversity of viewpoint and maintain de-centring; to use a current term out of context. And, where locals failed globalisation in indirect ways has circumvented national integrity, as 2004 arguably demonstrated re US interference in local affairs backed by US ally Murdoch and then the resulting AUSFTA
But the Senate itself has not been abolished yet and much else has withstood the tests of time.
I guess the thing is, it would take a unique situation to end abuses like the guillotine, but also to impose excesses like the “maximist” republican position, which allows for vigilante referendums and Ray Martin-for- President.
It all hangs, at the end on the thing, on the thing the Democrats provided, BOP in the senate to carrot-and-stick the bigger formations into line, maintaining accountability.
The one time recently when the BOP went wrong with one party gaining dominace.e.g. after 2004, the whole system crossed the red line from useful to disastrous on the failure of one component.
Sep 18th, 2007
Anthony David
What the government has done has effectively introduced workplace reforms into the Senate. They have cut down on senators “wasting time” mulling over bills in committees and debating them on the floor. Look at the productivity gains. The bill pass-rate has gone sky high. Trouble is, on any measure of democracy, the workplace (Senate) has been trashed.
When I wrote to Sen Stott Despoja in 2002, likening the Prime Minister to a despot, I felt uneasy with my hyperbole. Unfortunately that observation is confirmed with every passing day.
Sep 19th, 2007
Megan
Are you able to say why the Senate refused to table the report relating to the Heiner Affair?
How does the Senate democratically determine whether to allow something to be tabled, or not?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/19/2038139.htm
Sep 20th, 2007
Barp
Could the Senator please explain how it is that some things can be “tabled” and others can not?
I specificaly think of the “Heiner” matter about child abuse and documents being shredded.
see: http://www.springhillvoice.com etc.
Sep 20th, 2007
Tess
What I was referring to was:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/19/2038139.htm
this. What is the criterion for Senate “tabling”?
Sep 20th, 2007
CORAL
It’s clear you don’t need to debate anything if you have the numbers.
I don’t think there’ll be an election for a while yet.
By October, John Howard will probably have raked up more legislation to push through in the shortest possible time – which his Commonwealth departments will interpret in any way of their choosing – in order to achieve the maximum social discrimination.
Sep 20th, 2007
Ken
The procedure for tabling documents in teh Senate is set out in Chapter 18 of Odgers Senate Practice abvailable on the Parliament House Website.
In this case the Tabling of any paper, report etc by a Senaotr not previously requested by the Senate, in the Senate is by leave of the Senate. You will hear if you listen to the senate broadcasts, on any number of occasions the chair asking the senate is “leave granted to table ..xyz….” Mostly leave is granted, ie no one objects.
If there is an objection, the matter proceeds to a vote and leave would or would not be not granted dependnet upon the ouromce of the vote.
I persume that is what happended in the matter to which the two previous posters have raised.
Sep 20th, 2007
Andrew Bartlett
Sorry Megan, you got snagged in the spam filter for some reason.
As Ken said, a Senator requires leave to table a general document. This means any other Senator present can refuse leave. It is then up to the Senator wishing to table something as to whether they wish to move to suspend standing orders and move a motion allowing them to table the document.
On the other hand, a Minister can table any document without needing to seek leave.
In regard to the incident which a couple of comments have linked to, a Labor Senator objected to the request by Barnaby Joyce to table the document. This is not overly surprising.
However, clearly Barnaby wasn’t able to find a Minister who was prepared to table the document for him, and presumably he also didn’t believe he would have support of his colleagues to move a motion to enable him to table the document (which could mainly be because they didn’t want to take up the large amount of time this would inevitably have taken). As I’ve mentioned in the main post, there is a real push to get through a large pile of Bills this week, and chewing up time forcing through something like this via a motion would have smashed any cooperative spirit around the place and added many hours to the time we sat before the end of the week, which would have forced the government to either drop some Bills they wanted passed, or to force them through via a guillotine, which would have not been a good look on the eve of the election.
Sep 20th, 2007
zen
Democratic processes are slow. Revolution is quick. In this respect our presidential PM reminds me of Robert Mugabe.
Yes, we are chasing Zimbabwe. I can’t wait to see John Howard introducing a legislation securing him to remain in the office regardless of the election outcome. Afterall, with the majority in both houses we are in a one party state in which this government can whiz through any absurdity ever. Even gallows for Howard haters.
Or, are we going to ape Florida-type election style: all non-coalition voters should be banned from voting?
Sep 20th, 2007
Anthony David
They are working hard to disenfranchise as many potential non-coalition voters as possible with the new electoral “integrity” bill. The AEC is working furiously to strike as many people as possible off the electoral roll before the election is called.
My son, who has lived in three cities in the last 2 months, got struck off the roll last week as the AEC letter did not get to him in time. A reasonable approach by the commission would have been to send a friendly reminder, and only strike a person off the roll if they have not made an amendment before the roll is closed. I wonder how many thousands of voters will have a surprise on voting day when they find they have been struck off, despite being of sound mind.
Thankfully we still have separation of powers and the High Court struck down the amendment that tried to preclude all prisoners, regardless of sentence length, the right to vote.
Sep 21st, 2007
Danny
Congratulations on cutting the Gordian knot with your Royal Commission motion.
Just Brilliant.
What happens now, who sets terms of reference?
Can JWH just keep this in his pocket, can people agitate if he does nothing, that it’s his (+team) choice and his (+team) choice alone that he does nothing, that you have done the smart yards getting the motion up.
Please tell us more about your thinking on this.
Sep 21st, 2007
Megan
Thanks Andrew, according to his website, it looks like Senator Joyce tried (unsuccessfully) to table the Rofe Report again last night.
Sep 21st, 2007