Ben, the Senate was an olive branch of sorts to the states to get them on board with this whole “federal parliament” idea

Yes, its doubtful federation would have happened without that compromise. Imagine a UN system where countries got a number of votes based on their population. Its more democratic, but the smaller countries would never sign up to that deal.

It’s not disproportionate Ben because the Senate wasn’t formed and seats aren’t allocated in terms of population, that’s my point. I like that we don’t have two houses drawing from a single model, ie population, for representation. Geo-political entities like states are also important.

And the proof lies in the practical reality of how it has operated. No one state or party has been able to dominate, except on rare occasions with regard to the latter.

So when you say: -

Also, the solution to tyranny of the majority is not tyranny of the minority. That’s what the Senate does at the moment. The states representing 70% of the population have a minority of seats in the Senate. How is that even remotely considered fair?

I go back to my reality check in a previous post – under the current model with the small states having an equal voice to the large, the result has been a relatively equitable distribution of economic and other resources, giving reasonable parity in terms of quality of life for all Australians (Aboriginal Australians being a glaring exception of course, hence my interest in the NT getting the same number of senate seats). There has been no tyranny of the minority. You would be hard-pressed to point to many if any decisions which have blatantly favoured small states at the expense of the big 3.

In contrast, if you look at COAG negotiations it’s quite plain that if the small states did not have the same represenative power as the large states, the result would be a tyranny of the majority. NSW in particular lobbies excessively and ruthlessly on it’s “first state” status, and in fact already frequently scuttles major reforms for the whole country. There is very little diminishment of power for the large states under the current arrangements, except they do not have the power to completely dominate.

I’m not interested in a parliamentary model that favours 3 states on the basis of population alone. It ignores the geographic and other realities of living on a continent with a spread population. I don’t favour the disproportionate vote of rural seats in the lower house, but think that the Senate must provide a necessary counter-balance, otherwise the basic result is 3 eastern seaboard largely urban states dictating to the rest of the country which is manifestly vastly different in geography, environment, infrastructure and demographic needs. That’s a recipe for disaster.

As long as the House of Reps adheres to the idea of “one vote, one value” (and I believe it could go a lot further towards that with the introduction of MMP) then I don’t have such a huge problem. The Senate may be unproportional on the issue of populations of each state but it’s much closer in its composition to the will of the nation. The Australian people mainly vote for Labor and the Liberals but neither of these parties have 50% of the nation fully behind them and the minor parties and independents hold the balance of power. The House of Reps on the other hand excludes minor parties and produces majorities where only pluralities exist.

Each of our two Houses have their flaws but some of these flaws counterbalance others. House of Reps has “one vote, one value” but it is the Senate which better reflects the wishes of the Australian population as a whole.

I don’t think scrapping the Senate, redrawing the Senate boundaries on population or electing from across the entire nation at once is going to make Australian democracy all that much better. It’s an archaically constituted chamber but it can still do an alright job.

And Tasmania does have disproportionate influence. Tasmania elects as 12 Senators and 5 MHRs, compared to NSW that elects 12 Senators and 49 MHRs. That translates to about 29000 people for every Tasmanian MP and almost 113000 for every NSW MP. That is disproportionate. It’s the very definition of the word. We could just as easily break New South Wales up into a bunch of smaller states and make an argument for why each of those individually is important enough to be given more seats than its number of people warrants. You can make those arguments for any group of people. But the only objective way to distribute seats in a democratic parliamentary system is by POPULATION. No-one has given any good reason why Tasmanian voices should be heard more loudly than those in Sydney or Melbourne or the country in between.

Also, why should the NT be given the same number of Senators as well? Its large landmass makes it more of an issue for the federal government than its population would suggest, but the point remains that very few people live there. If Australian citizens are to be considered equal, their votes should have the same or very similar weight. It doesn’t really matter that the “States’ House” has become dominated by parties, the disproportionate influence of the smaller states influences the Parliament in a number of ways, including within the major parties.

State boundaries are arbitrary lines drawn on a map. We could just as easily break up the east coast in 500,000-person units and make them all independent states, but there is no reason why that should result in a greater influence in the federal Parliament.

While it’s not perfect BBB, I think the fact that the Senate voting system is bsaed on a quota that allows for minor party representation, and also Australians’ long-standing habit of ensuring that the government doesn’t hold the balance of power in the Senate has allowed for far more nuanced and in-depth debate in the upper house than it is given credit for. And having been a haphazard hansard -nerd for quite some time, I would argue that state views and considerations do get raised and seriously debated in the Senate far more so than in the lower house.

Razor, geting rid of the Senate is a truly terrible idea. The reality is that legislation passed in our lower house is usually at best a ‘final draft’ in much need of reform, and the Senate plays a vital role in this. Senate enquiries, for all they are often maligned in cynical terms, have also contributed significantly to the democratic and legislative functioning of this country. Even when we have the rare situation of a government controlling both houses, the Senate offers another forum for the public etc. to object or request reforms to policy and legislation. Without the Senate there is no other check on the government of the day, and we are left with a rubber stamp and a queen. no thanks.

I do however largely agree that Australia is much better suited to a system of regional governments to replace state and local.

While there were early fears from FPP absolutists about government instability and minor parties wielding disproportionate power, these generally haven’t eventuated. They’re a matter of political culture, and we’ve made it clear we want our politicians to try and get along. Meanwhile, we’ve protected ourselves from 90′s-style government betrayal by ensuring permanent minority government. What’s not to like?

Given Australia’s federal system, there’s always the option of one of the states experimenting and acting as a model for the rest. But the problem is getting electoral reform on the agenda – for some reaosn, politicians don’t like it. We only got it after being systematically betrayed by our “representatives”, while in the UK it seems to have been driven by party politics (more on this here [PDF]). And the latter is not a good reason to reform the electoral system, IMHO.