TUESDAY 22 NOVEMBER
2011
Members Present
Lord Richard (Chairman)
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield
Lord Norton of Louth
Lord Trefgarne
Lord Trimble
Lord Tyler
Mr Tom Clarke MP
Ann Coffey MP
Oliver Heald MP
Mrs Eleanor Laing MP
John Stevenson MP
Members of the Australian Senate (QQ 407-427)
Examination of Witnesses
Senator Lee Rhiannon,
Senator for New South Wales, Australian Greens, Senator the
Hon Michael Ronaldson, Senator for Victoria, Liberal Party,
and Senator the Hon Ursula Stephens, Senator for New South
Wales, Labor Party
Q407
The Chairman:
Good evening to you and good morning to us. Let me say how grateful
we are to the three of you for making time to come and talk to
this Committee. I am still slightly in awe of the technology that
enables us to do this over 14,000 miles, or whatever it is, but
it is very helpful indeed for us to have a session with Members
of the Australian Senate, because we have been hearing quite a
lot about the way in which you do business in the course of our
evidence, and we would very much like to take it up directly with
you. As you know, we are engaged in pre-legislative scrutiny by
both Houses of the Government's proposal to reform the House of
Lords. Included in that, obviously, is a discussion of the role
of the House of Lords. We have been looking at some second Chambers
in other countries. In relation to Australia, we have found some
points of similarity, which might help us in looking at the Government's
proposals here. Perhaps I could start by asking you a rather general
question. What do you see the role of the Senate of Australia
to be?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Perhaps
we could introduce ourselves first and then start from there,
which might give you some background to where we come from. I
will pass to Senator Stephens first, who is the Government Whip
on the small group, and then we will go left and right from there.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: Lord Richard, good evening.
I am Ursula Stephens. I am a government Senator from New South
Wales. With me I have Senator Ronaldson, who is an opposition
Senator from Victoria and a former Member of the House of Representatives,
so he has a unique perspective on the issues that you are considering.
On my left I have Senator Lee Rhiannon, who is a new Greens Senator,
formerly a Member of the New South Wales Parliament. She also
has a different perspective, which may well help to inform your
Committee's work. With me we have Bronwyn Notzon, the Clerk Assistant
(Procedure), who may help us out on some of the technical questions
that you want to pursue.
Q408
The Chairman:
Thank you very much. Could we hear a little on what you consider
the role of the Senate in Australia to be? Where does it fit into
the general constitution and the political framework and what
do you see as the object of its existence? Indeed, perhaps you
could say something about the powers that the Senate has at the
same time as you are dealing with the role.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: I was
looking through the documentation today, the attachments to your
draft Bill and part of the draft Bill itself. What struck me initially
is that what you are trying to do with the Lords, to a certain
extent, bears some relevance—but in other cases little relevance—to
the historical background to the role of our Senate. As I am sure
you have heard, our Senate, the House of review, was framed around
the desire of the smaller Australian states at federation to make
sure that the larger states of New South Wales and Victoria did
not dominate the political process. Clearly, in the lower House—the
House of Representatives, which is based on population—the
largest states have a significantly greater number of seats, and
therefore far more influence. At federation, the smaller states
demanded and obtained equal representation in the Senate, which
continues to this day. Perversely, the value of a Senate vote
in Tasmania—the smallest state, with about 400,000 people—is
about 12 times greater than in New South Wales, which has 8 million
or 9 million people.
That is the historical background
to it. Our upper House, our Senate, can reject any legislation.
I was interested to look at the new role of your Senate, where
you are going to have professional, full-time politicians. I was
interested to see how you thought that that was going to work
in the context of them being happy to sit back and watch the Executive
in the Commons run with little or no input, which seems to be
the case at the moment. I am not too sure what you can or cannot
reject. If you could answer that for me, it might make my answer
a little easier.
Q409
The Chairman:
In theory we can reject anything. We cannot hold up a Bill that
is connected with supply—money—but we have the power
to reject any normal Bill, if I can call it that, coming from
the House of Commons. If the Government then reintroduce that
Bill to the House of Commons they can, under the Parliament Acts,
get the Bill passed without it coming back to the Lords. In other
words, we do not have a veto. We have a right of rejection, but
that right of rejection is only once. If the Government insist
on using the Parliament Act, they can pass the Bill again in exactly
the same form as the one that we rejected and it would become
law. We do not have an automatic power of rejection in the way
that I gather you have.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: We have
the ultimate right to reject any piece of legislation as often
as we desire but, as I am sure you are aware, there are some ultimate
sanctions with the dissolution of both Houses of Parliament and
fresh elections. That is, I think, the fundamental difference
between the two. From my point of view, if you do not have that
power I am just not sure how your 300 full-time Members are going
to be controlled, for want of a better word, when they are there
to deal and review the legislation.
Q410
The Chairman:
I am not sure what you mean by "controlled". Are you
speaking as an ex-Chief Whip?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: I am
told that that is the language that I always use in the context
of the Chief Whip. We replicate in the Senate the party discipline
in the House of Representatives, with the two major parties. Senator
Rhiannon with the Greens must have some form of party discipline
as well. There is really no difference in a discipline sense between
the lower House and the upper House. I consider myself a Victorian
and Senator Stephens and Senator Rhiannon are New South Wales—all
three of us are members of our political parties ahead of our
states, although we would never say that publicly!
Q411 Oliver Heald:
The voting system that you have is obviously unequal, as you have
described. I understand that people also vote on the party ticket
in 90 per cent of cases. To what extent does that affect the standing
of your House and the way you are looked at by the voters?
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: Perhaps
I can respond in the first instance, and then my colleagues may
add comments. In the majority of issues, when the votes are considered
and presented mainly on party lines, the work that goes on within
the party to achieve the consensus position and determine the
final position on legislation pre-empts the introduction of that
Bill into the Senate. Then, even if there is opposition from the
Opposition or the minor parties, the Committee process allows
a lot of the contentious issues to be explored and, in most respects,
unless there is a particular ideological opposition to a Bill,
where the Opposition has determined that it will not support the
Bill in any shape or form, the strongest role of the Senate is
often in moderating the Bill or improving the drafting by suggesting
amendments that give legislation coherence. Quite often, much
of our work is quite collaborative, consensual and agreeable,
unless there is an ideological position of opposition. By the
time that the Bill comes into Parliament to be debated in the
Senate, we have worked through many of the contentious issues.
Q412 Oliver Heald:
Do Australians see the House of Representatives as the primary
House—the one that makes the initial decisions which you
are then reviewing? If
so, do you have constituents in your areas who will get in touch
with you and discuss Bills with you, or ask if you can have a
new road in their area? How does the balance between the two Houses
work?
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: On your
first question, yes, absolutely, the people of Australia believe
the House of Representatives to be their local representatives.
They identify very clearly with their local Member, who works
his or her constituency very hard. We do not have fixed terms.
We have a three-year, plus or minus a few months, electoral cycle,
so it is a continuous campaigning lifestyle for our Members of
the House of Representatives. I think that there is a generally
agreed view that the Senate performs the role of review. We are
there to moderate excesses and to give voice to some of the concerns
that may not be able to be given a clear hearing in the House
of Representatives.
I will ask Senator Rhiannon to
respond to your question about constituencies. I will just explain
the Government's method of dealing with that. As a Member of the
Government in the Senate, I am allocated a number of seats that
are not held by the Government in the lower House in my state.
I look after those constituents who do not have a government representative.
Those people might come to me about issues and legislation. They
might not come to me about a local road, because we have a much
clearer sense of the State Government's responsibilities on roads
and domestic issues. I will ask Senator Rhiannon to explain how
the Greens, who have increased their numbers in the Senate, are
tackling that issue.
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
Thanks very much. As a minor party, we have nine Senators and
only one Member in the House of Representatives. The issue of
working with constituents is very important for us and it takes
up quite a bit of time. As a small party, we have to spread ourselves
fairly thin, looking after our portfolios.
I thought that I might go back
to some of your earlier questions. First off, I congratulate you
on working on this reform package. I have the portfolio of democracy
for my party and it is something that I feel very passionate about.
To be frank, when I was growing up the House of Lords did not
have a good name for itself among many people in a place like
Australia, because you were not elected. When I heard that you
were working on reform, I was extremely impressed. I think that
it will enhance the democratic process and bring greater confidence
to people that they have opportunities to engage with their elected
representatives, which is so important.
If I understood the question correctly,
somebody asked how the voters view the voting ticket and how they
respond. That is a very interesting question. In by far the majority
of elections, the make-up in the Senate is not exactly as it is
in the House of Representatives. Until the 2010 election, Labor
or the coalition in recent times have always formed the Government,
and in the Senate we have had a mixture of parties holding the
balance of power. There was only one three-year period when power
in the House of Representatives lined up with power in the Senate.
I think that might help to respond to the earlier question. My
interpretation of that is that, while voters make the decision
about who they want to govern them in the House of Representatives,
in the Senate they are thinking about checks and balances, and
therefore we usually have a different system where parties have
to come together in some sort of coalition, which I think is an
interesting comment on the democratic process. I support the comments
of my colleague Senator Stephens about the Committee system. I
think it was in the 1980s that our Committee system started to
develop, under a former Attorney-General. I think that it is one
of the great benefits of the system. Senator Stephens described
very well how we work both on legislation and on taking up a whole
range of issues. It is quite extraordinary the amount of work
that is undertaken through Committees.
Q413 Lord Trefgarne:
Lord Chairman, I was going to add to the remarks that you were
making earlier about the existing powers of the House of Lords.
You referred to the Parliament Act, which in truth is a pretty
blunt instrument. It has been used only four times, I think, since
the Second World War. Although the House of Lords no doubt sometimes
gives in when it is threatened with the Parliament Act, the Government
sometimes give in if the House of Lords threaten to make them
use the Parliament Act. So it acts in both ways, added to which,
of course, we have unrestricted powers in relation to secondary
legislation. The Government Bill that we are considering assumes
that the powers of the reformed House will remain the same as
the powers of the existing House. That may not bear final scrutiny.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: In that
regard, I am interested to hear what you are hoping to get out
of the revamped House of Lords, with the 300-odd people, who,
from what I can see, will be full-time parliamentarians, for want
of a better term. I am just interested to hear what your expectation
of their roles is, as that might enable us to give you some better
gratuitous advice on how it might be appropriately handled.
Q414
Lord Trefgarne:
That has been a matter that we have been discussing and considering
very closely in recent weeks. The expectation is that the new
elected Members of the House of Lords will not be overly involved
in what the House of Commons call constituency matters. Again,
I do not think that it will be possible to impose a ban on that,
but the constituencies for the House of Lords will be very much
larger than those in the House of Commons, and I think it is therefore
expected that the new Members will not be involved in such detail
in constituency matters as Members of the House of Commons are
at present. You referred to the number of 300 or 350. My view
is that that number may not be sufficient, but that, too, is a
matter on which we have yet to reach a conclusion.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: I do
not think that you can make the assumption that you will not be
engaged in constituency-type work, particularly if the elected
Lords in an area—as Senator Stephens said—come from
the other party. There is almost a constituency review process
as well. If you are a Member of the non-ruling party, the Lords
might find that they have more people knocking on their doors
than they might otherwise have anticipated.
Lord Trefgarne:
You may very well be right.
Q415
The Chairman:
In the Lords here, we spend a very large amount of our time looking
at the fine detail of legislation that has been passed in the
Commons. Procedure in the House of Commons now means that the
length of time that they spend on detailed consideration of Bills
has decreased. They do not go into the same sort of detail as
they used to, as some of us who have been in the Commons and come
up to the Lords are aware. We spend a great deal of time going
through the minutiae of legislation. Do you spend a lot of time
on that? Is that one of your main functions?
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: We do
that analysis and close scrutiny through the Committee process
in the first instance. That gives an opportunity for the Senate
Committee around a particular Bill to bring in witnesses, who
may be government officials or other stakeholders who will be
affected by the Bill. They have the opportunity to present on
the detail of the Bill, the draft legislation as it is proposed,
and the explanatory memorandum that is published with the legislation.
That is all up for scrutiny. If that Bill has been referred to
the Committee by our Scrutiny of Bills Committee, that then provides
the opportunity for a broader consultation process and Committee
stage. The Committee then reports back on the Bill to the Parliament,
highlighting perhaps strengths and weaknesses and perhaps recommending
some amendments. There is an opportunity for opposition Members
to add additional or dissenting comments. When the Bill is introduced
into the Senate, we have Second Reading stage and then we go into
consideration of the Bill in Committee stage. It is not forensically
line by line, but it can be section by section, with a question
and answer process that can go on for quite a long time. We have
had a package of clean energy Bills, where we had in total, I
think, seven days of questions and debate. Does that answer your
question well enough?
Q416
The Chairman:
I think so, yes. You do not go through it line by line and clause
by clause.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: No. It
would rarely happen that we do that. We go to the purpose and
the intent and the consequence of the Bill through those two processes.
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
We can do that, but I have never known it to happen.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: We will go through those
clauses that are the subject of the amendments. That is probably
the simplest way of putting it. The more the amendments, the greater
the number of clauses that are looked at, but it is not a detailed
look at every aspect of the Bill.
Q417
The Chairman:
Do you have a procedure in the Senate for looking at legislation
that is the same as the procedure in the House of Representatives?
In other words, do you have Second Reading, a Committee stage
and then a Report stage? Do you have those different stages?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Yes,
we do. The difference is those events that occur around that activity
in the House of Representatives. What I mean by that is that while
there are some endeavours to expand the Committee structure in
the House of Representatives, it is clearly inferior to the Senate.
That is the fundamental difference between the two Chambers. Virtually
everything that they do, we do, in the context of the passage
of a Bill, but it is the rigorous Committee process in the Senate
that sets it apart from the House of Representatives.
Q418
Lord Tyler:
At the outset, Senator Ronaldson said that of course there were
some similarities and some possible differences with what is proposed
here. Could I explore some of the differences? As you rightly
all said, yours is a federal constitution—we do not have
a federal constitution in the United Kingdom—with the result,
according to my arithmetic, that a Tasmanian vote is nearly 16
times more powerful than a New South Wales vote. Again, that would
be very different here. Secondly, as I understand it, there is
a potential change in the representation of the parties in your
Senate at each general election—the same time as in the
House. Again, that is not what is proposed here. Ours is going
to be in tranches of elections. Most importantly, from the point
of view of the elector, am I right in thinking that voting is
compulsory for the Senate as well as for the House and that if
you start voting below the line—I think that is the expression—you
have to put a preference number against every candidate? The inducement
to go above the line and simply vote for the party ticket is very
strong, particularly for those who have been persuaded to vote
by the compulsory need to vote. Am I right?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Of course
the greatest inducement is the desire to get in and out of the
polling booth as quickly as possible. That probably tends to drive
behaviour more than anything else; as I am sure you will appreciate.
Culturally, the view of the community is that very few people
vote below the line. It has now become a cultural acceptance that
voting above the line is the norm. What was the other question?
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
It was about PR and the votes between Tasmania and New South Wales.
I think he gave a good summary.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: You are absolutely right.
The only thing that I would say is that if we ever attempted to
change that, those who now see themselves as Members of political
parties would very quickly see themselves as state representatives
and would fight it with great passion, as I am sure you would
be aware.
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
Perhaps I could add something about the issue of ticket voting.
I come from New South Wales and I was in the New South Wales Parliament.
The Greens put it to the Government to change the method of upper
House voting to get rid of ticket voting because of some serious
problems that arose with practices that were legal but were widely
seen as abuses of the system. There is no longer ticket voting—parties
no longer lodge a ticket as you would understand it and as is
the case in the Senate. There is still above the line and below
the line voting, but voters who choose to vote above the line
can put "1" or "1, 2, 3, 4". If you vote 1
Labor, 2 Green and 3 Liberal, you take the 1 for Labor and add
it to the order that they have given to their Members; the 2 vote
for Greens is added to the order that they have given, and subsequently.
It is still an above-the-line voting system, but it is fundamentally
different—the way it is described is that it gives the decision
on preferences back to the voter rather than it being with the
parties, doing what are often called back-room deals. I am part
of a party, so I am not being rude about that, but ticket voting
gained a bit of a bad tone, which has arisen with the Senate system.
Q419 Mr Clarke:
As you know, this Committee consists of Members of both Houses
and I am a Member of the Commons. Can I ask what the risks and
benefits are in allowing Senators to stand for election as Members
of the House of Representatives? Is
that a real issue?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: You cannot
do it, so it is not an issue. You cannot be a Member of both Chambers.
I know that you are thinking of introducing a four-year rule,
but that does not apply in our system. You can go between both
Chambers, but you cannot be a Member of both Chambers at the same
time.
Q420 Mr Clarke:
Should Senators who switch parties lose their seats?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Historically,
people who change parties under our system, whether it is in the
lower House or the upper House, are in for the chop reasonably
quickly. The voters and the parties deal with that very quickly.
I do not think you will need to write any rules in that regard.
In some respects, I think that we all consider that we are still
elected as individuals and that we should retain the right to
support the party of our choosing, but having said that we must
also respect the right of the party to remove us very quickly
if we do not keep our side of the bargain.
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
You really have to go back to the first half of the 19th century
for when that happened a great deal. It has fallen away enormously.
There is only one example that I can think of, Cheryl Kernot.
In fact, we can think of two recent examples, but Senator Ronaldson
has described it very clearly.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Can I ask, when you are
looking at this review is it your intention to have an effective
requirement that the Government of the day must retain the confidence
of both Houses? Under our system, I think it will forever be the
position that neither party will have control of the upper House.
Therefore, effectively the Government of the day must retain the
confidence of the Senate, because ultimately the Senate can force
a Government to an election. They can refuse supply and they can
reject Bills, which will force the Government to go to the Governor-General
to dissolve both Houses if that is the desire of the Government.
The ultimate sanction for the Senate is to reject supply, which
will force the Government of the day to go back to the people
for a mandate. I was not sure from reading the information that
was provided whether you will move to an effective system where
the Government of the day will require the support of both Chambers.
The Chairman:
The short answer to that is no. The right to throw a Government
out remains with the Commons. Indeed, some 15-odd years ago, when
I was a very young Leader of the Opposition in the Lords, I tabled
a Motion that this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government.
We had a day's debate and we were beaten by 400 to 100, or whatever
it was. The interesting thing was that nobody was sure what the
effect of that was going to be. We had a lot of political scientists
and various other people rushing around asking, "What happens
if the Lords expresses no confidence in Her Majesty's Government?"
The answer was that nothing would happen. If by any chance we
had won that vote, nothing would have changed. The Government's
proposal is, again, that nothing should change and the right to
throw Governments out rests with the House of Commons and not
with the Lords.
Q421
Lord Norton of Louth:
The House of Lords actually did pass a Motion of censure against
the Government in 1911, but it had no effect. How are conflicts
resolved between the two Chambers? I know that if they are not
resolved, ultimately you can end up with a double dissolution
and that happened six times in the 20th century, but short of
that, how are conflicts resolved if there is disagreement between
the two Chambers? To what extent is conflict dictated by party?
Stanley Bach makes the point in his book on the Senate that party
overrides all, whether it is the base of representation or whatever.
So how much does party really drive this?
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: I would
think almost totally, to be perfectly frank. If there is an impasse
between the Senate and the House of Representatives, it will come
down to hard-nosed negotiation between the party leaders and the
managers of business to try to find a resolution. The resolution
may be compromise or, in the most drastic situations, it may well
be the Government going to the Governor-General and seeking to
dissolve the Parliament, or the Cabinet making a decision to go
to an early election. We have those options, but it is very much
a case of 11th hour negotiations to get legislation across the
line. There is an expression that is often used in Australia—whatever
it takes to get those Bills through. It can mean some awkward
compromises and amendments to legislation that then has to be
further amended in a new Parliament to resolve some of those issues.
I do not know whether colleagues have any other comments on that.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: In many cases those disagreements
are overcome by the Government effectively withdrawing the legislation.
All our provisions are under Section 57 of the constitution. The
final outcome is a double dissolution, but under the constitution
there is the ability to have what is called a conference, which
has been used only twice since federation. That is only for Senate-initiated
Bills and for disagreements on amendments to those Senate-initiated
Bills. It is called a conference and it has been used only twice.
Basically, the resolution between the two Chambers is either the
withdrawal of the legislation, effectively, because it is just
laid to one side, or the ultimate outcome is double dissolution.
The interesting part is that a Government may well go to an election
on the back of the trigger from a piece of twice-rejected legislation
and not even bother putting that legislation back in after the
election. So it is as much a political trigger as it is a legislative
trigger, if that makes any sense.
Q422
Lord Norton of Louth:
You stress the importance of negotiations between parties in determining
the outcomes. Senator Ronaldson referred to the Section 57 provision.
Stanley Bach makes the point that the determining factor for whether
that comes into play is whether the Government enjoys a majority
in the Senate. So if it does not, it is vulnerable, but if it
does, then it is really not an issue.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Sorry.
Could you say that again?
Lord Norton of Louth:
Section 57 would be triggered only if the Government does not
enjoy a majority in the Senate.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: Sorry,
yes absolutely.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: Senator Rhiannon mentioned
the three-year period when the former Government had absolute
control of the Senate and the House of Representatives and was
able to enact quite significant legislation that, in the eyes
of many Australian electors, was seen as a step too far. It comes
back to the Australian voters' perception that the Senate acts
as a House of review and moderation on the excesses of the House
of Representatives, in many respects. That is why we now seem
to have a much greater tendency to have no absolute control by
one party. That is happening in our state Parliaments in Australia
as well as federally. We are in minority arrangements all the
time.
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
It is interesting that since that three years, from 2004 to 2007,
when the coalition had control of both Houses, a number of commentators,
even conservative ones sympathetic to the coalition, often say
that they think it was to the disadvantage of the coalition to
have gained such enormous power, because their own legislative
programme got ahead of where their own voters and support base
were at. There is obviously other analysis, but I have always
thought that it was interesting to contemplate how that played
out.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: I am very much looking
forward to that unfortunate situation happening again, and for
a long period.
I think that once you have an elected
House of Lords and the public become used to it, you will find
that perceptions of the Lords may well change and the role as
a reviewing House will be more widely respected by the community.
There is absolutely no doubt that a number of people do not vote
for the same political party in the House of Representatives and
the Senate. As you are aware, it is a half-Senate election normally,
every time the House of Representatives has a full election. For
a number of years, parties that have won a landslide victory in
the House of Representatives do not see that replicated in the
Senate. There is a level of maturity about the community's view
of the role of the Senate. That is why I think it is so important
for the Lords, with this change, to explain what its role is going
to be, to engender a similar community view. That will make the
Lords work as effectively as I believe our Senate does.
Q423 Mrs Laing:
I wanted to explore further the relationship between the two Houses.
Lord Norton has asked that question. Can I
just confirm that it is not unusual, when there is a clash between
the two Houses, that this leads to dissolution of Parliament?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: It is
unusual. The ultimate sanction that the Senate has with the ruling
Government is effectively to force that Government and the Prime
Minister to go to the Governor-General to seek a dissolution of
both Houses. So no, it is most unusual. What is more usual is,
as Senator Stephens said, for the legislation to be re-amended
or for it to be laid on the table by the Government and not pursued.
Q424 Mrs Laing:
Thank you very much for clearing that up. It was also fascinating
to hear what Senator Ronaldson said about what happens in constituencies.
I think that I am right
in saying, Senator Ronaldson, that you said that we should not
assume that Members of the upper House will not be involved in
constituency work. Does that also mean that they campaign in constituencies?
Could we explore a little further what happens on the ground between
the Members of the two Houses? Is it normal for Members of both
Houses to be
campaigning in a constituency
all the time?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: The Senators
do not campaign as Senators. They campaign for one of the lower
House Members of their own party in a marginal seat, or they vigorously
campaign against a marginal lower House Member from another party.
Senator Stephens talked about arrangements where we, as parties,
will look after various seats. They are described by the Conservative
Party as patron Senators. I am patron Senator for a number of
seats, some of which are winnable, including one that I very much
hope we will win and then become the Government. Senator Stephens
will be similarly campaigning in Conservative seats to ensure
the election of a new Labor Member or to support the incumbent
Labor Member.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: Let me take your question
about constituency issues. In my experience—I am sure that
my colleagues have the same—in Committee work the Senators
tend to become experts in specific areas of policy. Today, there
was a very important report tabled in the Parliament about prosthetic
hip replacement. The inquiry around a failed surgical implant
is a good example of how Committee Members become quite expert
in some areas. How that translates into constituency work is that,
if you are known to have a level of expertise, you will often
find that, because everything in our Parliament is on the web
and is very accessible, individuals who have a particular case
might seek you out because of your expertise and experience, or
your interests or background. Then you can become, even within
your own party, a kind of expert on something quite obscure or
specific. That also brings a different kind of constituency to
you—one that perhaps you would not have really thought about
before.
Q425 Ann Coffey:
I wanted to pursue a bit the timing of elections. We had a discussion
yesterday in which Unlock Democracy came to give evidence. They
were adamant that it was not a good idea to hold elections for
the House of Lords and the House of Commons on the same day, because
the understanding of what the House of Lords was for would not
be helped by the focus on the House of Commons and electing a
Government. It is not
clear to me whether you have elections for the House of Representatives
and the Senate always on the same day. If you do, do you think
there is a focus on the election for one House rather than another?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: There
are very limited circumstances where there are separate elections,
which is when the timing between the two Houses gets out of kilter.
I will not go into that now. On rare occasions, there are half-Senate
elections only. From a cost point of view, I think that even if
you have them separately once, I suspect you will have them at
the same time next time, if possible, because there is little
or no justification for holding them on separate occasions. I
would think that after your first five-year cycle the community
will know very well what the role of the Lords is and it makes
enormous sense to me to hold them at the same time. There is a
level of maturity in the Australian voting community now and I
think they would be quite annoyed if we separated them. They see
it as an appropriate course of action and they understand the
difference between the two Houses. As I said, they may fill out
the ballots to the two Houses differently. They may well vote
for the Government of the day in the lower House but for another
party in the Senate. So I think there is a level of maturity that
I am sure your community would gain very quickly as well.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: Can I make one other comment
on that point? That goes to the issue that we have compulsory
voting in Australia. Besides the actual costs of asking our voters
to turn out twice, the organisation for mobilising that whole
process is pretty extraordinary. Having voting for both Houses
at the same time reduces the level of informal voting and reluctant
voters or non-participation. That is another thing that we keep
in mind here.
Q426 Ann Coffey:
How do you mean that it reduces the number of informal voters?
I do not understand.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: The point
that I was making was that, as Senator Ronaldson said, there is
a level of maturity and an expectation in our voters that we are
not going to be wasteful. The notion of having two different ballot
days would mean that people would express their concern and dismay
by voting informally. Perhaps it is an Australian thing.
Ann Coffey:
What is an informal vote?
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: A spoilt
paper. We recently had an election in New South Wales where the
voters were very disillusioned and there was an extraordinary
number of ballot papers that said, "A pox on both your houses".
That is an informal vote.
Q427
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield:
What does the Australian Senate not do very well! What should
we beware of replicating from your system?
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: What
an extraordinary question. We do everything very well. I know
that Mr Laurence Smyth is there. I hope you are finding the discussion
with the three of us interesting. I think that the success of
this change will very much involve the success of your Committee
system. I encourage you to have Mr Laurence Smyth spend as much
time as possible with our Clerks in relation to the way the Committee
system works. I think you will get the same benefits that we do.
I do not think that there are any significant downsides to the
Senate. I think that we have a role that we play well. I am sure
the Members of the Lords will understand when I say that we are
the butt of some jokes from the House of Representatives, but
I think we perform a very useful role. It is a thorough and meticulous
Committee process and I think that our democracy is far better
for the institution.
Senator Lee Rhiannon:
I came from a state upper House to the federal Senate. We have
similar procedures and Standing Orders that have evolved from
the Westminster system, but one thing that I have been very impressed
with in the Senate is the degree of co-operation and negotiation.
Everyone gets a fair go in the procedures, whereas in the upper
House in the New South Wales Parliament—I was in one of
a number of minor parties there—we had to work really hard
and use procedures, often in ways that I did not want to use them,
just so that we could be able to get something into Hansard.
Here there are negotiations so that you get your fair time. We
never had anything like that in the State Parliament, which is
interesting considering that our Standing Orders are largely similar.
I must admit that I cannot give you any examples of where we could
improve—I am sure there are some. I have only been here
a short time, but I wanted to flag up the degree of co-operation
through negotiations, which I think is very commendable and makes
it more democratic.
The Chairman:
I gather that we are going to lose the connection in about a minute.
On behalf of this Committee, we are very grateful to the three
of you for giving up your time and answering our questions. It
really has been an extraordinarily useful session from our point
of view. Thank you very much indeed.
Senator the Hon Ursula
Stephens: Good luck
with your deliberations and thank you. We will follow it with
interest.
The Chairman:
I hope that the weather is better than it is in London.
Senator the Hon Michael
Ronaldson: If you
have further questions, I am sure that we would be quite happy
to have further input, if that was the desire of the Committee.
We are rising at the end of the week, but if you have further
questions we can be contacted either collectively or individually.
The Chairman:
Thank you very much indeed for your help.
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