The budget impasse reflects an indulgent electorate and an undemocratically elected senate

With so many voters opting to vote above-the-line, the top spots on the Labor and Coalition Senate tickets are now effectively "safe seats", with the Senators effectively chosen by their party machines. At Senate elections it is now the political parties who determine candidate order on the ballot paper, ensuring that Senators are always elected according to the party's preferred order. The parties' efforts are further re-enforced in all mainland states because state legislation allows each party's candidates for state upper house elections to be listed on the ballot-paper in the order desired by the party.

Because of the extent of above-the line voting, the flow on of preferences between parties is now also overwhelmingly determined by party-machine decisions (which themselves can be the subject of preference deals made between parties). Most people voting above the line have only a broad notion of where their preferences are likely to be directed to. Both the ALP and Greens tend to put Coalition candidates at or near the bottom of their preference list and the Coalition reciprocates. This all means that a minor or micro-party candidate has an improved chance of getting the last Senate spot in each state (compared with the ALP or Coalition).

One can only speculate on what the outcome would be if above-the line voting was abolished. My guess is that there would be reduced preferencing to micro parties and fewer numbers on the Senate cross bench. This might not greatly reduce the incidence of hostile Senates but it might result in Opposition-controlled Senates being somewhat less obstructive.

I believe that the Australian political system has a fundamental problem stemming from the fact that its two Houses of Parliament are elected using quite different structures and constituencies. As a country Australia is not unique in this respect (just look at the US), and, most likely, we will probably just have to live with this situation.

There seems to be general recognition that the present system of above-the-line voting for the Senate and state Upper Houses is problematic, and a momentum for change seems to be developing with the support of political scientists, political commentators and others. Optional preferential voting below-the-line is one proposal that seems to have a lot of support.

Any proposal that reduces the preferencing powers of the party machines and returns it to voters is welcome in itself. Such moves are likely to reduce the role of minor and micro parties in the Senate, and may lead to some cultural changes whereby the major parties may in the future become less obstructive to each others legislation.