Steps to improve the relevance of the Victorian Parliament

Discussion with mainly Officers of the Parliament covered a wide range of operation of Parliaments.

In this section of my report I will cover those which I found of particular interest.

1. The Adversarial Nature of the Victorian Parliament

The visits to the Commonwealth Parliaments confirmed my previous views of the problems of an adversarial system of Government.

In effect there are two main parties in Victoria, the National Party either in official or non-official coalition with the Liberal Party and the Labor Party. In terms of the Parliamentary behaviour there is a distinct conservative/Labor split which governs not only question time but also the manner in which Government and other business is addressed.

While the comparison with Westminster is less obvious the operation of the Welsh Assembly and the Irish and Scottish Parliaments show a parliamentary process that in my view has much merit.

When the Scottish Parliament was set up there was concern that if the voting system was the same as for Westminster (first past the post) then the Scottish Parliament would have only Labor members in it. A similar concern was expressed for the Welsh Assembly.

Both States have set up voting systems which therefore allow for smaller parties to be represented. (Details of their voting systems can be found on their web pages). The outcome of these voting systems has been the proliferation of smaller representative groups in the Parliament and often, a need for larger and smaller parties to work together to form coalition governments.

The structures of the Parliament have therefore developed on a co-operative model rather than an adversarial one.

For example the Irish Parliament has a Parliamentary Business Committee rather than separate government/opposition ones.

This means the representatives of all the parties represented in the Parliament meet together and determine the business program of the House. This Committee decides the dates on which legislation will be debated, the time allocated for the Bill ( negotiated according to the importance of the Bill) the inclusion of Private Members Bills, motions to be debated and other parliamentary business.

The process appears to be a very orderly one, and it means that Members of Parliament know about 6 months ahead the timing of legislation and the parliamentary business program. There is of course provision for changes if urgent legislation or urgent matters requiring debate arise.

This process also has a further by-product by increasing the role of the Presiding Officers. The Presiding Officers have a role in determining the speaking order and the length of time that Members of Parliament can speak.

It is most unfortunate that the conservative parties in Victoria have taken the view that "if it was alright in 1851 when parliament was set up, it is alright now" and therefore have strongly resisted any attempts to change the way Members of Parliament are elected to Parliament.

Recent initiatives introduced by the current Bracks Government to change the method of election of members to the Legislative Council were strongly opposed by the conservative parties. Whilst the conservative parties continue to hold the balance of power in the Council the chances of smaller parties gaining representation even in one house in this State is negligible.

Thus any attempts to diminish the adversarial nature of the Victorian Parliament seemed to be doomed. This I believe is contrary to the Victorian population's wish, as I believe most of them would prefer to see political parties work in a more constructive manner rather than engage in shouting matches across the Chamber.

2. Non-Gender Specific Language

Apart from traditional Westminster the Parliaments I visited had all made a point of having non-gender specific language in the management of their Parliaments.

The Welsh and Scottish Parliaments use the terms Presiding Officer and Deputy Presiding Officers, although in most cases in the Welsh Assembly the members including the Presiding Officer call themselves by their first names.

Once again however in Victoria conservative Members of Parliament have at times quite strongly rejected and attempts for non-gender language. Even though the Speaker has indicated that he prefers to be addressed as "Honourable Speaker" rather than Mr. Speaker this has been ignored by the conservative parties.

3.Hours of Parliament

The hours of Parliament for the four Parliaments I visited were more sensible than ours and indeed in Scotland no votes are taken after 5pm on a sitting day to allow Members of Parliament with family commitments to attend to them.

The Parliaments often have their Committee stages operating at the same time as the plenary stages which does in my view use the time available more effectively.

Proposals to shorten parliamentary hours in the Victorian Parliament have always been opposed by the National Party.

Their view appears to be that if you work more reasonable hours you would have to sit more days that is, extend the parliamentary week to include Monday or Friday. In fact most members have to spend more time in Melbourne because of internal party meetings or Parliamentary Committee work, so the majority of Members of Parliament who live a long way from the city would often have to be in Melbourne anyway.

However there is an alternative. The newer Parliaments I visited had in a number of instances imposed time limits on various parts of business or indeed had shorter speaking times.

There appeared to be general agreement amongst the people I spoke to, that contributions to Bills can be limited to 5 minutes. In some circumstances where there were complicated bills this can be negotiated between the parties with the assistance of the Presiding Officer.

There can also be time limits imposed in relation to answers to questions and adjournment debates. For example in Wales and Scotland, questions have to be delivered within 3 minutes and the Minister has to respond in 3 minutes. Wales has a system of supplementary questions which are limited to 1 minute to ask and 1 minute to respond. The Presiding Officer has the authority to determine the number of supplementary questions to be allowed.

Whilst our system at Question time is different to the British models there are certainly reforms that the Victorian Parliament could make which would, in my opinion, improve the operation and the professionalism of the operation of Parliament.

4. Legislation

The passage of legislation in the Parliaments I visited showed the way to a more democratic and inclusive way of considering legislation.

In Wales the introduction of the intent of a Bill to the House with an immediate reference to a Committee does allow a wider scrutiny of bills than Victorians have been used to in our system.

However with the current Bracks Government there has been a move towards more consultation with the community through the public release of public or exposure bills. Some examples of this are the Racial and Religious Tolerance Bill and the essential Services Commission Bill.

Again in Wales when the Bill goes to the Committee stage it can be treated in a number of ways. Public hearings can be held, written submissions can be called for, and expert witnesses can be invited to address the committee. This did sound as though it could be a time consuming process, however it was pointed out to me that it was probably only major bills that went through this extensive process.

I was assurred that if necessary all the stages of the legislative program can be completed within 24 hours.

After the Committee stage the Bill returns to the House where all parties are able to give their views. There can be a further committee stage if this is required for further amendment to the legislation.

One would think that legislation would be improved and that there would be less need for amendments to legislation, if there was a wider examination of proposals at an early stage of the legislative process.

The current Government has made important steps to improve the democratic process and the public meetings that have been arranged to discuss proposed legislation have been generally well attended and useful.

Finally, the processes that govern the Victorian Parliament were set up in 1850, and whilst there has been change over the years, these have mainly been peripheral and have not been the subject of wide scale reform.

Government changes to parliamentary procedures cannot be successfully introduced without the support of the Opposition. If one were to assess the chance of reform in Victoria, taking into account the negative view of the Opposition during the discussion of Upper House Reforms, I think one would be fairly pessimistic.

However it is worthwhile at least to raise these issues in the hope that they will be assessed fairly and objectively as ways of providing a more democratic and more professional form of parliamentary process in Victoria.