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Winner takes all: politicians with power

By Nicholas Aroney and Scott Prasser - posted Thursday, 8 March 2007


Queensland’s abolition of its upper house

Queensland’s nominated upper house, the Legislative Council, was abolished in 1922. The decision to abolish it was seen at the time as being motivated by short-term partisan gain to minimise external scrutiny of government actions, and to reduce the need for any compromise in the implementation of government programs.

The then Queensland Premier Edward Theodore argued that the upper house was an undemocratic institution which placed an unwarranted check on democracy and that, even if it was reformed into an elected body, it would still serve no “beneficial purpose” because it would continue to function as a restraint on the “progressive” policies of the Labor-controlled lower house.

The abolition of the Legislative Council took considerable time and effort. Bills for its abolition were, as expected, rejected by the upper house in 1915 and 1916, and a referendum on abolition in 1917 was rejected by a vote of 179,105 to 116,196. Moreover, following the failed referendum, further bills were again rejected by the Legislative Council in 1918 and 1919.

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The Labor government accordingly shifted strategy, exercising its capacity to instruct the Governor to appoint additional members of the Council between 1918 and 1920, thus securing a majority of members of the upper house, and an abolition bill was eventually passed in 1921.

These highly suspect political processes, a distinguished Queensland Supreme Court judge has suggested, come surprisingly close to casting doubt upon the constitutionality of the abolition of the Legislative Council in the first place.

As these events make clear, Queenslanders have never had the benefit of a democratically elected second chamber. The Legislative Council, as a nominated body, was essentially a creature of the executive government. From the time of the Ryan Labor government of 1915, the Council functioned as a check upon progressive Labor governments because a majority of its members had been appointed by previous, non-Labor administrations.

Yet, as a creature of the executive, the Legislative Council was ultimately subject to the whim of the government of the day, and consequently it was through an exercise of shear executive power that the composition of the upper house was radically overhauled, and a majority of its members voted themselves out of a job.

Queensland’s Constitution was thus fundamentally altered through successive acts of executive and legislative power effectively concentrated in the hands of the premier and cabinet. And, indeed, the politics of Queensland have ever since been determined by this same concentration of power - executive and legislative - in the hands of a small coterie of politicians.

If there was no separation of powers under the conservative regime of Premier Bjelke-Petersen, its origins are to be traced to the abolition of the Legislative Council by the progressive forces of 1922.

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If, instead, a thorough-going democratic reform of the upper house had been undertaken - as would later develop in the other States - a second chamber may have provided a check on the powers of the government in a manner that was fully democratic. As Justice Bruce McPherson has pointed out:

In fashioning an instrument of unlimited power for their own use the politicians of that era lacked the wisdom to foresee, or perhaps to care, that control of it would one day pass to their opponents. Those who now regret the ambit of executive authority in Queensland can be in no doubt who were responsible for creating it.

Queensland’s present unicameral parliament

The abolition of the Legislative Assembly has led to what many commentators regard as Australia’s most executive dominated system of government. Queensland’s unicameral legislature exacerbates the “winner takes all” approach characteristic of Westminster systems regardless of which party is in power.

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The views expressed are the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Democratic Audit of Australia.



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About the Authors

Nicholas Aroney is a Fellow of the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law and Reader in Law at the TC Beirne School of Law, the University of Queensland. He is author of The Constitution of a Federal Commonwealth: The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Freedom of Speech in the Constitution (Sydney: Centre for Independent Studies, 1998).

Dr Scott Prasser has worked on senior policy and research roles in federal and state governments. His recent publications include:Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries in Australia (2021); The Whitlam Era with David Clune (2022) and the edited New directions in royal commission and public inquiries: Do we need them?. His forthcoming publication is The Art of Opposition reviewing oppositions across Australia and internationally. .


Other articles by these Authors

All articles by Nicholas Aroney
All articles by Scott Prasser

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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