Howard’s Senate reforms: another nail in the coffin of our democracy

The Democrats welcome the opportunity provided by the Prime Minister's discussion paper to discuss how to improve the way Parliament works. But the real problems in the Parliament are not the ones the Prime Minister wants to focus on. The real problems are:

• The lack of accountability of political parties, ministers and their staff.
• There is too much power already in the hands of the PM, such as the power to call elections at whim, sign international treaties and take our nation to war.
• The House of Representatives is neither representative nor much more than a rubber-stamp for the program of the executive government.

Mr. Howard's proposal is about trying to bypass the Senate. There are 76 senators and 150 members of the House of Representatives. So, joint sittings are stacked in the Government's favour, even though they haven't managed to get enough votes to get the majority of senators.

The Democrats offer a very different proposal to John Howard's to deal with legislation in dispute.

If the two houses of Parliament cannot agree on legislation, then the best solution is to take it to the people. The Democrats believe legislation in dispute could be resolved through binding plebiscites, asking the opinion of the nation.

If the Prime Minister genuinely wants a mandate, then he can put the legislation to the voters.

An example would be a deadlock over the further sale of Telstra.

Under Mr. Howard's preferred option, he would wait three months, hold a joint sitting, pass the legislation and sell Telstra. There would be no way to stop him.

But under the Democrats' proposal, he could go to a normal election with all the disputed legislation and ask the Australian people: "Do you want to sell Telstra?" While he's at it, he could ask the people "Do you want medicines to be more expensive on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme?" and "Do you want more disabled people thrown off the disability support pension?", because these are the other pieces of legislation the Senate is refusing to pass.

Unlike Mr. Howard, we trust the Australian people.