Today the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee debates a relatively minor amendment to the second-class status of citizens of the ACT and Northern Territory, both of whom can have their valid laws overridden on the whim of federal politicians.
The Committee is holding hearings into the Greens’ Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Amendment (Disallowance and Amendment Power of the Commonwealth) Bill 2010, which makes the overriding of territory laws a matter for the federal parliament, rather than a federal minister. Politicians from both territories will be fronting up to give evidence.
Bear in mind both territories are significantly underrepresented in federal parliament compared to the states; the ACT and the NT combined have more people than Tasmania, but Tasmanians send more than twice as many politicians to Canberra (and yes, cutting the number of senators from 12 to two per state mightn’t be a bad idea).
What do Australians think of this constitutionally-validated form of discrimination? Asked by Essential Research last week if they “agree or disagree that the ACT and Northern Territory should have the same rights as the state to pass legislation without being overruled by a federal minister”, 74% of voters agreed and only 9% of voters disagreed. There was surprising uniformity across voting intentions: 73% of Liberals agreed, 74% of Greens, and — right-wing factional chieftains take note — 80% of Labor voters.
It seems while some reactionaries inside the parliament and out, and the trolls at The Australian, think imposing a lower form of citizenship on half a million Australians is fair and proper, voters disagree with a vehemence unusual for opinion polls.
As one of the TERRITORY, people, I think its about time someone asked us, about what we would like.
The INTERVENTION would be a good starting point, in my small town, I am unable to buy a bottle of Sherry, or Stones green ginger wine, I cant remember getting topped up on these drinks and creating mayhem.
I wonder what the rest of the country would do in this case?, doing without these things wont kill me, but hell I thought I was an Australian too.
I agree with all ‘cept cutting State senators to 2 since that is likely to entrench the big parties and may make deadlocked Senates more likely.
How about cutting the number of senators to half or a third of their current number and making each State and Territory’s share proportional to its share of Australia’s population?
The difference of course is that whilst the average citizen is a fan of democracy and the idea of one man one vote. Politicians by and large are only interested in power and couldn’t give 2 stuffs about democracy.
Agree with Gavin that, as far as throw away comments go, the ‘two senators per state’ bit was one you should have ditched.
If we had only two Senators per state you wouldn’t be seeing this legislation from the Greens. Ditto for cutting it by a half or a third.
Upping the numbers from the two territories and making them a bit more proportionate is a different prospect.
Making then directly proportional would mean that NSW and Victoria would dominate national affairs … even more than they do already
I would also stop senators’ rotated terms so that they all faced election every 4 years in concert with the House of Reps. I think that would allow one to halve the number of senators without increasing the quota needed to elect each senator, thus preserving the opportunity for minor parties and independents to get elected.
I agree that any change that would reinforce the influence of Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra over national affairs would be undesirable, but the current allocation of senators looks like a gerrymander in favour of Tassie and South Australia in particular.