Australian Government.

Let’s talk about the Australian Government.

Its one of the subjects that most people don’t like to talk about and almost all military people can’t stand. Or is it the politician’s that military people can’t stand?

Anyway. In simple terms the government is divided into 2 separate houses. The house of Representatives, commonly called the lower house and the Senate commonly call the upper house.

Now the House of Representatives is where the Prime Minister sits and he affectively runs the country. As we should all know, we don’t elect the Prime Minister, that’s done by the party with the majority of members in the lower house. Some people think we directly elect the Prime Minister, that’s not true, we don’t directly elect the Prime Minister.

The upper house is where all the Senators sit and they represent the states as well as the territories, Senators are elected directly by the people. The Senate is the place that keeps the government of the day honest.

When the government wants to have a new law (bill) passed it has to get it through both houses. This is done so that each house has an opportunity to object to the bill and get it changed if they think it needs to be. The Senate I believe was always there to ensure that all the states had an equal say it what was going on. It also gave voice to groups within the country so that they could have an effective representative in the Federal parliament whenever they could not get one in the lower house. This enables groups that are spread out to get a voice.

The greens have successfully held Senators for a number of years yet they find it very hard to get seats in the lower house. They have used the system to their advantage and it has worked out well for them. They now have a voice in parliament and we hear that voice very regularly on the news.

What the Senate can do is hold the Government of the day to account. This is done regularly when the Government does not have enough seats within the Senate to get its bills through. In short, they don’t have the numbers. So, to counteract this the Government of the day goes to the “independents” or small political parties within the Senate and makes a deal. They only need just enough votes to get the bill passed and they are happy. This is not always an easy thing. Some Senators represent different sections of the Australian community and they sometimes are asked by the Government of the day to assist in getting a bill passed. Well, the Senator they ask may just represent the farmers of far north Queensland and in doing so they will request an advantage to be given to the farmers in the form of subsidies or maybe even tariffs from the Government to get their votes, which in turn allow the Government of the day to get its bill passed.

It’s a game of bargaining to get what is best for your voters.

Just imagine that we had a Senator 5 or even 10 years ago, we may not have lost so many veterans over the years because we would have already have had the Royal Commission into Suicides. We would have already started the process of fixing the problem.

At The moment we don’t have a Senator that represents us. We have appointed people that are there to “look” after us. They to me do not always represent the true wishes of the group they are meant to champion. We are a small number of people spread out over a large area, and thus can’t get a seat in the lower house. We do however have the numbers to get a seat in the Senate.

A Senator has the unique position within Australian politics that they can be the voice of a small group spread out over a large area. That’s us. We have the numbers in Queensland yet we don’t have the voice. All we have to do is get a political party started and have this party and its representative selected for the next federal election. Just imagine what a Senator that is elected by us, to represent us, can do to help. This person could help is so many ways its almost hard to imagine.

It’s time we had a Senator and a voice in the Australian Parliament.