Australian Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the lower house being the House of Representatives.
The powers, role and composition of the Senate are set out in Chapter I of the federal constitution as well as federal legislation and constitutional convention. There are a total of 76 senators: 12 are elected from each of the six Australian states, regardless of population, and 2 each representing the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Senators are popularly elected under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation in state-wide and territory-wide districts.
Section 24 of the Constitution provides that the House of Representatives shall have, as near as practicable, twice as many members as the Senate. The constitution grants the Senate nearly equivalent powers to the House, with the exception that the Senate may not originate or amend money bills, but only reject or defer them. According to convention, the Senate plays no role in the formation of the executive government and the prime minister is drawn from the majority party or coalition in the House. However, the government appoints a Senate leader and senators hold senior roles in the government as ministers of state and members of cabinet. Senators from the opposition likewise serve in the shadow ministry.
The Senate elects one of its members to serve as president, who exercises only an ordinary vote and has no casting vote. Since the late 20th century, it has been rare for governments to hold a majority in the Senate and the balance of power has typically rested with minor parties and independents. In practice, this means government bills cannot be assured of passage and regulations may be disallowed. The power to bring down the government and force elections by blocking supply also exists, as happened for the first and only time during the 1975 constitutional crisis. Since major reforms in 1970, the Senate's role as a house of review has increased with the expansion of its committee system.
Senators from states ordinarily serve six-year terms, with half of the Senate up for re-election at each federal election along with the entirety of the House of Representatives. However, there is no constitutional requirement that Senate and House elections occur at the same time; the last Senate-only and House-only elections occurred in 1970 and 1972 respectively. The terms of senators from territories expire at the dissolution of the House of Representatives, typically at three-year intervals. Section 57 of the constitution provides for a double dissolution as a mechanism to break deadlocks between the House and Senate, whereby the entire Senate is dissolved and all seats made vacant.
Casual vacancies are filled by the relevant state or territory parliament, or by the corresponding state or territory government on an interim basis if the parliament is not in session. A constitutional amendment passed in 1977 provides that casual vacancies must be filled by a member of the same political party as the previous senator.
Origins and role
The Constitution of Australia established the Senate as the upper house of the national parliament of the newly federated Australia. In contrast to countries employing a pure Westminster system, the Senate plays an active role in legislation and is not merely a 'chamber of review'. Instead of being modelled solely after the House of Lords, as the Senate of Canada was, the Australian Senate was in part modelled after the United States Senate, by giving equal representation to each state and practically full equal legislative powers, along with the lower house. This was done to give less populous states a real influence in the Parliament, while also maintaining the traditional review functions upper houses have in the Westminster system. This has led to the description of a "Washminster system" to describe the Australian political structure.Although the prime minister and treasurer, by convention, are members of the House of Representatives, other ministers may come from either house, and the two Houses have almost equal legislative power. As with most upper chambers in bicameral parliaments, the Senate cannot introduce or amend appropriation bills or bills that impose taxation, that role being reserved for the lower house; it can only approve, reject or defer them. That degree of equality between the Senate and House of Representatives reflects the desire of the Constitution's authors to prevent the more populous states totally dominating the legislative process.
In practice, however, most legislation in the Australian Parliament is initiated by the government, which has control over the lower house. It is then passed to the Senate, which has the opportunity to amend the bill, pass or reject it. In the majority of cases, voting takes place along party lines, although there are occasional conscience votes.
The Senate maintains a number of committees, which engage in a wide variety of inquiries. The results have no direct legislative power, but are valuable forums that raise many points of view that would otherwise not receive government or public notice.
Electoral system
The system for electing senators has changed several times since Federation. The original arrangement involved a first-past-the-post and block voting system, on a state-by-state basis. This was replaced in 1919 by preferential block voting. Block voting tended to produce landslide majorities. For instance, from 1920 to 1923 the Nationalist Party held all but one of the 36 seats, and from 1947 to 1950, the Australian Labor Party held all but three.In 1948, single transferable vote with proportional representation on a state-by-state basis became the method for electing senators. At this time the number of senators was expanded from 36 to 60 and it was argued that a move to proportional representation was needed to even up the balance between both major parties in the chamber. The change in voting systems has been described as an "institutional revolution" that has had the effect of limiting the government's ability to control the chamber, as well as helping the rise of Australian minor parties.
The 1984 election saw the introduction of group ticket voting, in order to reduce a high rate of informal voting that arose from the requirement that each candidate be given a preference, and to allow small parties and independent candidates a reasonable chance of winning a seat. This allowed voters to select a single party to distribute their preferences on their behalf, but voters were still able to vote directly for individual candidates and distribute their own preferences if they wished by numbering every box. Following 1981, the government has only had a majority in the Senate from 2005 to 2007; otherwise, negotiations with other parties and independents have generally been necessary to pass legislation.
Group tickets were abolished in advance of the 2016 election to reduce the number of senators elected with a very small number of first preference votes as a result of the candidates of these micro-parties preferencing each other. In the place of group tickets, a form of optional preferential voting was introduced. As a result of the changes, voters may now assign their preferences for parties above the line, or individual candidates below the line, and are not required to fill all of the boxes. Both above and below the line voting now use optional preferential voting. For above the line, voters are instructed to number at least their first six preferences; however, a "savings provision" is in place to ensure that ballots will still be counted if less than six are given. For below the line, voters are required to number at least their first 12 preferences. Voters are free to continue numbering as many preferences as they like beyond the minimum number specified. Another savings provision allows ballot papers with at least 6 below the line preferences to be formal. The voting changes make it more difficult for new small parties and independent candidates to be elected to the Senate, but also allow a voter to voluntarily exhaust preferences — that is, to ensure their vote cannot flow to specific candidates or parties — if none of the voter's candidate preferences are elected.
The changes were subject to a challenge in front of High Court of Australia by sitting South Australian senator Bob Day of the Family First Party. The senator argued that the changes meant the senators would not be "directly chosen by the people" as required by the constitution. The High Court rejected Day's challenge unanimously, deciding that both above the line and below the line voting were consistent with the constitution.
Ballot paper
The Australian Senate voting paper under the single transferable vote proportional representation system resembles the following example, which shows the candidates for Victorian senate representation in the 2016 federal election.To vote correctly, electors must either:
- Vote for at least six parties above the thick black line, by writing the numbers 1–6 in party boxes. Votes with fewer than six boxes numbered are still admitted to the count through savings provisions.
- Vote for at least twelve candidates below the thick black line, by writing the numbers 1–12 in the individual candidates' boxes. Votes with between six and twelve boxes numbered are still admitted to the count through savings provisions.
With an odd number of seats in a half-Senate election, 50.1% of the vote wins a majority.
With an even number of seats in a half-Senate election, 57.1% of the vote is needed to win a majority of seats.
The ungrouped candidates in the far right column do not have a box above the line. Therefore, they can only get a primary vote from electors who vote below the line. For this reason, some independents register as a group, either with other independents or by themselves, such as group B in the above example.
Names of parties can be shown only if the parties are registered, which requires, among other things, a minimum of 1,500 members.