I agree. MMP as in Germany and NZ looks pretty good to me (I'm in Australia, with preferential winner-takes-all as the grandparent post would seem to advocate as better). I have never seen any evidence for the 'impossible to govern' line, which seems to be pulled out by big parties with a big desire to retain the status quo (In the UK they even pulled out this argument to much effect against preferential/alternative/instant-runoff voting, which seems crazy from Australia)...
I'd agree that compulsory voting is good though. In Australia we also tend to vote on the weekend, which I think is also important and probably overlooked.
I like the Australian approach. We almost always form a government quickly with the Senate acting as a reasonable check on legislative adventurism. The poms have it better with the House of Lords, but I don't think a similar institution can be engineered ab initio, it's an evolved body. The Canadians tried, I understand they don't regard it highly.
I'd fiddle with the Senate formula to allow more minority parties into the mix (for the past few decades it's settled into a stable tripartite pattern, 2 majors and a minor).
Speaking as a Canadian, the Senate is little more than a retirement program for friends of the party (which party is of little consequence). The party that currently holds power spent years talking about Senate reform, only to revert to the status quo once they got into power. Thus, the Senate rubber-stamps legislation, but no one seriously discusses what goes on in that body, because I think that it is generally understood that it doesn't make a difference.
The current Australian government is a minority government, and they're getting a lot of legislation passed, though you'd never think so if you read the papers. 'minority government' is simply not synonymous with 'paralysed government'.
Also, given that Germany is the main engine-room that's keeping Europe financially afloat, it's clear that it's working there as well.
I don't see that the Prime Minister has to spend time constantly making cooing noises to a pack of grand-standing, pork-barrelling independents as a feature.
It is absolutely possible to govern from a minority party. But it's rare, and such governments tend not to be considered very good. In the pathological case, negotiations can leave you without a government for years. In jurisdictions where the executive is separate, that's not really a problem. In fused jurisdictions, it is.
What are you on about? That's part of politics, whether the grandstanders are in your own party or not.
But you've highlighted an excellent point - you're making it sound like parliament is ineffective, when they've passed more bills in 2012 than any other year in the last decade. In 2012 they passed 207 bills. In 2011 it was 188, and for the rest of the prior decade it hovered between 140ish and 180ish. Despite being a minority government, they are passing a lot of legislation - more than ever before. Hardly paralysed by 'endless negotiation'.
In all sincerity, "number of Acts passed" is a terrible metric. Like measuring the success of a new plane design by how many tons are being added per year.
2011 and 2012 are outliers for a simple reason: the Carbon tax was being first passed into law and then frequently amended.
The Australian Constitution requires that legislation dealing with appropriations / taxation only deal with that subject. Historical judgements by the High Court mean that every new tax is broken down into lots of little interlocking Acts with very narrow purposes, to prevent a whole scheme being knocked out in a High Court ruling.
You'll find a bump in 1999 Acts because of the GST, for example.
It's not that terrible a metric. Sure, it doesn't say much for the quality of the bills (what does, anyway?), but it does show that work is being done and parliament isn't 'paralysed', as the media would have you think.
Looking at the list in my link, you'd have to be extremely one-eyed to call that list biased towards carbon tax bills. But even if you do carve out those bills (though I'm not sure why they don't count as work), the year is still on the high end of the normal range.
Comments
I agree. MMP as in Germany and NZ looks pretty good to me (I'm in Australia, with preferential winner-takes-all as the grandparent post would seem to advocate as better). I have never seen any evidence for the 'impossible to govern' line, which seems to be pulled out by big parties with a big desire to retain the status quo (In the UK they even pulled out this argument to much effect against preferential/alternative/instant-runoff voting, which seems crazy from Australia)...
I'd agree that compulsory voting is good though. In Australia we also tend to vote on the weekend, which I think is also important and probably overlooked.
I like the Australian approach. We almost always form a government quickly with the Senate acting as a reasonable check on legislative adventurism. The poms have it better with the House of Lords, but I don't think a similar institution can be engineered ab initio, it's an evolved body. The Canadians tried, I understand they don't regard it highly.
I'd fiddle with the Senate formula to allow more minority parties into the mix (for the past few decades it's settled into a stable tripartite pattern, 2 majors and a minor).
Speaking as a Canadian, the Senate is little more than a retirement program for friends of the party (which party is of little consequence). The party that currently holds power spent years talking about Senate reform, only to revert to the status quo once they got into power. Thus, the Senate rubber-stamps legislation, but no one seriously discusses what goes on in that body, because I think that it is generally understood that it doesn't make a difference.
The current Australian government is a minority government, and they're getting a lot of legislation passed, though you'd never think so if you read the papers. 'minority government' is simply not synonymous with 'paralysed government'.
Also, given that Germany is the main engine-room that's keeping Europe financially afloat, it's clear that it's working there as well.
I don't see that the Prime Minister has to spend time constantly making cooing noises to a pack of grand-standing, pork-barrelling independents as a feature.
It is absolutely possible to govern from a minority party. But it's rare, and such governments tend not to be considered very good. In the pathological case, negotiations can leave you without a government for years. In jurisdictions where the executive is separate, that's not really a problem. In fused jurisdictions, it is.
What are you on about? That's part of politics, whether the grandstanders are in your own party or not.
But you've highlighted an excellent point - you're making it sound like parliament is ineffective, when they've passed more bills in 2012 than any other year in the last decade. In 2012 they passed 207 bills. In 2011 it was 188, and for the rest of the prior decade it hovered between 140ish and 180ish. Despite being a minority government, they are passing a lot of legislation - more than ever before. Hardly paralysed by 'endless negotiation'.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Statistics/stat...
In all sincerity, "number of Acts passed" is a terrible metric. Like measuring the success of a new plane design by how many tons are being added per year.
2011 and 2012 are outliers for a simple reason: the Carbon tax was being first passed into law and then frequently amended.
The Australian Constitution requires that legislation dealing with appropriations / taxation only deal with that subject. Historical judgements by the High Court mean that every new tax is broken down into lots of little interlocking Acts with very narrow purposes, to prevent a whole scheme being knocked out in a High Court ruling.
You'll find a bump in 1999 Acts because of the GST, for example.
It's not that terrible a metric. Sure, it doesn't say much for the quality of the bills (what does, anyway?), but it does show that work is being done and parliament isn't 'paralysed', as the media would have you think.
Looking at the list in my link, you'd have to be extremely one-eyed to call that list biased towards carbon tax bills. But even if you do carve out those bills (though I'm not sure why they don't count as work), the year is still on the high end of the normal range.