Opinion: Senate defections make a mockery of our democracy

Virtually everyone votes for a party in the Senate, so why should defectors take their seat with them, asks Paul Williams. VOTE IN OUR POLL

Senate defectors (from left) Lidia Thorpe, Fatima Payman and Dorinda Cox

If our House of Representatives is arcane for many Australians, then how the Senate works must be wholly unfathomable.

But this too-often-forgotten chamber still matters, and remains (at least in theory of not reality) co-equal to the House.

Yet, because the news media are less interested (the prime minister doesn’t sit there, most Bills don’t start there, and Question Time can be a major yawn), most voters rarely even notice the upper house.

It’s only when major public interest legislation, like Labor’s 2024 “Help to Buy” and “Build to Rent” bills are blocked by minor parties that voters – and the news media – take notice.

But the Senate made headlines this week when West Australian Greens Senator Dorinda Cox spectacularly defected to Labor.

The move doesn’t change the chamber’s machinery; the government still needs only the Greens to pass its bills.

But Cox’s brazen defection – like Lidia Thorpe’s in 2023 and Fatima Payman’s in 2024, also from the Greens – does raise key questions.

Are such resignations unfair to voters? And does the Senate need comprehensive reform? I argue yes on both counts.

The first, and probably easiest, reform to implement is to ensure any senator’s resignation from a party is treated just like a resignation from the Senate itself – a process that (by virtue of the 1977 referendum) sees casual Senate vacancies filled by a nominee of the resigning Senator’s party.

That reform, of course, came after Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen cynically appointed his own yes-man in 1975 to replace the deceased Bert Milliner.

Joh’s opportunism saw a new Senate – different from the one Queenslanders elected in 1974 – bring down the Whitlam government.

The point is if most Australians vote for their House MP according to a party brand and not a candidate’s personal profile, then virtually all of us vote for the party and not the individual when it comes to Senate races.

That means the seats Thorpe, Payman and now Cox sit on rightly belong to the Greens (and the electors who voted Green) and not the individuals themselves.

If resigning senators can longer stomach the party that endorsed them (and spent money campaigning for them), they should resign from the Senate and return that endorsement to their original party.

A second reform, on the future size of the Senate, would be much harder to achieve.

Section 24 of the Australian Constitution demands the number of MPs in the House “shall be, as nearly as practicable, twice the number of the senators”.

This so-called “nexus” provision means every time we increase the size of the House (necessary for population growth) we must also increase the Senate.

Designed to protect the states, it’s an antiquated requirement all Australians, except New South Wales voters, refused to dismantle at a 1967 referendum.

As a result, when the House inevitably grows from 150 to 175 MPs, the Senate must also grow to 88 – with 14 (up from 12) senators from each state, and two from each territory.

The problem is 14 senators produces a lower quota for election – from 14.3 per cent to 12.5 per cent in a regular half-Senate election.

This makes it easier for fringe candidates to get elected.

In a double dissolution, the quota drops to 6.6 per cent, low enough to see unpopular extremists win seats in the House of Review.

The last reform would be equally difficult: changing the convention that each state (but not territory) sends the same number of senators to Canberra.

Is it fair, for example, that Tasmania – with a population significantly smaller than the Gold Coast – should get 12 Senate votes while Queensland, with 10 times Tasmania’s population, should also enjoy just 12 votes? Most would say no.

Ironically, section 7 of the Constitution hints that change is possible: “the Parliament may make laws increasing or diminishing the number of senators for each State”, providing no “Original State” (of which Tasmania is one) “shall have less than six senators”.

But, in practical terms, no Australian state would agree to fewer Senators, so we’re probably stuck with an institutional bias.

So, is any reform possible? Yes, given we’ve made major Senate changes before. In 1948 we introduced proportional representation and, in 1970, established a rigorous committee system. And, most recently, we removed the parties’ right to allocate preferences on our behalf when voting above the line.

Australia’s parliament belongs to us, the people, and not to politicians.

It’s up to us to tell our pollies what parliamentary reforms we want.

Paul Williams is an associate professor at Griffith University