Senate is redeeming feature

The announcement by Mr. Howard that he is now an "aspirational nationalist" who wants to "revamp" federalism, with a new electoral war chest, adds spice to the election as well as urgency to the debate.

Australians voters are now told that the "should be focused on outcomes, not systems", appropriate or not.

However, the cause of the numerous federal-state problems is that the system has long not been appropriate.

The solution is a two-tier system, not revamped federalism.

We need to abolish the states, where government power is really centralised, and link all local governments directly to the national government.

That could include city governments and voluntary regional councils - useful adjuncts to local government already in existence.

Given the massive improvement in communications and transport since 1901, this structural change is long overdue.

In part, the reason for the stagnation is two party system, and that itself is the direct result of Australia's dominant single-member district electoral system.

These causes need to be acknowledged.

Add to that the great difficulty imposed by section 128 of the constitution, which has proved to be such a stumbling block.

It stipulates that not only is an overall majority required (for a referendum to pass) but also a majority in a majority of states.

Here the federal constitution itself is a major barrier.

Consider then also that constitutional amendments can only be initiated by politicians.

In practice this has meant that (1) initiatives that do not in some way benefit major party politicians won't be generated (2) any initiative needs to have the full support of the politicians of both major parties otherwise the referendum won't pass.

This explains that (1) there is a need for an electoral system that provides much greater diversity and flexibility in parliaments (2) initiatives for referendums should come also from the people directly.

Logic suggests that these are necessary preparatory steps towards structural change.

The problem is that neither of the major parties is interested in taking these steps.

On the face of it the political system as well as the constitution of this country look to be totally frozen.

The only redeeming feature here is the potentially powerful Senate.

Voters can vote for other than the major party candidates in the Senate, candidates who want system change.

Understandably the major parties instruct their voters to vote for them in the Senate as well but there is no real need for voters to follow these instructions.

They can de-couple their two votes, break that informal but quite strong nexus, and vote for parties or Independents who desire system change.

Only when such candidates are successful in gaining Senate seats is it conceivable that major parties may yield to pressures for system change - in return for support for their own policy programs.

If major party voters do not de-couple their votes we end up again with a Rubberstamp Senate rather than an independent reforming Senate prepared to initiate system change.

Klaas Woldring Woy Woy