Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...

Our system has two houses. The lower house is comprised of directly elected representatives from defined districts (I believe somewhat similar to US congress). The Prime Minister is appointed from the ranks of the biggest party in this house, and has some of the attributes of a President. The Queen of England through a Governor General is technically our head of state, but has very little true power.

The Senate or upper house has 12 representatives from each of 6 states, and 2 each from 2 territories. By a complicated preferential formulae this leads to the election of a small but pivotal number of independent or small party senators, along with the two main parties. At the moment a ragged few hold the balance of power so we expect an interesting political time ahead.

Fortunately the Courts (under the Westminster System) and the federal bureaucracy are able to exert a moderating influence on the nutters we elect so they can't generally do too much harm.

Hornblower wrote:The problems with party lists are
1. The decision on who can be elected is decided by the party leadership.
2. If you want to candidate for parliament and want changes which are outside of the partyline you have to found a new party, which is quite complicated.
3. In Germany for example the new party has to be admitted. The decision makers for this are members of the existing parties.
4. If you want a policy that is popular with the voters, you are a "populist", which is a REAL BAD THING.
5. There is no chance for independents.
6. If you manage to overcome these hurdles, you can be certain that the old parties will do everything to treat you as a pariah (there are some interesting examples of that in the new European parliament).

Hornblower, I do NOT like party-list systems, for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that it makes parliamentarians accountable to party bosses instead of the electorate. It essentially prepares the ground for an oligarchical system of government.

However, there ARE some benefits to such systems, and if the proper mechanisms are installed, the disadvantages can for the most part be circumvented.

One way, like Mr Weber said, is to hold party primaries to select a party's candidates, instead of leaving that selection process up to the party bosses.

Another way is to hold double-elections - letting voters cast a vote for both a party and a particular candidate, like The Monster explained.

A third way is to have a mixed electoral system, in which half of the seats are contested in electoral districts, on a first-past-the-post basis (as they do in the US and UK) and the other half on a party-list system. In such a system, if for instance 20 seats in the Imperial Parliament are reserved for Montana, half will be filled by way of electoral districts. Should the Montana Radical Ranchers receive 40% of the vote, but win only 3 of the 10 electoral districts, that'd mean that the MRR will be entitled to 5 of the party-list seats, so that its TOTAL number of seats reflect its proportion of the final vote tally. If, however, the MRR wins 6 of the electoral districts, it only gets 2 of the party-list seats.

That way, at least, half of the parliamentary seats are directly accountable to the electorate.

All kinds of permutations are possible, some more practicable than others, but at the end of the day, none really completely eradicate the potential for political power to become monopolised by party bosses.

A first-past-the-post electoral district system has its own disadvantages, but at least it ensures that parliamentarians will always remain accountable to the electorate.

Daryl wrote:Our system has two houses. The lower house is comprised of directly elected representatives from defined districts (I believe somewhat similar to US congress). The Prime Minister is appointed from the ranks of the biggest party in this house, and has some of the attributes of a President. The Queen of England through a Governor General is technically our head of state, but has very little true power.

The Senate or upper house has 12 representatives from each of 6 states, and 2 each from 2 territories. By a complicated preferential formulae this leads to the election of a small but pivotal number of independent or small party senators, along with the two main parties. At the moment a ragged few hold the balance of power so we expect an interesting political time ahead.

Fortunately the Courts (under the Westminster System) and the federal bureaucracy are able to exert a moderating influence on the nutters we elect so they can't generally do too much harm.

Australia? Yes, your lower house is elected in precisely the same manner as the US House of Representatives. One thing I don't know, do you have a constitutional provision for popular plebiscites (referenda)?

hanuman wrote:

Daryl wrote:Our system has two houses. The lower house is comprised of directly elected representatives from defined districts (I believe somewhat similar to US congress). The Prime Minister is appointed from the ranks of the biggest party in this house, and has some of the attributes of a President. The Queen of England through a Governor General is technically our head of state, but has very little true power.

The Senate or upper house has 12 representatives from each of 6 states, and 2 each from 2 territories. By a complicated preferential formulae this leads to the election of a small but pivotal number of independent or small party senators, along with the two main parties. At the moment a ragged few hold the balance of power so we expect an interesting political time ahead.

Fortunately the Courts (under the Westminster System) and the federal bureaucracy are able to exert a moderating influence on the nutters we elect so they can't generally do too much harm.

Australia? Yes, your lower house is elected in precisely the same manner as the US House of Representatives. One thing I don't know, do you have a constitutional provision for popular plebiscites (referenda)?

A referendum is held only during general elections (triennially) and only address changes to the constitution. This does not occur at every election and is in fact quite rare. The most recent one was over a decade ago and asked the electorate whether Australia should become a republic (rather than a constitutional monarchy) with a government appointed head of state, Australia said no.

BobfromSydney wrote:

hanuman wrote:Australia? Yes, your lower house is elected in precisely the same manner as the US House of Representatives. One thing I don't know, do you have a constitutional provision for popular plebiscites (referenda)?

A referendum is held only during general elections (triennially) and only address changes to the constitution. This does not occur at every election and is in fact quite rare. The most recent one was over a decade ago and asked the electorate whether Australia should become a republic (rather than a constitutional monarchy) with a government appointed head of state, Australia said no.

I remember that one. Can't remember the margin, though.

Hah, one of the proposals during our constitutional negotiations in 1993/94 was to establish a Malaysia-style constitutional monarchy, with a Council of Kings consisting of all our indigenous peoples' rulers. Each would assume the throne for a year long, on a rotational basis.

There were three main objections to such a system. First, no one could agree on exactly WHAT constituted a ruling monarch. Second, although we have only nine major indigenous languages, we have around a hundred or so distinct indigenous peoples. And third, the Afrikaners, Anglo-Africans, various Coloured (mixed race) and Asian groups would have been excluded.

It was finally decided to retain our republican system, but to establish a House of Traditional Leaders, in which all the leaders of our various indigenous peoples would be seated - kind of like the British House of Lords before the recent reforms, except that instead of being a formal House of Parliament it'd be a separate body outside of Parliament. It was given an advisory function only, to advise both the Government and Parliament on cultural matters pertaining to the indigenous peoples.

IN the talbott quadrant, there is an empty habitable planet that needs some advanced bio technologies to properly colonise. We know the quadrant have a very high population, do any of hte planets have over population, with imperial backing, people from with in the empire could immigrate to this planet and creat a new home. SInce it is in the same system as anoth inhabited planet, it would be easy to develop. It would help with any over population as well as act as a place to draw new comers. as well as unify the local region.

SYED wrote:IN the talbott quadrant, there is an empty habitable planet that needs some advanced bio technologies to properly colonise. We know the quadrant have a very high population, do any of hte planets have over population, with imperial backing, people from with in the empire could immigrate to this planet and creat a new home. SInce it is in the same system as anoth inhabited planet, it would be easy to develop. It would help with any over population as well as act as a place to draw new comers. as well as unify the local region.

Basilica officially belongs to the Nuncio system government - it will have to approve any move to open the planet up for colonisation. However, Nuncio itself has a very low population, while most of the others have populations that fall well short of the two billion mark, if I remember correctly. There's still LOTS of space for population growth on the already inhabited worlds.

Basilica's attraction is its near-perfect physical beauty.

We do have a provision for referenda, but in the Federal sphere it is usually used for proposed constitutional changes, and quite rarely at that.
In the state sphere it has been used for things like Daylight Saving (lost by a small margin in our state).

The federal referendum on a Republic was quite close, but the conservative government of the day only gave us a choice between an unpopular republic version and the status quo. If held now the Republic position would probably have lost popularity, because of the tabloid media (TV, women's magazines, and Murdock papers) obsession with the younger generation of UK royals. Some truth in "You get the government you deserve".

hanuman wrote:

Daryl wrote:Our system has two houses. The lower house is comprised of directly elected representatives from defined districts (I believe somewhat similar to US congress). The Prime Minister is appointed from the ranks of the biggest party in this house, and has some of the attributes of a President. The Queen of England through a Governor General is technically our head of state, but has very little true power.

The Senate or upper house has 12 representatives from each of 6 states, and 2 each from 2 territories. By a complicated preferential formulae this leads to the election of a small but pivotal number of independent or small party senators, along with the two main parties. At the moment a ragged few hold the balance of power so we expect an interesting political time ahead.

Fortunately the Courts (under the Westminster System) and the federal bureaucracy are able to exert a moderating influence on the nutters we elect so they can't generally do too much harm.

Australia? Yes, your lower house is elected in precisely the same manner as the US House of Representatives. One thing I don't know, do you have a constitutional provision for popular plebiscites (referenda)?

Daryl wrote:We do have a provision for referenda, but in the Federal sphere it is usually used for proposed constitutional changes, and quite rarely at that.
In the state sphere it has been used for things like Daylight Saving (lost by a small margin in our state).

The federal referendum on a Republic was quite close, but the conservative government of the day only gave us a choice between an unpopular republic version and the status quo. If held now the Republic position would probably have lost popularity, because of the tabloid media (TV, women's magazines, and Murdock papers) obsession with the younger generation of UK royals. Some truth in "You get the government you deserve".

I do like Australia's requirement that every citizen who qualifies must vote, or be fined if they do not. It ensures that everyone is involved in the political process. That way no one gets away with saying that it isn't THEIR government...

Daryl wrote:The Queen of England through a Governor General is technically our head of state, but has very little true power.

As long as we're being technical about it, there hasn't been a "Queen of England" since Anne (who was also the first "Queen of Great Britain"). There is no more a "Queen of England" or "Queen of Scotland" than there is a "President of New York". or "President of Missouri" (where he happens to be at the moment I type this).



Elizabeth II is your head of state in her role as "Queen of Australia", which is technically not the same thing as "Queen of the United Kingdom", "Queen of New Zealand", "Queen of Canada", "Queen of Jamaica" etc. even though as a practical matter the same person holds all of those titles.

I do believe there has been a time or two that her Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia has taken more than ceremonial role. Kerr's dismissal of the government in '75 comes to mind.

In Honorverse terms, the head of state of the duchy of Harrington on Gryphon happens to be the same person as the head of state of Harrington Steading on Grayson, and the first four names in their respective lines of succession are the same (I beleve if something were to happen to Raul, Katherine, Faith, and James, Sarah would inherit the Manticoran title, but the Grayson title would escheat to the Sword). But they're not the same title, and unless Grayson were to join the Star Empire, there is no possibility that they could be combined into a single title.