Representation

Athens was a direct democracy, because citizens voted directly on laws and decisions. Australia is so big in both area and population that it would be impossible to govern it in exactly the same way as was done in ancient Athens.

Australia is what is called a representative democracy. This means that, instead of voting directly on each law or decision, we vote for another person to represent us. Instead of every citizen going to the assembly to vote, we send someone else to do it for us.

Remember that in Athens only men could be citizens, and only if they and their parents had been born in Athens. Slaves could not be citizens.

In Australia today people born here are automatically citizens. Adults who have been permanent legal residents for at least two years are entitled to apply for citizenship. If you are an Australian citizen, you have the right and duty to vote to elect people to represent your views.

Australia is one of the very few countries in the world where voting is compulsory.

The Australian Parliament

The assembly in Australia that makes the decisions for the nation - the Australian (or Commonwealth) Parliament - is located in Canberra. The Australian Parliament is divided into two houses:

House of Representatives

Australia is divided into areas called electorates with about 75,000 voters in each. In this way each voter carries equal importance. The candidate who gets the most votes in each electorate becomes the Member of Parliament for that electorate. The government of Australia is always the group that has the most members in the House of Representatives.

Senate

In voting for the Senate, each state, rather than each voter, is counted as equal. Each State elects 12 Senators with the Territories electing two each.

Maps from The House of Representatives and The Senate, The Commonwealth Parliament series, Parliament of Commonwealth of Australia, AGPS, Canberra 1987. Commonwealth of Australia copyright. Reproduced with permission.

Why have two Houses of Parliament?

There are three reasons for having two Houses of Parliament instead of one.

Limiting democracy

You have already seen that some people in ancient Athens did not agree with democracy. In Britain one House of Parliament (called the House of Commons) is democratic, but any new law has to go through another house of parliament (called the House of Lords) which represents an aristocracy. In Australia in the 1800s, some people thought that Australia should develop its own aristocracy.

In the past it was often feared that ordinary people were too stupid to vote for the best people, or that they would be taken in by exaggerated promises, resulting in bad government. One way of controlling the power of ordinary people was to have a second House of Parliament representing only people who owned land. In Australia, until the 1960s, some States continued to have a second House of Parliament representing only people who owned land.

Making sure that small states are not dominated by states with big populations

When the Australian colonies were deciding whether they would agree to join together and become one nation, the colonies with the smaller populations were worried that they would be dominated by the colonies with bigger populations.

This problem was solved by having two Houses of Parliament, with the second House representing the States. This House, as we have seen, is the Senate, where each State has exactly the same number of senators. The two Territories are also represented, but by fewer Senators.

Re-checking new laws

It is often argued that the best reason for having the Senate is to have all proposed laws checked once again to make sure they are good ones.

For any new law to come into force, it must get a majority of votes in both Houses of Parliament.

Direct democracy in Australia

Although Australia is a representative democracy, there are occasions when we use direct democracy. That is, the people are asked directly whether they agree with a proposal for change rather than the decision just being made in a parliament.

Changing the Australian Constitution

When the Australian colonies agreed to join together to form one nation, a constitution was written to set out how the States and the new Commonwealth would be governed. The Constitution sets up the Commonwealth Parliament and the federal courts.

The Constitution can only be changed by a referendum. In Australia a referendum is a process where the parliament proposes a change to the Constitution. The people then vote on the proposal. A majority of voters and a majority of States must agree to the proposal for it to become law. In 1967 the Constitution was amended to include Aboriginal people in the census and to give the Commonwealth Parliament power to legislate on Aboriginal affairs. However, only 8 of 42 referendums have been successful.

State-initiated referendums

Some people say that the States should be able to initiate a referendum to change the Constitution. The suggestion is that the rules would be something like:

• more than half of the State Parliaments would have to agree to the suggested change
• the populations of the States proposing the change would have to be a majority of the Australian population.

If these two conditions were met, the suggested changes would need to go to the Australian people to vote on as a referendum within six months. The argument for this is that the States are an important part of the Commonwealth and should be able to propose changes to the Constitution.

Changing State and Territory constitutions

Each State and Territory has its own constitution. How these are changed depends on the State or Territory. For some changes to constitutions in some States and Territories a referendum may be necessary but in many cases these can be changed by a majority vote in one or both Houses of Parliament.

Asking the people about a particular issue

Direct democracy can also be used in Australia when governments want to ask the people directly their views about an issue which is not a change to the Constitution. This is called a plebiscite. A plebiscite was held in 1977 about the national anthem. Australians were asked to choose between ‘God Save the Queen’, ‘Advance Australia Fair’, ‘Song of Australia’ and ‘Waltzing Matilda’. ‘Advance Australia Fair’ won after preferences were distributed and ‘Waltzing Matilda’ came second.

Citizen-initiated referendums

We cannot all go down to the local town centre as the ancient Athenians did. Our nations and our states are too big for that. Citizen-initiated referendum is one way for citizens to have a direct say in government decisions where there are large populations. Two of the things citizen-initiated referendum can do are:

• allow citizens to propose a new law
• allow citizens to vote against laws passed by parliament.

Some countries that have citizen-initiated referendum have one of the above and others have both.

Citizen-initiated referendum in three countries

Switzerland

The Swiss have had citizen-initiated referendum for over 100 years and in that time have voted on more than 300 issues. In 1977 the people rejected a proposal by the government for a new kind of tax. In 1984 they rejected another government proposal to reduce the working week from 42 hours to 38 hours.

United States

In the United States many states have some form of citizen-initiated referendum. In California during the 1990 elections, voters had to deal with a ballot paper with 20 referendum questions and 144 pages containing arguments for and against each referendum proposal.

In the 1960s the Californian government passed a law that real estate agents and owners of apartment houses could not use racial discrimination against people who wanted to rent or buy apartments or houses. The real estate agents initiated a referendum to overturn this law so that they could discriminate against people in this way. The real estate agents won.

Four states have voted to bring back the death penalty through referendum. Anti-gun laws have been introduced in several states.

Italy

In Italy the citizens can only initiate a referendum to vote against a law passed by the government. They cannot initiate a referendum to propose a law. In 1991 Italian people voted to remove a law which prohibited divorce.

How citizen-initiated referendum could work

This is how citizen-initiated referendum could work in a state or a nation:

Step 1

Some people in the community want a new law or to remove an existing law. They collect a number of petitions of registered voters and take them to the electoral office (say 1 per cent of voters in a majority of electorates in order to move to the next step).

Step 2

Parliamentary officers prepare a proposed law.

Step 3

The proposed law is debated in the parliament. If the parliament does not pass the proposal, it moves to Step 4.

Step 4

A referendum is held and if a majority of voters in a majority of electorates support the proposal, it becomes law.

Computer voting?

In an age of the televised debate, phone-in casting of votes and computer technology the possibilities for more direct citizen say and involvement in popular debate are certainly here. But some say that there is no way to ensure that people are able to cast their votes in private and without being influenced by other people. So the will or views of all the voters cannot be known by this means.

What other problems might be associated with this? What might the positive aspects be?