The Queensland Government
Queensland is the only state without an Upper House of Review, or Legislative Council. In every state, the upper house is elected on a proportional representative basis, giving the electorate better representation.
Queensland lost its Legislative Council in 1921, when, after many years in opposition, the Labor Party stacked it with its own appointees (it was not an elected body) and it voted itself out of existence.
Scholars and political commentators have argued that the abuses of the Bjelke-Petersen regime (1968–1987) in Queensland were only possible because of the absence of an upper house, and that the problem was not the Council itself but its existence as a nominated rather than elected body.
Since 2012, there has been support from various politicians for the reintroduction of the Legislative Council, including several independents (MPs Peter Wellington and Liz Cunningham), the Queensland Greens (Federal Greens Senator Larissa Waters), One Nation (leader Pauline Hanson and MP Stephen Andrew), who believe that both constituents and political parties would benefit with fairer representation. However, when in office LNP Premier Campbell Newman and Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk both publicly rejected the proposal. On 11 May 2021, a petition was tabled in parliament sponsored by Member for Mirani Stephen Andrew requesting a referendum be held on the issue of reinstating the Legislative Council. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk rejected the proposal again. Neither major party currently supports the reintroduction of an upper house. (Wikipedia)
The Quebec Solution
Bipartisan Committees
Not too long ago, a magnanimous Quebecois Premier reformed the province’s parliamentary committee structure to promote greater fairness and bipartisanship in the Quebec government. Committee composition included greater numbers of non-government parties. This resulted in more bipartisan bills being presented to the parliament and, consequently, a higher success rate in being approved.
These reforms are needed in both the Queensland Government and the Brisbane City Council.
The Brisbane City Council
Greater accountability could be brought to the Council by either;
- A small upper house of review, elected on proportional representation.
OR - Introducing multi-member proportional representation to the Assembly.
The Councillors for each Ward are extremely busy and have a growing number of constituents. There is a solid case for increasing the number of representatives.
Both major parties appear to have decided they prefer to only be accountable to the public once every four years and not in between elections.
This will only change when the public demands greater accountability.