1. Summary of Evaluation A Report Card on the 2 Houses

2. The Legislative Function HOUSE Very efficient at passing bills Poor at scrutiny of legislation Cabinet dominated agenda of bills Private Members Bill rarely succeed SENATE Better at deliberation and scrutiny Effective legislative committee structure Proposes amendments and refines bills

3. The Representative Function HOUSE Members are partisans, occasionally delegates and trustees. Limited time to present electorate concerns Strong link between member and electorate Strong bias towards middle class professional men & farmers Avoids malapportionment SENATE Most senators are partisans but some minor parties don’t enforce the party line. Independents are free agents More opinions represented Senators lack close connection to electorate Better at expressing community diversity Suffers serious malapportionment

4. The Responsibility Function HOUSE Poor at holding the executive to account Motions of no confidence, censure motions, questions etc are all defeated or rendered ineffective by executive dominance and party discipline SENATE Not supposed to have a responsibility function but has evolved an unofficial defacto one following 1975 Controversial when acting in this way Inquiries & reference committees scrutinise executive action

5. The Debate Function HOUSE Limited opportunity for debate due to time constraints Gag and guillotine are used to shut down debate More that half of the session time is government business Government controls the Standing Orders and interprets them to suit itself SENATE Much better at the debate function Wider variety of viewpoints expressed No gag, guillotine etc Less emphasis on the “party line” Question Time more effective Committees are excellent at promoting debate

6. HOUSESENATE LEGISLATIVENeeds to try harder. Must not rush through the work and needs to spend time studying before finishing legislation. One good point, a lot of work is completed in a short time. A good result. Has shown perseverance and attention to detail when faced with complex legislation. REPRESENTATIVESome good points but let down by poor behaviour by the parties. Needs to develop new ways of listening. Has shown great improvement and achieved a generally satisfactory result but there remain some difficulties caused by a representative problem that cannot be remedied. RESPONSIBILITYFail. Only wholesale revision will change this result Does a reasonable job at something that it was never supposed to do. Needs to be careful when exercising. DEBATELimited achievement. Has made some progress but need to develop the skill of letting others speak without cutting them off. Generally sound. Allows people to have their say and shows tolerance of other’s viewpoints. GENERAL COMMENT Much room for improvement. Needs to change its behaviour to reach a satisfactory standard. The best result is the efficiency of the legislative process. Most other areas need serious attention if the House is to behave like an “ideal” lower house. Has shown some potential for improvement. Initially suffering an identity crisis and very poor performance, the Senate, after discovering itself, has made much solid progress. Improvements have been noted in all areas, even some surprises are evident as the Senate takes on roles it wasn’t intended to have. It has proven to be very adaptable. Still suffers from a serious character flaw in representativeness. Future is uncertain. REPORT CARD