The Feds

Today, we did a tour of the Australian Parliament ... 45 minutes and not bad, it focused on how Australia came to be, and didn't get into government structure (unfortunately, but, I knew that in advance).

Australia united six former colonies (?) in 1901, following referendums in each. These are the present day states of New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, Southern Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania. There is also one large territory (Northern Territory) and the Australian Capital Territory, which consists only of the city of Canberra. Among Australia's few flaws, one might add: low effort in naming states.

Slightly interestingly, referendums were a pro-federation landslide in all except New South Wales (which includes Sydney), where it passed 51 / 49. The one in Western Australia was done a year after the others.

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All this got me thinking about Canada - sorry, I didn't know this, but in case you didn't either: well, I did know that central Canada and most of the Maritimes came together first, and that Newfoundland joined almost in my lifetime. I didn't know that MA and BC joined within a few years, but it was 30+ years before AB and SK split off from originally being part of the NWT to become their own provinces.

Also, BC was at one point called "The United Colony of BC" referring to it being a coming together of originally separate colonies on Vancouver Island and the mainland.

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As for government operations, though not covered by the tour, from reading exhibits, I gather that it is similar to Canada, with one major difference being: the Senate is not a rubber-stamping money sink. They can and do defeat bills.

There is a procedure for handling the case of bills being passed in the house but defeated in the Senate: ultimately, this would trigger a new election, and this has happened 7x.

If, following a new election, the same conflict exists, then, a "joint sitting" of both houses votes as a group This has only happened once (the bills in question passed).

I guess this is their equivalent of our non-confidence system. I don't know enough to have an opinion, other than having a Senate that's not useless seems like a good thing.

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