The Difference Between Senate and House of Representatives
When you stone up to the polling station on election day, yous'll get two ballot papers. The big, white i is for the Senate, and the smaller green one is for the Business firm of Representatives.
But why do we have both, and what practise they practice?
In short, having ii houses of Parliament means that 1 chamber doesn't get too large for its boots.
The House of Representatives - or Lower House - is the House of government. That means that the political party or formal coalition with the most seats at that place becomes the ruling party. (At the moment - that'south the Coalition, which is led by Scott Morrison equally the Prime number Minister).
If a party or coalition gets 76 or more seats out of a possible 150 (increasing to 151 - only nosotros'll get to that before long) after a federal election then they go to course regime.
If they've got the numbers, they telephone call the shots.
The Firm is where most legislation - called bills - originates before condign law. Merely bills have to go through both houses of Parliament before they get law.
So once a bill is approved by the Firm of Reps, it and so moves to the Senate for farther debate and give-and-take. If the bulk of Senators are absurd with the bill, they'll corroborate information technology, and information technology becomes law.
And we haven't had the aforementioned political party ruling both the Senate and the Firm of Reps since 2004. In fact, that's only happened twice in the last 40 years.
So it's no wonder that governments can often crack the sh*ts with the Senate.
The Senate was intended to be a house of review, a way of keeping the government that commonly controls the House of Reps in check.
The Business firm of Representatives
The Senate
Who practice they represent?
Members in the Firm of Reps represent a geographic area - also known as electorates, or seats - fabricated up of roughly 100,000 voters each.
The electorates match up with our population spread.
And so New Due south Wales has 47 seats while the Northern Territory has only 2.
At the moment there are 150 members of the House of Reps. But that's going to increase by one seat in the 2022 federal election.
That'due south to reverberate an increase in Australia's population overall.
South Australia will lose a seat - due to its shrinking population - while both Victoria and the ACT will each gain a seat.
The Senate, or Upper Business firm, represents states or territories.
So if y'all're a New South Wales voter, you lot're voting for the same candidates whether you lot're in Byron or Batemans Bay.
Dissimilar the House, the number of Senators are spread equally across states, regardless of their populations. There'due south 12 each in united states, and 2 each in the territories, taking us to 76 in total.
Which gives the less populated states an edge, because to be elected a senator, you lot need roughly fourteen per cent of the vote. Xiv per cent of Tasmania's population is a damn sight smaller than 14 per cent of Victoria'due south.
Why are there so many weirdos in the Senate?
You've probably noticed that there are a lot of independents and small parties - that is - not the large ii - in Senate.
And you might be wondering why.
It's got to do with how nosotros vote in the Senate - a organisation called proportional voting.
Under this organization, when a candidate hits the required quota to go them elected, all subsequent votes go to either whoever the candidate has preferenced, or who you equally a voter has marked as your 2d-in-line.
That redistribution keeps going until other candidates hit the limit for their quota.
Independents and smaller parties, who may not have the star power to hit a quota on their own, are unremarkably elected on the preferences of voters who gave their first vote to another candidate.
Voters can vote above the line, which means they pick their favourite party and let the political party gild the candidates how they please. Or they can vote below the line, where they tin choose whatsoever candidate in whatever order they similar.
Voting beneath the line is pretty time consuming, and it'south no surprise that veeeery few voters cull that pick - only around four per cent. Only voting below the line is the best fashion to ensure that your votes go to the candidates you prefer.
A layman's example of the Houses in activeness
Nevertheless non quite getting how the Houses work? Here's a hypothetical scenario.
Let's say someone in the Firm of Representatives wants to make afternoon naps mandatory for everyone in every Australian workplace.
They introduce a beak in the House of Reps saying why they remember it'southward a skillful idea.
They contend the pros and cons for a bit, but eventually everyone there votes on it - and, hooray - the majority of MPs at that place retrieve it'due south a great idea too. Information technology gets the tick from the Business firm of Reps.
Just before napping becomes a workplace policy, that bill has to be approved by the other people in the Upper House, the Senate.
The Senators take a wait at the nib. They debate the pros and cons - what nigh people who can't feasibly nap on the job, like an ambulance driver? What about the loss in productivity? How long should a nap be? - and eventually they vote on it.
If a majority of Senators concord that it's a good idea, then the neb becomes law.
If a bulk don't, and have some concerns most how the napping law will work, they send it back to the Firm of Reps.
There they might change the original pecker a bit - with a clause, for example, saying that emergency service workers don't have to take a nap, but won't be punished if they're able to take a nap between jobs.
After that'southward approved in the House of Reps, it goes back (over again!) to the Senate with the new change nosotros just mentioned.
If the Senators concur it'south now all good to go, they'll vote on it, and if the majority of Senators approve it, the pecker volition become police force.
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/whats-the-difference-between-the-senate-and-house-of-represent/11054642
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