UK, Malaysia = Irrelevant Senates?
The recent passing of the VSU laws in the Australian senate here has made me realise something interesting. Nono, its not that Italian pasta sucks (I’ve already found that out recently…), its that the parliamentary systems of both the UK and Malaysia operates based on a ‘winner takes all’ modus operandi. The Senate in both countries are useless, irrelevant things, when you think about it. Heck, I don’t even know how senators are elected in Malaysia! After reading this article on Wikipedia on the UK’s House of Lords, I at least got an idea of how it works there.
Basically, in the UK (and I’m presuming Malaysia works similarly as well, correct me if I’m wrong), senators there are all not elected by the people. They are made up of priests, aristrocrats, judges, and some intellectuals on particular fields. Some posts are passed from father to son (aristocrats), while others are elected by the House. Very weird and uncool…..
So based on this, the UK and Malaysia’s system don’t actually have a true ‘House of Review’ in its Senate to review the legislations passed by the House of Representatives (HoR). Since both Senates can’t block laws (they can only delay them), then what are their use? They seem to be to just be a waste of the taxpayer’s money. The party which won the General Elections in both countries gets to pass whatever they want, without any obstacles. The only obstacle they would face (in this case, only in the UK) is that if they become too arrogant in their usage of their power and piss the voters off, the Opposition party will beat them in the next election.
Australia is very different in this aspect. Although it adopted the British Westminster parliamentary system, it also incorporated a US-style Senate here. The Senators here are all elected by the people. No royalty crap for us here! HoR members represents the people, but Senators represent their states. The Senate here have real power to block legislations from the HoR. Furthermore, it’s very rare for the government of the day to have a majority in the Senate, since senators are elected at a different time from the HoR members. Most of the time it’s controlled by the Opposition. This presents a very good check-and-balance mechanism to the government here. Most of the more ‘extreme’ legislations are forced to be watered down by the Opposition in the Senate before allowing it to be passed. In fact, some laws, such as the recent Industrial Relations Reforms (laws making it easier for employers to fire employees) were fanatically opposed by Labor in the Senate for years before the 04 GE.
After the 04 GE, the Liberals won a majority of the Senate seats for the first time in decades. Thus all of John Howard’s pet laws such as the IR Reforms, VSU laws (laws weakening left-wing student unions in unis), and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ISA, Aussie style) were passed without interference. John Howard must be having wet dreams these days… 
The Senate here works the same way like the US President’s relationship with the Congress. When the President’s party doesn’t have a majority in Congress, that’s where the headache for him starts 
Sure, sometimes the Opposition dominated Senate here can reject legislations just because it can, but most of the time they’re pretty reasonable. So all in all, I think that the Aussie political system is much better than the UK’s or Malaysia’s.
Which reminds me, so how are the senators in Malaysia elected again?
