The Role Of Veto Players In Australia's Veto System

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Australia is a bicameral federation Parliamentary democracy. Power is divided between the Commonwealth federal government and the six state governments. The Federal Parliament, or the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, is the legislative branch. The Queen (represented by the Governor-General), the Senate (Upper House) and the House of Representatives (Lower House) make up the Federal Parliament. The Federal Parliament includes two separate chambers: The House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate represent the six States and the two self-governing Territories while the members of the House represent electoral divisions according to population. The House of Representatives consists of 150 members, each elected from single member …show more content…

Veto players are individual or collective decision makers whose agreement is required for the change of the status quo. Some of these veto players are established through the constitution, they are referred to as institutional veto players. Others, referred to as partisan veto players, are established not by the constitution but by how the political competition plays out. Within the federal government, Australia has 3 institutional veto players, the Governor General, and the two houses. Once you incorporate the partisan veto players you have the potential to reach a total of ~six veto players due to the coalition government and the multiple parties within the senate. (See Fig 1) The veto player theory tells us that countries which have “many veto players with conflicting policy preferences are likely to be characterized by greater policy stability, smaller shifts in policy, less variation in the size of policy shifts, and weaker agenda-setting powers’. Policy stability sounds nice but when a country needs to stay flexible and grow their policies, this stability equals …show more content…

In the past century only eight proposals, out of forty-four, have been approved in referenda. Providing some insight into how difficult it is to make constitutional changes. The Australia Report, created by Sustainable Government Indicators (SGI), states that Majoritarian Pros: A majoritarian electoral system tends to provide good clarity of responsibility as well as providing high accountability. A majoritarian system will create fewer parties and allow voters to vote in parties whom they feel will be the most responsive to their needs while having more confidence that the elected official will be able to accomplish those goals. If the officials do not accomplish those goals the voters can vote the party out during the next election cycle. Majoritarian Cons: With the majority election system, small parties have no chance to win a mandate. Less representative. Proportional Representative Pros: PR systems allow more representation with in the government allowing smaller interest parties to have a say in the

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