UPPER HOUSE REFORM

Hokitika Guardian, 19 October 1929, Page 7

UPPER HOUSE REFORM

NEW SOUTH WALES PROPOSAL. SYDNEY, October 3. Tlie proposal that the two existing Chambers shall elect tiie rirst Legislative Council, under the reform now before the State Parliament appears to represent a workable solution of a di ffl cult problem.

The Government’s aim is to overcome the manifest objections to the Upper House as at present constituted, namely, the nominee system of appointment, which, like kissing, goes by favour; the life tenure of membership, which is equally “farcical; and the liability to “swamping,” of a inch there was much evidence during the hectic reign of the Lang Government.

At the same time, political labels apart, it will be a thousand pities if an elective system of reforip means the passing of such members of the existing Upper House as Professor Peden—chairman, by the way, of the Federal Constitutional Commission— Sir Henry BradcKn, Sir Norman Kater, one of the pillars of the graziers, Mr James Ashton, one of the most brilliant of Australia’s pa.riiamentarians, although he never seeks the plums of office, and keeps in the background a. good deal, Mr-A. M. Heinslcy, well-known in legal circles. Mr William Brooks, and others, not excluding some of the abler of Labour’s nominess.

It is these men who have made the Upner House far superior in brains and debating strength to the Lower, and popularly elected Legislative Assembly. Many of the ablest of the State’s politicians now in the Upper House would, it is safe to say, never secure election.