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Location: Government Reform
Discussion: Specialisation within the Legislative branch of Government
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quagga |
Specialisation within the Legislative branch of Government
Apr 5 2008, 11:26 PM EDT
My idea is to split the Federal House of Representatives into two sub-houses. One is the "money" house, the other the "moral" house. The money house is responsible for taxation, federal spending (eg: welfare, health, military, federal public infrastructure, etc.), IR, corporations, banking, trade, etc. The moral house is responsible for citizenship, marriage, human rights, personal property rights, general federal crimes (eg: treason), general international treaties and relations (it could override money house trade agreements on human rights grounds), etc. A voter votes for a candidate for each sub-house at election time. Implementing this gives the voter more power and control by way of increased choice. It also allows for specialisation of politicians due to the new division of labour. A moral house law overrides a money-house law for issues where the two houses share powers/powers overlap and they produce conflicting laws. Though the money house should be allowed to embrace and extend the spirit of the moral house law when creating law relevant to its responsibilities in areas of shared power. The judicial system resolves questions of conflict of shared powers. We could introduce a similar split into the lower state houses also: eg, at the state level- the moral house could pass legislation controlling which sort of medical procedures maybe performed (eg: euthanasia) while the money house would build and maintain the public hospitals. In conclusion I would like to point out that the other branches of government are already specialised. The judicial system at both the federal and state level is split into different courts each with their distinct area of responsibility and the executive at both levels is split into many different departments. I believe that if we likewise allow for specialisation by splitting the legislative branch it would positively advance government in Australia. 4 out of 6 found this valuable. Do you? |
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