Unique opportunties for parliamentary reforms in Australia

Comments on Graham Bradley “Parliament must focus on reform”, 16/09/2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/parliament-must-focus-on-reform/story-e6frg6zo-1225924277533
The list represents a good wish list from business of the current parliament, although only the last point falls mostly into parliamentary reforms and it is an excellent point.

The current parliament should undertake parliamentary and political reforms that are mostly impossible under the normal partisan approach with one of the main parties being in a dominant position in the lower house.

Those reforms may include election terms to a fixed term, removing preference requirement and whoever has the most votes should be the elected one, government to be formed with most MPs and only 2/3 of MPs' vote of no confidence can change a government to the next most MPs, parliamentary office of budget and policy assessments (Bradley's last point), limiting the federal government's power over the States and ensuring the rights of States not to be eroded by federal government, that is, needs a much higher threshold than a simple majority to take any state rights away from them, and so on.

These sort of reforms will be far reaching and in the long term interests of the nation and businesses.

The taxation summit is likely to be disappointing given the current political environment with the Greens in an important position to move the ALP to the Left even further and reduce efficiency.

Politicians should take the unique opportunities to reform the parliament and national governing mechanisms that will be long lasting but otherwise would be impossible to do.

Bradley’s other reforms can be undertaken under normal governance.