Many news sites have now claimed that, in light of today's dramatic Section 44 disqualification of Barnaby Joyce from Parliament by the High Court, the beleagured Turnbull government has now lost its majority.
This is an exciting claim, but it isn't actually correct.
Pending the holding of a by-election for the seat of New England, the government will, when the House of Representatives next sits, hold 75/149 seats, with one vacant. 74 seats will be held by other MPs. 75 is larger than 74. 75 is larger than half of 149. 75 divided by 149 is 0.5033557... . It is more than 0.500000.
The government's new and very temporary position is no different mathematically to that of the Cook Liberal government in 1913, which won 38/75 seats. The Cook government is widely referred to as having had a one-seat majority.
Showing posts with label Canavan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canavan. Show all posts
Friday, October 27, 2017
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
A Free Speech Problem With Marriage Law Survey Safeguards
Advance Summary
1. This article raises concerns about specific "hate speech" prohibitions in the Government's Marriage Law Survey (Additional Safeguards) Bill 2017.
2. This article argues that Sections 15(1)(a) and (b) place unreasonable constraints on free speech by making political opinions attributes that are protected from "vilification", contrary to the normal practice of anti-vilification laws.
3.The ability to express strong criticism of people who present offensive or unfactual opinions serves as an important deterrent against expressing such opinions in the first place.
4. Many aspects of the proposed Sections and the limited exemptions available are insufficiently clear to a lay reader and involve a novel area of Australian anti-discrimination law.
5. Sections 15(1)(a) and (b) should be amended so that they apply only to intimidation and threats and not to "vilification".
6. If this does not occur, then the debate surrounding the postal survey is not an adequately and clearly free and fair environment for the frank exchange of opinions and criticism.
1. This article raises concerns about specific "hate speech" prohibitions in the Government's Marriage Law Survey (Additional Safeguards) Bill 2017.
2. This article argues that Sections 15(1)(a) and (b) place unreasonable constraints on free speech by making political opinions attributes that are protected from "vilification", contrary to the normal practice of anti-vilification laws.
3.The ability to express strong criticism of people who present offensive or unfactual opinions serves as an important deterrent against expressing such opinions in the first place.
4. Many aspects of the proposed Sections and the limited exemptions available are insufficiently clear to a lay reader and involve a novel area of Australian anti-discrimination law.
5. Sections 15(1)(a) and (b) should be amended so that they apply only to intimidation and threats and not to "vilification".
6. If this does not occur, then the debate surrounding the postal survey is not an adequately and clearly free and fair environment for the frank exchange of opinions and criticism.
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
More Section 44 Cases In Spotlight
A very long time ago now two Greens Senators resigned after discovering they were dual citizens. The Senate will refer their cases to the Court of Disputed Returns (typically the High Court) which will determine whether they were eligible to have been elected in the first place and, assuming that they weren't, will initiate a "special count" to fill their places. In the weeks since then, however, many more MPs have come under the spotlight of the dual citizenship rule in Section 44 of the Constitution, and it's unlikely it has claimed its final victim yet.
The Constitution is very black and white about dual citizenships - section 44 says that if you are a citizen of another country, you are not eligible to be chosen or to sit in Parliament. It doesn't seem to allow any ifs or buts about all that. However, the High Court in Sykes v Cleary [1992] found that the Constitution was unrealistic and had to be "read down". After all, if it were that straightforward then another nation could maliciously impose citizenship on Australian MPs and refuse to withdraw it. Alternatively, for a given citizen of a given nation, procedures for getting rid of an unwanted citizenship might be unrealistically expensive, time-consuming, slow, dangerous, unreliable or unreasonable.
The Constitution is very black and white about dual citizenships - section 44 says that if you are a citizen of another country, you are not eligible to be chosen or to sit in Parliament. It doesn't seem to allow any ifs or buts about all that. However, the High Court in Sykes v Cleary [1992] found that the Constitution was unrealistic and had to be "read down". After all, if it were that straightforward then another nation could maliciously impose citizenship on Australian MPs and refuse to withdraw it. Alternatively, for a given citizen of a given nation, procedures for getting rid of an unwanted citizenship might be unrealistically expensive, time-consuming, slow, dangerous, unreliable or unreasonable.
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