Queensland’s quandary

To reintroduce a Legislative Council

Bibliographic Data

ID21684801
AuthorsPaul D Williams (0000-0002-9716-1294, Griffith University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume29
Issue1
Pages36-48
Publication date2022-12-26
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueQueensland Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1321-8166 • E-ISSN: 2049-7792
PublisherEquinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1558/qre.23431
OpenAlexW4312217860
LanguageEN
References cited18

Just as Queensland commemorated the centenary anniversary of the abolition of the state’s Legislative Council, the Labor government under Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a ‘strong’ leader during the contemporaneous COVID-19 pandemic, found itself embroiled in the most serious integrity quagmire of its seven-year history. Given Queensland’s long history of ‘strong’ – even autocratic – political leadership and compromised government integrity, this article posits three arguments: that the abolition of the Legislative Council and a century of political excess in Queensland since 1922 are broadly related; that legislation in Queensland remains largely ‘executive-made’ and not ‘parliament-made’ law; and that the presence of a democratically elected Legislative Council after 1922 would have mitigated if not prevented much of Queensland’s political excess over the past one hundred years. The article also offers a model for a reintroduced Legislative Council that, given electoral distaste for ‘more politicians’, is unlikely to be approved at referendum

Autocracy · Democracy · Legislation · Legislative assembly · Legislature · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Referendum · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Law · Political Systems and Governance · Public Administration

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