News item: Senator’s complaint of cold Camembert accidentally sums up Senate Problems
If poor execution, poor judgment, adopting an attitude of entitlement were just cause to dismember an arm of government, then we would have no municipal council, no provincial legislature, no federal house of commons, no head of state.
Rather, we use these reasons to remove a governing party and replace it with another. To use these arguments to justify removing an institution is to create a void and instil chaos.
So to exploit the complaint of expensing a breakfast rather than accepting a free offering of cold Camembert and broken crackers as a reason to wind down an institution is severely ill considered and ignorant.
In our parliamentary system where a majority government can drive through whatever legislation it wants, and that majority can be got with the support of less than 30% of the voting public (as the participation rate dips below 60%), there needs to be a means to ensure control. To ensure oversight. To define the boundaries of trust. To ensure that if attempts are made to execute some radical agenda that, at a minimum, it is brought to light.
While governments may complain about inefficiency, bureaucracy of an upper house, unelected membership, etc. these are diversions from the real concern of placing limitations on a free hand. Suck it up. It is the people’s right to define the controls, not the governments to remove them. Controls are a part of our system that have evolved since Magna Carta, and earlier where the 10th Century Anglo-Saxon King Edgar swore an oath to uphold a Charter of Liberties as part of his coronation. Controls have been put in place to address the missteps of governments. If we could trust a government to do the right thing there would be no need for institutionalized controls like a constitution, a bills of rights, a senate.
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