UPPER HOUSE REFORM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17028, 13 August 1929, Page 10

UPPER HOUSE REFORM

TASK IN N.S.W. MANY CAUSES OF DELAY SYDNEY, August 1. The State Government is beginning to wake up to the. fact that it is not so easy to reform the Legislative Council as it looks, even with a big .sprinkling iu that iiQminec chamber of Labor men who are supposed to be there largely for the purpose of giving the Upper House the coup-de-gracc when' the time is felt to be ripe. The trouble is that, when it cornea to the pinch, few politicians want io surrender life nominee seats in the aristocratic chamber of review for the alternative, under elective reform, of having to go out and fight an election if they want to .retain their places. The Government is faced with three obstacles to reform. The first is the Legiaaltive Assembly. If the Legislative Council electors are to be the same as for the Legislative Assembly, it will mean simply the creation of a second machine-like party House, as in the case of the Senate. Again, the Legislative Council itself is hardly likely to agree to a reform that will toss its members, out into the cold world. Then there has to bo a referendum of the people on the question of Upper House reform, and it is not improbable that this would be negatived Avith the Labor Party swinging its weight against the Government's methods o,f reform, as distinguished 'from Labor's policy of straight-out abolition. .■