Australian Parliament a Law Maker Has No Major Faults

Parliament is the national representative body which has supreme legislative powers within its jurisdiction. While it oversees the completion of a number of other tasks parliaments’ main role is undoubtedly to make and pass laws and it has to be said that it achieves this role efficiently. Parliament and the members of parliament are elected solely by the people and are therefore responsible to the voting public. When passing laws parliament has the ability to, as part of its law making process obtain expert opinion with regards to tough and controversial issues. This process of law making is a completely structured procedure which follows a routine series of stages whenever a piece of legislation is proposed. These factors amongst others all contribute to the effective and efficient law making system that parliament is. While like any other structured organisation parliament has a number of weaknesses and faults these are minor and have very little effect on parliament as a law-making institution.

The main role of parliament is to introduce, debate and put into practice laws that are for the greater good of society. Law making is not a sub-role or something that parliament focuses only a small amount of its attention on it is the sole purpose of its existence. To have a national organisation the size and strength of parliament that focuses solely on law making is one of its main strengths as a law making institution. However parliament is not always sitting and it could be said that this causes a delay in parliament’s ability to react to issues that require changes to the law. If there was a law that it became clear required urgent attention parliament may have to wait a number of weeks for a scheduled sitting date before this issue could be discussed and any changes to the law be made. Parliament is elected by the people and is consequently responsible to the voting public; this is strength of it as a law making institution.

Two of the most important principles of our parliamentary system are those of responsible and representative government. Representative government states that all members of parliament must be voted in democratically by the public to represent them and their views/opinions. Responsible government states that all elected ministers are totally responsible for the actions to the voting public. These two principles, in theory ensure that any laws that are passed by parliament are representative of the views of the community. This community support of the laws made by parliament greatly increases the likelihood that the laws will be accepted and adhered to which are two of the main factors determining an effective law. If these principles were not followed it would make it possible for parliament to pass laws which the majority of society did not support and more than likely would not adhere to. However having elected members deciding what laws are to be enforced does have a few possible downfalls. When voting, not all people will consider which candidate has the best ability to make relevant and good laws for society. This can and often does result in members being elected despite the fact that their ability to make good and relevant laws is less than that of some of their opponents. Another downfall of representative government is that public opinion on certain controversial issues is often divided, which causes a delay in the law making process due to the need for public debate to take place before a law can be passed. An example of this is the passing of the Statute Law Amendments (relationships) ACT 2001 (equal rights for same sex couples) a great deal of public debate was required before this act could be modified as public opinion was extremely varied and a lot of people were undecided about what should be done. This slowed down the process resulting in the act taking a significant amount of time to pass. Where necessary parliament has the ability to consult with experts and those likely to be effected by creation and modification of laws, this increases the efficiency of the parliamentary system.

When dealing with issues that are somewhat controversial or not fully supported by all involved groups and individuals parliament has the ability to consult with experts to gain a better understanding of the issue and what needs to be done about it. To assist parliament on such issues organisations such as the VLRC (Victorian Law Reform Committee) have been