Corrections to the blogosphere, the consensus, and the world

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Brexit


It’s said that Britain has spoken, and the will of the nation must be respected. It’s a convincing argument, but nobody in Australia has the right to make it.  When we have a referendum it has to win both a majority of votes and a majority of states. If the Oz rules applied over there, Scotland and Northern Ireland would have had a veto. If the Pommy rules applied here 5 additional referenda would have passed, and the government would have powers over aviation (1937), marketing (1946), and industrial employment (1946), and senate terms would always be in step with the house ((simultaneous elections, 77; terms of senate, 1984).  Reluctantly, I have to think better of the Australian constitution. We may have peculiar Senate terms, but we're not going to Brex all over the living-room carpet.

1 comment:

Adelaide Dupont said...

No, Australia is not.

As it stands we've only had the one successful plebiscite and that was over the National Anthem.

People will be asking about plebiscites soon too.

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