Despite increasing numbers of women entering federal politics, female MPs have failed to drive an agenda of social change in the Australian Parliament. This conclusion has been reached through a study of 13 male and 15 female current federal MPs, whose views were sought on their own experiences in parliament, and the way in which...

June Verrier argues that the decision to grant MPs an extra staff member is a boost to the incumbency benefits enjoyed by sitting members. Parliament will function better if resources are diverted from support for incumbents' campaigns towards areas of benefit to the parliament as a whole, such as parliamentary research services.

This paper briefly describes the administrative framework supporting the Parliament of Australia, and also its current financial arrangements. A review of the funding arrangements which exist in other comparable legislatures suggests an avenue of reform for the Parliament’s administrative and budgetary arrangements to strengthen the independence of the Parliament.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 introduced some of the most dramatic changes yet proposed to the Act but for the most part they slipped under the radar of media and public scrutiny. Belatedly, the media paid the Bill some attention and activist organisations GetUp and ANTaR ensured a last-minute flurry of...

One of the major concerns about a parliament controlled by the Executive is that the passage of legislation is poorly scrutinised in a process that has commonly been equated with the functioning of a sausage machine writes Liz Young.