The disputes over line items of of the Budget are becoming an annual event. Gone are the days when the Opposition formally moved a $1 amendment to the Budget and the thing went through the Parliament. Now, Democrats, Greens and the Opposition in the Senate actively vote down key revenue items. They rarely, if ever, vote down expenditure items. The exercise is tainted with opoprtunism and populism and goes beyond the function of the Senate both as a states House or as a legislature and, it could be argued, goes against the spirit of the Constitution if not against the legal interpretation of the words.
As an issue quite separate from the Republic, the question of the powers of the Senate needs looking at. Twenty years after the events of 1975, the question can be looked at with more reason and less passion. There is no need for Liberals to argue for greater powers and for Labor people to argue for lesser powers. Rather the matter should be visited again on first principles. The spirit of the Constitution is to create government on the floor of the House or Representatives and for the Government through that House to be able to raise and spend money. It denies the Senate the power to originate or amend money Bills.
The Founding Fathers foresaw the American trick of Governments tacking on non-money matters to money Bills to stymie the Senate. The Constitution reflects that by insisting tax bills deal only with tax and that separate taxes are dealt with in separate Bills. They foresaw the trick of the Senate amending money Bills almost out of existence. But they could not have foreseen the events in Britain in 1911 when the House of Lords rejected a money Bill outright. If those events had occurred before the Australian Constitution had been drafted, no doubt the Senate would have been specifically precluded from rejecting money Bills.
It has been unsuccessfully argued that the prohibition on amendment embraces a prohibition on rejection. Because of that Australia has a very unsatisfactory constitutional imbalance.
It means that the Senate can deny appropriation of money for the ordinary services of government as in 1975 and it means (quite separately, as John Howard has pointed out) that the Senate can reject one-line new tax measures (which the Government has to present as separate Bills).
On the other hand, under recent interpretations of the Constitution, the Government can increase or decrease a raft of different existing taxes in a single Bill _ meaning the Senate has to accept or reject them all.
The attack on Government revenue measures in recent days will prevent the Government from implementing its fiscal policy fully. Revenue, spending and fiscal matters are matters of an Executive nature. They should reside with the Executive and not be subject to the Senate which is, or should be, essentially a legislative House _ mainly of review but with some role of legislative initiative.