Andrew Bartlett has an excellent article on Parliamentary Secretaries and what they do;
What the hell does a Parliamentary Secretary do, anyway?
Parliamentary secretaries make up nearly one quarter of the Executive Council in the Howard Government. The benefit for the executive is that they come under executive discipline. This means their legislative voting is in lock-step with the executive (who straddles both executive and legislative in the Australian parliamentary systems).
Andrew writes;
Another aspect worth noting is that Parl Secs are also bound by the convention or principle of Ministerial solidarity. Whilst very few people in the major parties cross the floor anyway these days, if a Parl Sec or Minister were to do so, they would have to resign their position.
This is because Parl Secs are seen as part of the Executive Council (i.e. the Government), as opposed to being just a member of Parliament, so they are required to support a Government decision. This makes it very easy for any Prime Minister to get an issue through their Party Room or Caucus, with 42 of them are already locked into supporting it before they start a debate.
Expanding the size of the executive council is in the government's interest as it increases their power in the legislative.
In a more recent article
Andrew notes the shadow government has Parliamentary Secretaries
too;
I wrote a piece a while ago about Parliamentary Secretaries and what their role is - they can have significant responsibilities (e.g. Malcolm Turnbull's role), but they can also be fairly minor ones. However, I am not really sure what the role of shadow parliamentary secretaries is.
The question needs to be asked, why can't parliamentary secretaries do policy and research work as legislators and recommend it to the executive? Is a Parliamentary Secretary even necessary?
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
