Abolish the Upper House

Inevitably at State Election time the red herring is dropped across the issues....abolish the Legisaltive Council... I am generally in favour of this move. Even though in other articles I have argued that the House of Review is important (see here). My point in that discussion is really that there should be an independent voice, which has often been the Greens, the Democrats, the No Pokies MP, or the Independent.
This voice holding government to account has been principally heard in the Upper Houses of our Parliaments but does not necessarily need to be so. If an independent voice can be heard in a single chamber Parliament then that would suffice. I want the two major parties to do more than just Whip the numbers into shape, I want them to justify their case and to work with those who represent minorities and who may hold the balance. If they don't do that then whole sectors of our population are, in reality, disenfranchised.

I actually think that an Upper House in the South Australian State Parliament is complete overkill, and expensive. If we compare it, say, with English regional or County Council government whcih are often much larger than any of the Australian State Governments they survive on only one elected tier.
But I value the voice of the independent. I like the way that the Democrats held the Federal and State governments to account. I think South Australias No Pokies MLC, Nick Xenophon, has been extraordinarily good value.
While I would happily abolish the Upper House, I would only do so on the proviso that independents can compete on a level playing field with the bully boy Liberal and Labor parties. For example proportional representation like perhaps the Hare Clark system (see what happens in the ACT) Thus if Labor get 45% of the votes and Liberal 45% we still have 10% of the seats going to some group other than them.
More often than note this is what the community wants.
Though one party may get more than 50% party preferred they seldomly get an absolute majority. This means that for most governments on the raw vote more than half the electorate don't want them to be the government!!!
There is something about requiring such minority governments to struggle with independents to get their legislation through as a fairer way of dealing with the whole electorate.
Labor and Liberal hate this.....but we the voting public should demand proper and accurate representation.