All Australians, including those here today, must be ever vigilant of those who seduce public opinion to erect itself into an inquisition over the rights of conscience. It is incumbent on all who value liberty of conscience for themselves, to resist invasions of it in the case of others or your case, may, by change of circumstance, become theirs.

If I was Thomas Jefferson I could claim responsibility for that quote as coming from a letter to my mate Dr Benjamin Rush. But that quote is relevant to us here in Australia and should be nailed to the door of our Australian Senate before a photocopy is handed to the Senators prior to voting on the impending Cross Media Ownership Laws.

In the world where selling political parties is now like selling brands of bottled water, the contents are indistinct but the packaging is colourful, there has been a democratic devolution that has been exploited by the executive. When the executive calls public debate and associated dissention in the Senate Chamber bad manners it stands to reason that we should be discussing the principle of coram populo. Is a Senator a renegade, a hero or just doing what he or she swore an oath of office that they would do? Who is calling the terms renegade, maverick, etc. and what is their stake in the debate? Where is their disclosing footnote on the commentary?

The so called discussion behind closed doors, as opposed to informed debate in front of the public in the Senate, is no more than a usurping of your democratic right. Closed door discussions with an Australian Senator are the murmur of the usher as she corrals you to the exit. If it is believed by the executive that a more just form of government is one not subject to open and diligent review then this should be proposed to the public as an alternative to the bicameral system of parliament and taken to an election.

We believe that democracy is an indestructible angel; it is our right, a self evident facet of life that will always prevail in Australia. Unfortunately, it can become a perfunctory body diminished by the attack of the pathogens of self interest, greed and manipulation. The disease is invigorated by the innate belief we all have that we are omniscient and that my desires are in your interests. These pathogens are a more basic construct of our society than the minor section on the humanity clock which is democracy.

It is sobering to think that the emerging superpower of China has never been, nor does it show any signs of becoming, a democracy. The Limits of Developmental Autocracy by Min Chin Pay has recently pointed out that an economy growing at near 10% and an exploding middle class does not equal democracy or even inspire it. Russia's cleptocracy is slipping backwards in its democratic process. For many countries in South East Asia democracy is just a foil for vested family interests, an appendage of the same families who control the economies of those countries. Africa is a tale of woe from Cape to Cairo and you can watch the Middle East and your choice of the theocratic state in variant forms on television tonight.

The calibrator of the democratic state is its ability to engage in debate and, by so doing, dissent in a way that is harmless. The more apparent the debate and dissent the more democratic and thereby free is the country, the government, the process or, for that matter, the media or even your marriage. Open discussion and analysis of alternatives is part of the essence of democracy.

Media is the diagnostic tool that tells us whether a democracy is healthy, sick or non existent. Likewise, the more debate and dissent is curtailed and the more harm that is caused by those participating in the debate, and to those participating in the debate, the less democratic and the less free we become. This is the test that should be used when you ask how free is Australia and how democratic and serious about freedom is a political party or a political process? The valued judgement you must make is – Do you value democracy?

If our political process, or for that matter media content, promotes harm to those who dissent then we have arrived at the headwaters that lead away from that small human plateau of true democracy. You should be ever vigilant of those who encourage the trip to sea where that stream will flow and the spurious drivel that is given as an excuse for that journey. Defending democracy is like the pursuit of white ants; small and innocuous at first but if you are not attentive and wait till they find you, then your problem has generally become irretrievable.

The demise of the Senator's roll has come with the inclusion of the executive in the Senate. How can you be an ardent and forensic arbiter of the person who sits in front of you in the chamber of review and beside you at every other lunch? What is even more peculiar is how the Senators who are in the executive can be the directors of an informed debate to flesh out the contrarian views of their own decisions. This would have to be thought of as slightly schizophrenic at best but more likely insincere.

The preselection process of a Senator is failing to catch the imagination and capture new Senators who will fight for more for democracy than for their personal political future. The Damoclesian issue of disendorsement and the laurels of a ministry, committee chair or general bonhomie in the party room override what should be a deeper obligation to our nation, i.e., that you are a Senator not a Member.

The party system is currently corrupted or, at the least, ill informed because the basis of its selection criteria for a Senator is those who are the least likely to fulfil their constitutional role to their fellow Australians. How the preferred candidate is then hidden is that they stand as Mr or Mrs Liberal, or Mr or Mrs Labor, or Mr or Mrs Green. They are made to feel beholden by sections in that party, that their responsibilities to that party are greater than their responsibilities to the Senate and the proper operation of review.

Australia should be selecting a different candidate for the Senate than the candidate they select for the Lower House. You should demand that person perform their duty to represent their state and review and amend legislation in the totality of the function: from the chamber to the committee to public comment, and to produce their best efforts predominantly in the public forums that are built for that purpose and called Parliament.

We should be prepared and invigorated that we would know our Senators by their voting record, not by their capacity to follow what is currently their highest duty: to make it to the chamber within three minutes of the bells ringing and sit as instructed by the Whip.

Independence of the Senate is the case in the United States and democracy appears to be travelling quite well there. They only need two parties because they can rely on their Senators to represent their state in preference to the instruction of the executive. The party system in the Senate should affect the ethos of the Senator but not be the exclusive determinant of the vote and, as I will show later, this is basically the case today.

Australia, when it gets that big white piece of paper, should refuse to vote for Senators who have never given you any reason to believe that they are properly fulfilling their constitutional role as opposed to their parochial political role.

Likewise, a party of any persuasion that disenfranchises Australians by a custom, practice or policy that prohibits Senators from exercising their right to dissent by crossing the floor, speaking their mind or writing an honest appraisal of their view of legislation for a committee report should be voted against in block. If you have good government, those who cross the floor one way will be balanced by those who cross in the other. It would no longer be news worthy and would be the proper reflection of how the Senate Chamber should work.

By defrauding Australians of their Senators’ individual capacity to fulfil their constitutional role we have heightened the theatrics of what happens when a Senator does cross the floor. What is perverse is that both the Government and the Opposition dislikes the affinity this creates between the Senator and the public. Of course, the way to dissolve the profile of dissenting Senators or, for that matter, minor political parties is to accept that your own Senators have more latitude and not be afraid when they exercise it. I can say this openly because I know that they are almost too stubborn to listen but far too stubborn to act.

What all electors must remember is that you can not complain about deceit and your own disenfranchisement in the Senate if you voted for it. The solution is to become involved in a political party and demand change, write to the papers for change, talk to your friends of change and let it be known that you will be voting for those who reflect this change in the Senate based upon their actions, not words, prior to the next election. The way the Senate works, small changes can make a huge difference.

Some would say this sounds like a shot against my own but it is not. The greatest culprit I save that disgrace for is the Labor Party. It is complete hypocrisy for Labor to claim that there is a circumventing of the protection of Australian democracy in the Senate when they are a party who immediately expels any member who dissents in the Senate. They are the doormats of the Lower House, working exclusively and strictly as directed, and now they have unfortunately infected the culture on the conservative side. They have made us swallow the pill that brings a fear in our capacity to be reasonable.

Some of the commentary that surrounded the conscience vote on RU486 shows how far we have fallen. The fact that Senators said, with a straight face, that they had to think about their decision because it was a free vote makes you wonder what they do every other time.

Currently in the Senate there is a position of leverage that is given by the fact that I can rely, almost totally, on other Senators voting as directed. This means that we have a chance, and I stress chance, of advancing the strengthening of the Trade Practices Act which protects small business from big. Hero or villain this should be seen as an honourable outcome.

The Government is currently sitting on its own recommendations: the Brandis provisions of the 2004 Senate Economic References Committee Report. They are the very minimum of what is required to maintain the fundamental right that you all should be endowed with, the right to be the beneficiary of the profits of a small business. You must always have access to the ticket to leave working as a number in a sky scraper and become master of your own ship and its destiny. The purpose of politics is to deliver to you the highest level of freedom that does not impinge on the rights of others. Part of this is your right to avail yourself the path of commercial self determination. The ability for the individual to go into business – to buy goods or services and trade at a profit is a fundamental aspect of that.

With the current cross media ownership laws The Nationals, Queensland have called for a tightening of Section 50 to prevent creeping acquisitions. From radio, TV and newspaper we have called that you can only have an operator owning two out of the three in regional centres. This protects your freedom in the fourth estate, whom you should notice have gone peculiarly quiet on commentary on this issue pertaining to themselves.

The only way you will get these protections is if the Senate extracts the concessions. The only way the Senate will extract the concessions is if the voting pattern is different to the party numbers in the Senate. If the Senate will not attend to these amendments then the only way the Australian People can change the situation is to change the mix in the Senate and I obviously will not be advocating that. The current Senators have to realise that they must be saved from themselves and this is done by acting independently from the Lower House.

The constitutional role of the Senate is different to the Lower House and one only needs to reflect on the history of the Senate to see this defined. Richard Baker from South Australia was a Free Trader and fought a duel with Kingston. He was also instrumental in the design of The Senate and became its first President. He saw the house as a reviewing house. His fear was that it may become dominated by single issue parties and so he designed a first past the post voting system that was later changed by Dr Evatt.

With the inception of the Labor Party and the first long term Labor Prime Minister, Fisher, the block voting format started to grow as a cancer and the independent reviewing nature of the Senate was compromised. From 1910 to 1913 and then 1914 to 1916 Labor held a majority in both houses. Then from 1916 to 1929 the Nationalist/Country Party did. Once more, from 1931 to 1941 the United Australia Party/Country Party held this trust from the Australian public. The reasons the periods of so called double majorities existed were two fold, primarily the voting structure of first past the post, and secondly because there was, in practice, independence in the way Senators voted. In fact, prior to 1910 there was very little structure or correlation at all between parties and votes in the Senate.

The block voting that became apparent with the Labor Party, made the Australian public very sceptical of the Labor Party’s reviewing sincerity in the Senate. The Labor Party held their last majority in both houses in the 1946 to 1949 period and have never been trusted with it since.

You would think that the conservative side of politics would learn from this, and certainly Menzies foresaw it when he appealed that Members and Senators should follow government policy because of its logic and not by reason of compulsion. Little by little this independence in the Senate, on the conservative side, has also been usurped. This loss of independence in the Senate is directly correlated to the loss of trust by the Australian public in granting conservative government that privilege.

The Liberal / National (formerly Country Party) government has held, since 1949, a majority in both houses from 1951 to 1956, 1959 to 1962, 1976 to 1981 and now from 2005 to - your guess is as good as mine? Note the period that lapses between these years: approximately 4, 14 & 24 years. The experience of this trend suggests that the majority in both houses is a once in a lifetime experience so enjoy it, because of the change in the culture of the Senate. Once the current majority is lost most in this room will never see a majority in both houses again. I hope if nothing else, this stirs some resentment that motivates you to lobby the many political parties to some change to that same culture in the Senate

By the Australian Parliament displaying freedom within the Senate it is also espousing what should fall outside those walls. A totalitarian culture in the Senate that puts itself forward as the bastion protecting freedom is a very peculiar metaphor and this is what we are asked to swallow. The best excuse that they can give is the sickly quote of "Team Player". It is not a defence for war crimes, so why do we accept it in the Senate.

It has not always been this way. What of Senator Reggie Wright of Tasmania? He crossed the floor, for whatever reason, 150 times. His party, the Liberal Party, kept re-nominating him and he sat in the Senate from 1950 to 1978. Likewise Senator Ian Wood from my State, another Liberal, 130 times was his score and he sat also from 1950 to 1978. I do not believe that the Government collapsed under Menzies so why did they have the belief in the role of the Senate that we do not? From that proud tradition of sworn Senators upholding his or her constitutional obligation to review and amend legislation, the last Liberal Senators prior to Senator Humphries this year was Senators Abetz, Calvert and Watson in 1994. Has there been a complete uniformity of views on everything since then? I do not think so. There is nothing in the oath of office that says you will abide by the back room party negotiations, which is really just a poor excuse way out from your actual responsibilities. They are more instructions from the Lower House than negotiations in any case.

The only thing that should be truly remarkable about crossing the floor is when it does not happen. The last Labor Senator to cross the floor was Senator George Georges from Queensland in 1987 and he was immediately expelled from the Labor Party. This was just to reaffirm to the Australian people that they completely mock the sworn constitutional process of the Senate and any comments by Labor on extremism is to be taken for the insincere grain of salt that it is.

Victorians have the chance to show to the Australian Public that they are prepared to tell their variant political parties that the Senator represents them and their state – not the party. Victorians have the ability to demand that their Senators take their sworn office seriously, that Victorians have been allocated 12 Senators for their state via the constitution which gives no reference to political parties.

A commentator two days ago, in mock jest or seriously, said “How does it feel to be a hero of the people?” On a personal level – people would not know me if I stood up in their porridge. They have no knowledge of me, either hero or villain, what they appreciate is the heroics of the process not the person. The heroic process for you here today is to fight to re-establish the independent reviewing and amending capacity of your Victorian Senators. Your dedication to this cause is your contribution or otherwise to your Australian Freedom.