I am sad to tell you that last night we saw the decline of our democracy.

The Senate passed 32 pieces of legislation without so much as even a debate on them.

The Upper House, charged with being a house of review, has become a rubber stamp. It has become the house of approval.

If Senators are unable to debate bills, then they should not agree to pass bills.

But the government, with some support from the supposedly conservative Liberal coalition, pushed reams of legislation through with barely any scrutiny.

Instead of democracy, we have autocracy. And instead of good governance we have total abrogation of responsibility.

The bills that passed include the woke gender-neutral Crown References Amendment where the references to the King and Queen have been removed in favour of calling His Majesty or Her Majesty ‘The Sovereign’.

The Help To Buy shared equity scheme, where the government can own up to 40 per cent of your home, is another tip toe towards communism.

The Build To Rent bill, which is a scheme that signals the decline of the great Australian dream where a rent forever attitude, is now legislated. Big super funds and fund managers will build and own the homes and you will rent forever whilst they reap generous tax concessions. ‘You will own nothing and you will be happy’, said Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum. The first steps of this are now in place.

Of all the bills to be waved into law last night, the most disturbing was the bill to ban under 16s from social media. This ill-conceived, poorly planned and open-for-abuse piece of legislation is in my opinion not just about protecting children or about supporting parents.

The law, which purports to be about safeguarding kids, is another step towards the ushering in of a Digital ID and Social Credit type system that will be used to collate information about citizens; information that in the future could be used against us, the people. It is control wrapped up as care.

The longer I sit in the Senate, the more I am convinced that the Australian parliamentary system needs serious reform.

We should start by insisting that government ministers are not able to sit in the Senate. How can the Senate review legislation with any integrity when members of the government’s executive team who were responsible for the legislation are part of the review?

Second, we should abolish parties from the voting ticket so that people vote purely for the local representative they believe will best serve them rather than simply ticking the box for Labor or Liberal. That would leave Senators free to assess legislation on its merits rather than according to party allegiances.

The result would be better representation, more ideas, better scrutiny of legislation, and fewer laws passed.

The current system is madness. In the two and a half years since Labor came to power, the Senate has passed 332 new laws.

So many of them are ill-thought out, not properly reviewed, and ultimately unnecessary.

Thank you for your continued support as I fight to ensure that the Senate serves the people rather than the other way around.