can we have a sensible debate about the senate

Firstly I want to say, the senate is of course a very important part of our political process as far as keeping a sitting govt in check.

However, we currently have a situation where people nobody has ever heard of who gains just a few thousand votes manage to gain a senate seat via preference flows. IMO this system is well and truly broken when you look at who is likely to gain senate seats this time around and the number of votes they actually recieved. I fail to see how there is anything democratic about some nutter forming a political party that no one has ever heard of and has no idea of their policies gaining 3000 votes and winding up holding the balance of power.

You can't have a system where the lower house vote and upper house vote are the same as then you'll always end up with both houses agreeing and govts potentially doing crazy things with no one to stop them.

I don't know what the answer is but I'm interested in serious, NON-PARTISAN comments. Feel free to disagree with me but please keep this thread about the political process and not about partisan politics.

cheers