New Zealand has a private members’ day every week in Parliament. I cannot remember when in the last century the Australian Parliament last passed a private members bill, much less gave any time to hear private members’ bills.
Only 15 private members’ bills or private senators’ bills introduced into the Australian Parliament since 1901 have been passed into law. Several private members’ bills are passed every year in New Zealand.
Source: Proposed members’ bills – New Zealand Parliament.
One of the reasons that New Zealand has so many private members’ bills and allocate so much time for them is it is not a federal state. There are about 80 in the private members’ bills ballot; two are drawn per week.
Hot button social issues which are usually solved by letting one state take the initiative within a federation must instead in NZ must be dealt within one Parliament. The vent for this tension is a greater role for private members’ bills.
Federalism, for example, gave Congress the opportunity to deflect Marijuana decriminalisation to the states by defunding federal drug law enforcement in 2014 in states that have legalised marijuana. This allowed Congress to have it both ways by neither decriminalise marijuana at the federal level nor frustrate the movement in the states to decriminalise marijuana.
I believe there is litigation before the federal courts as to whether that defunding extends to existing marijuana prosecutions.
I am sure that will delight the legal pedants. They can work out how a US attorney can even stand up in court and discuss the prosecution when Congress has defunded marijuana drug law enforcement in that state. Presumably they pay their own taxi fare to court?
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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