The Greens have warned the Government that they will turn electoral fury on it over its pro-woodchipping decision last week. They were mainly talking about the House of Representatives and how they will withdraw Green preferences from key Labor candidates. They asserted that Green preferences have saved Labor from electoral defeat several times in the past decade.
However, the precise effect of the Green vote in the House has been hard to quantify. Moreover, Labor asserts that Green voters have got nowhere else to put their preferences, given the Coalition’s environment record, which it argues is worse.
But whatever the effect in the House, it is clear that the Green vote in the Senate is critical. In the past two years the Greens have broken the Democrat-Labor majority in the Senate and made government for labor quite difficult.
The Government would dearly like this situation to end after the next election. It faces a choice. It can either have a half-Senate election with the House of Representatives election or go for a double dissolution.
The popular wisdom is that the Government would avoid a double dissolution because it is easier for minor parties and independents to win Senate seats at a double dissolution.
This is because at a double dissolution 12 seats are at stake in each state so the quota to win a seat is only one-thirteenth of the vote, or 7.7 per cent, or even less if preferences are obtained.
At a half Senate election, however, only six seats are up for grabs in each state making the quota one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3 per cent. That quota makes it much harder for independents to win a seat.
So popular wisdom would have it that the Government would not call a double dissolution, but rather an ordinary election of half the Senate at the same time as the House of Representatives, sometime after August next year.
This way, the wisdom goes, there would be less chance for the meddlesome Greens, Independents and Democrats to get seats and upset the Government’s will as they have done so often in the past three years _ especially the Greens.
But this popular wisdom may not hold true given the present composition of the Senate, and it may be that the Greens can be flushed out more effectively (from the Government’s point of view) with a double dissolution. You have to look at the thing state by state, because that is how Senate elections are run. It is no good taking a sweeping view.
(In the following analysis the territory senators are excluded because there is always one from each major party in each territory and they cancel out.)
The table shows the present Senate position with the numbers of long-term and short-term senators from each state. The long-term senators were elected in 1993 and the short term ones in 1990.
If there is a half-Senate election, a minor (Democrat, Green or independent) comes up for election in each state. It is likely that a minor will win a seat in at least four states and probably all six.
The Democrats are likely to retain their seat in Queensland (Cheryl Kernot) and keep a seat each in South Australia and Victoria where they are strongest. They could also retain NSW. The minors will get a Western Australian seat, but with a Green, as the Democrats are weak there.
Critically in Tasmania, it is very likely that a a half Senate election the Democrat will be replaced with high profile Green candidate Dr Bob Brown. That will give the Senate three Greens instead of the present two, making the Government’s problems worse.
Thus with a half-Senate election, the Labor-Democrat alliance will be further weakened.
If, however, there were a double dissolution, all 10 minors would face election. For that number to be re-elected it would require two minors to be elected in four states and one each in two states _ this is very unlkely. It is very likely that at least one would be returned in each state and perhaps an extra in one or two states.
The only example we have to go on based on the current Senate size is the 1987 double dissolution. In that election, four states returned one minor each and two states returned two minors: South Australia where the popular Janine Haines dragged in a second Democrat on preferences and NSW where a Democrat and Green Independent Irina Dunn wre elected.
Maybe Cheryl Kernot could drag in a second Democrat in Queensland. Maybe Bob Brown and Brian Harradine (if he runs) would both get seats in Tasmania, but beyond that one minor a state is most likely.
That means a double dissolution would replace the present 10 minors with eight minors, whereas a half-Senate election could easily see a continuation of 10 minors in the Senate.
There is a risk for the government with a double dissolution: that the coalition would get a majority in the Senate in its own right, but in that case it would be likely the coalition would win the Reps.
My guess is that, contrary to popular wisdom, if the Government wants to cut the power of the minors (especially the Greens who have been so troublesome at Budget time) it will go for the double dissolution.