Prime Minister John Howard was a little too generous to his predecessor Paul Keating last week. Mr Howard praised Mr Keating (faintly) for “”having the guts” to say that if the Coalition won the 1993 election with a GST on the agenda, then a Labor Opposition would let it through the Senate. Mr Howard described that statement as a recognition of democratic principle that a Government is entitled to enact its mandate.
Of course, it was no such this. Mr Keating’s statement was part of a much wider scare campaign against the GST. Mr Keating was warning voters that they could not have it both ways. They could not punish him for whatever ill they thought by electing a Coalition and then expect Labor to save them from a GST. If they voted for the Coalition he warned and threatened then they would get a GST whatever the position in the Senate. It was an election tactic not a statement of broad democratic principle.
Now, Mr Keating’s replacement as Labor Leader has reversed that stand. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley has said that in the event of a Coalition victory at the next election, Labor in Opposition would use whatever numbers it could in the Senate to block a GST.
The justification for the change of tack was that the Coalition could not be trusted to deliver a fair and equitable tax package and that there was not enough time between now and the election for the Government to put up a package and for it to have adequate scrutiny by the voters.
This is hubris and an insult to the intelligence of the Australian voter. It also is a fairly damning indictment of Labor’s capacity to put an alternative set of policies that does not include a GST that will sufficiently appeal to the Australian voter that Labor gets elected. Mr Beazley seems to want to reserve a right of appeal from a court from which their should be no right of appeal — the vote of the people. His proposed course of action is undemocratic. Moreover they show a disarming lack of self-confidence in a man who wants to put himself up as alternative Prime Minister.
If the Coalition’s GST proposal is unfair, inequitable, too complex or otherwise defective, by all means attack it, but if having put the proposal as a key part of an election campaign, the Coalition gets elected, it should not be blocked in the Senate.
Indeed, the past 25 years’ experience in the Senate has revealed a defect in the Australian constitutional system that warrants attention. The defect has been admirably illustrated by Mr Beazley’s stand last week. The Senate is not longer a states’ house, as originally intended by the Founding Fathers. State senators never vote as a state block. They always divide according to political affiliation. Nonetheless, it was still intended as a house of review, not a house in which governments were created or destroyed and not a house to block.
Nowadays, there is proportional representation and a greater propensity for voters to give minor parties and independents a vote (largely because voters see that with proportional presentation that they have a good chance of election so their vote is not wasted). This means that it is unlikely that any government will have a majority in the Senate. It means that key parts of a political party’s election platform can get rejected even if that party wins a majority in the House of Representatives. At present the only way out of the impasse is the very heavy-handed double-dissolution process. Why should a government be forced to a double dissolution to muster numbers against a hostile Senate shortly after getting elected?
It means significant change will become virtually impossible in Australia. And it cuts both ways. At some stage, no doubt, Labor will come back to office.
There should be a mechanism whereby legislation which knocked out by the Senate in one term can get enacted if the Government survives an election without having a double dissolution.
The Coalition’s Telstra legislation will illustrate the point. The Coalition intends to legislate for the sale before the election, but not enact it until the people get a chance to approve it at an election. Surely, if the legislation is on the table and its precise detail is known and the people re-elect the Government, the legislation should go through? It is a matter ripe for constitutional change.