Senator Helen Coonan has isolated the problem; but her solution misses the point.
Senator Coonan, the deputy government whip in the Senate, put forward last week a very thoughtful speech about the minor parties having too much power in the Senate. She is right. They do have too much power. As it happens, the Howard Government’s experience is the first to reveal the severe constitutional problems of the present arrangements. Proportional representation in 1948 gave minor parties the first chance to get representation in the Senate. And a good thing too. As Coonan recognised they have a legitimate role. In 1984 the size of the Senate was increased, as the Constitution requires, to accommodate an increase in the size of the House of Representatives. Since then there have been 12 senators per state, requiring a quota of 14.3 per cent of the vote (after preferences have been distributed)_ to get a seat. In practice, some candidates with fewer than 8 per cent of the primary vote have got seats.
Since 1984 minor parties and independents have always held the balance of power and under present arrangements they always will. From 1984 to 1996 the minor parties, dominated by the Democrats and Greens had a philosophical affinity with Labor, so the Labor Government was not fundamentally frustrated by them. Even so, Labor screamed about the slightest amendment to its will. Prime Minister Paul Keating described the Senate as unrepresentative swill, when he didn’t get his way. The Howard Government has had a rougher trot. Although numerically nearly all its Bills have got through unscathed, big ticket items have been knocked back, at it is the big-ticket items that count.
The Government’s program for labour-market and tax changes has been frustrated since 1996. It has had to grovel, capitulate and compromise, and even then some items have failed. And many of those that succeeded did so on a knife-edge vote of a defected Labor senator.
Let’s leave aside the fact that the Howard Government got a tad under 50 per cent of two-party preferred vote. Just say it got 51 per cent. Should the Senate still be able to block its legislation on the GST, industrial relations, native title etc.
I think Coonan has got it right. So has Keating, Gareth Evans and Robert Ray. The Senate is no longer a states house, if it ever was. It should be a house of review, but not a house of blockage. It is a house of blockage now. The mechanism provided by the Constitution – a double dissolution – is too cumbersome to break the deadlock. It might have been suitable in 1901 when legislation was not a prevalent as now.
Coonan’s solution is to change the electoral system for the Senate to insist that parties get a quota of first-preference votes before any of their candidates can be elected. She suggested several figures up to 11.4 per cent. This would have chopped a couple of Democrats at the last election. A lot of European countries set such arbitrary quotas.
Coonan’s proposal would undoubtedly cull a few minor candidates, but it is no solution. It could only result in either a major party having a majority on the Senate or, even after culling, minor-party candidates still holding the balance of power. We would still get a tyranny of major or minor parties. We would get either a rubber-stamp Parliament or an obstructionist one. But we need something in between.
I have a different suggestion. Keep the present voting system. But if the Senate knocks back Bills twice, the government should be able to take the Bills to a subsequent election. The voters could judge the Government and the Bills. If the Government is returned the Bills should go through on a vote of the House of Representatives alone.
The Senate could still review, and suggest changes, but ultimately its power would be cut to delaying Bills until the people can view them in their final form.
Incidentally, if this were combined with a removal of the power of the Senate over money Bills, it would enable fixed-term elections of three years for the house of Representatives because there would be no need for early elections to break deadlocks.
Senator Coonan is right about the power of minor parties, but would she agree to a concomitant reduction of the power of the Prime Minister to achieve the end of more stable government?