It is all very well the Coalition saying it will sell Telstra, but it needs legislation and therefore the approval of the Senate.
Labor and the Democrats will block it in the Senate, just as they have blocked other critical legislation in the past six years and just as the Coalition blocked Labor legislation with Democrat help before that.
The Senate looks a pretty bleak prospect for the Coalition this election. Senators coming up this election were elected in 1996, the year of the Coalition landslide. The Coalition is defending a very good result, so it is bound to lose some seats. More of that anon.
There is a democratic deficit here. Whichever side wins, particularly the Coalition, it will have its mandate curtailed by the Senate.
The Opposition and the Democrats point out that more than 90 per cent of Bills get through. However, many are amended or delayed to destruction by referrals to committees. Moreover, the Government often does not put up legislation that it knows will get rejected out of hand, so it often compromises in deals behind closed doors, and waters down legislation before it hits the floor. The past term has been instructive. About 15 major pieces of legislation have been rejected, watered down through amendments that the Government has been forced to accept lest the Bill die, or sent to committee and not returned before being killed by the calling of the election.
And it is usually the very contentious pieces of legislation that are knocked back – the very ones that differentiate the major parties and upon which the voters have given a verdict of sorts. Last Parliament they included workplace relations; the rejigging of the human rights and administrative appeals bureaucracy; education; conditions on welfare; superannuation; child support; and occupational health and safety.
We should have a house of review, a committee system to examine details of Bills without fear of being overridden automatically, and sensible debate to propose improvements in Bills. But must it come at the price of deadlock and of the elected Government’s legislation being at the mercy of the Senate?
At present, the mechanisms to unlock a deadlock between the House and the Senate are extremely cumbersome. There must be a better way than a double dissolution to resolve deadlocks between the Houses.
It might have been appropriate in 1900 when the Constitution was enacted to have an election over a piece of legislation. In those days there was not much of it, so each piece was of greater significance, and a dispute over one piece might have warranted an election. Moreover, legislation was shorter and took less time to get to presentation stage, so it might have been workable to turn a piece of critical legislation into an election issue and an agenda for a new term.
These days, however, significant legislation takes months, if not years, to prepare, especially when you add in the consultation and bureaucratic processes in its lead up. The new tax system and native title laws were good examples. By the time a new government gets settled in and legislation hits the Parliament, the term is almost over, so a double dissolution does not help much.
More significantly, a double dissolution results in 12 senators being elected from each state on a quota of 7.7 percent instead of six on 14.3 per cent. So a double dissolution will throw up more independent and minor party senators – usually the very cause of deadlocks in the Senate. So these days the double dissolution mechanism compounds the problem of deadlocks between the houses, rather than solves it. Before World War II deadlocks tended to result from a different major party than the on in government controlling the Senate.
A better solution would be to allow a Government to take all of its rejected legislation (in all its detail; not just waffly election promises) to the election, and if the Government is returned the legislation should only require approval by the House of Representatives the second time round.
As things stand we are likely to see continued deadlock. The figures this election show that the most likely result will be the Democrats holding the balance of power.
Half of the Senate comes up for election every election, giving senators six-year terms. Six senators in each state come up for election. Senators take their seats on July 1 after the election. Those elected in 1996 some up for election this time. Those elected in 1998 sit on until 2005.
The Coalition has three senators in each state coming up for election. That result is very hard to defend. Labor has two seats in each state – very easy to defend and improve upon. The Democrats have five of their nine senators coming up for election — a seat in each of NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. This could be hard to defend. The Greens are defending their only seat – that of Bob Brown in Tasmania.
The two territories have two senators each. Both are elected every election for the same three-year term as the House of Representatives. They invariably elect a senator each from each of the major parties so cancel each other out – despite all the rabbitting on over the years by the Democrats and Labor that they might capture the second ACT Senate seat.
In the 1998 election, Labor won three seats in each of Tasmania, NSW and Victoria. It might well repeat that result, if the election is as close as 1998. That would mean the Democrats losing a seat and the Coalition losing two. Labor might be hoping for a third seat in the other states, too — in Queensland, at the expense of the Democrats, riding on the popularity of Labor Premier Peter Beattie, in Western Australia and South Australia at the expense of the Coalition.
The Greens are hoping to take the Democrats seat in Western Australia.
The Senate might see a lot of seats change hands, but it will have little effect overall. Essentially, the Democrats will continue to hold the balance of power and will be needed by whomever governs to get legislation through and by whomever is in Opposition to block legislation.
The only exception would be the unlikely result of Labor winning an extra senator in every state and the Greens getting an extra one in Tasmania. Then, Labor and all the other non-Democrat senators would have a majority, but it would include One Nation and Senator Harradine and the Greens, so it is difficult to imagine any legislation that would attract the support of all of them for it to be of any moment.