THE question of whether Australians go to the polls in a double dissolution on 2 July rather than an ordinary election later in the year will likely depend upon whether self-delusion is a greater force than self-interest in politics.This will be of more importance than the High Court challenge to the new Senate voting system.
Paul Keating was fond of quoting Jack Lang as saying: “Always back self-interest, at least you know the jockey is trying.”
Under that view of politics, you would expect the six micro-party senators elected in 2013 for six-year terms could well take Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s threat about not passing the Australian Building and Construction Commission Bill very seriously. Turnbull said if they did not pass the law, he would call a double dissolution.
If that happened, those six senators (three elected on the Palmer United ticket, one Family First, one Liberal Democrat and one Motoring Enthusiasts Party) would face election more than three years early. Any sensible estimate of the chance of any of them being re-elected must surely hover somewhere between zero and none.
Under the self-interest view, those senators must be looking at the comfortable life in the Senate – the salary, the expenses, the staff, the sense of importance and so would rather vote for the Bill than lose their seats.
But then again, do not under-estimate the power of self-delusion in politics. Tony Abbott, for example, is giving all the signs that he imagines he will eventually return to the prime ministership.
Any of the six senators might well be imagining that in the previous two and a bit years that they have been senators they have made such a mark on Australian public life that they will be swept back into office at a double dissolution — that somehow that without Clive Palmer’s money or without backroom deals over party-determined preferences that a percent or two of the first-preference vote can suddenly become the 7.7 percent after preferences needed to capture the last Senate seat in a state in a double dissolution.
They are dreaming.
So if self-delusion overpowers self-interest, expect a double dissolution of 2 July.
And what about the High Court challenge by Family First Senator Bob Day? Sure, it has more chance of success than the re-election of one of the six micro-party senators because you never know what a court might do. But that is not saying much. In reality it has little chance, despite psephologist Malcolm Mackerras’ view to the contrary.
Mackerras cites the constitutional provision that, “The Senate shall be composed of senators for each state, directly chosen by the people of the state, voting as one electorate.”
He says that any system which is not candidate-based would offend that clause. A system that permits political parties to order their candidates in a list and enables a voter to vote for that list (rather than individual candidates) would not, he suggests, be candidate-based, and therefore would result in senators not being “directly chosen”.
However, the High Court, in a single-judge decision, has already held valid the previous system where parties lodged preferences for every candidate (not just those of their own party) with the Electoral Commission and a voter’s vote with a “1” next to that party’s box would be deemed to have followed the party’s order. The new system at least tells voters the order of preferences without any reference to some external ticket.
My guess is that the judges will uphold the new system. “Directly chosen” merely means not “indirectly” chosen – as in the US presidential election where voters vote for an electoral college which then choses the president. Almost always the person who wins the popular vote wins the presidency. But not always. George W Bush was elected by the Electoral College even though Al Gore had more votes.
Any system whereby the voters vote for other people who then determine the senators would not be direct. It may be you could argue that a system whereby a voter’s preferences are determined by reference to some externally lodged preference order by a political party is not one in which the senators are “directly chosen”. But under the new system, the voter can work out the exact preference order on the face of the ballot paper – surely, that has got to be “directly chosen”.
But suppose the High Court finds that the new system of parties listing their candidates is invalid. What then? Well, when the court looks at the constitutionality of a law, they go through it clause by clause. They do not necessarily wipe the whole Act, rather they might well just wipe only some clauses of the Act.
The clause in the Act which repealed the old “1” above the line system might be held valid, even it the rest of it was invalid? It would mean going back to the pre-1984 system of numbering all the squares.
It could mean all sorts of mess. But I don’t think the High Court will go there.
Most people think that the reason Turnbull wants a double dissolution is to clean out the micro-party senators. But there is another side to this equation. It is this. The Coalition has a better chance of getting a majority in the Senate in a double dissolution than it would have in a couple of favourable half-Senate elections.
This is because for either major party to get a Senate majority they would need to get half the Senators in five states (three in a half senate election or six in a double dissolution election) and half plus one in the sixth state (four in a half senate election or seven in a double dissolution election).
Getting four out of six (57% after preferences) is a much more difficult than getting seven out of 12 (53.8% after preferences). The latter is doable (particularly in Western Australia); the former is very difficult indeed.
So the double dissolution is as much about getting a Coalition majority in the Senate as it is about either clearing out the mirco-parties or getting the union-busting ABCC Bill into law.
But given the slow decline of both Turnbull and the Coalition in the opinion polls the self-interested pursuit of a majority in the Senate might be as delusional as a micro-party senator imagining they have a chance of re-election under the new voting system.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Fairfax Media on 2 April 2016.