Despite the affable nature of Tuesday’s ceremonial opening of Parliament and yesterday’s orderly Question Time, the underlying conflict between the newly elected Government and the combined forces of the Opposition and minor parties in the Senate remains.
Yesterday, the Government made clear its determination to bring its legislation to privatise and third of Telstra and to reform industrial relations quickly before the Parliament. Some government members put on a brave face suggesting that when push comes to shove the Senate will pass the Bills relatively intact. More realistic was National Senator Bill O’Chee who hinted that a double dissolution would be the only way to get key legislation through. That it should require this is an unfortunate aspect of Australia’s constitutional arrangements plus the rigid party discipline in the Australian Parliament.
It has been two decades since the Government has had a workable majority in the Senate. In Labor’s 13 years, though, the Government was not completely frustrated by the absence of a Senate majority. It usually got its major policy items legislated. Now, however, the Government does not merely lack a majority, but it has an actively hostile Senate. The leader of the Democrats, Senator Cheryl Kernot, has made it clear that she thinks the Democrats have a mandate to block the sale of Telstra and to block key industrial relations reform. Given the voting pattern on March 2, this is nonsense. She is turning the Senate from a house of review to a house of obstruction.
There is a constitutional mechanism to overcome the obstruction _ the double dissolution. But it is costly, cumbersome and disruptive. It requires an election for both houses of Parliament. Moreover, if the government does not get a majority in the Senate at that election, it requires a joint sitting of the two houses if the government is to get its policy legislated.
There has only been one joint sitting in Australia’s history, in 1974. It passed six Bills, containing significant, but by no means all, of the then Labor Government’s platform. Other significant parts of it could not be enacted, despite Labor being returned at the 1974 election. The deadlock was only temporarily solved. The country cannot have a double dissolutiuon every time the Senate knocks back a Bill.
Two decades on, the situation is worse. This because legislation is far more complex. It means that even if the Government lined up a very large number of Bills for initial rejection and later passing by a joint sitting, the mechanism would probably still not resolve the deadlock. This is because, nearly all significant legislation these days requires amendments after it has been tried in the field a short time. Once again legislation would be at the mercy of the Senate.
A better way must be devised of maintaining the Senate’s power of review, reflection and delay but preventing it from being obstructionist so shortly after an election in which a Government has being give a clear mandate by the people. It should be high on the agenda of John Howard’s people’s convention for constitutional reform in the lead up to the centenary of federation.