AT THE beginning of this year when a Labor victory was assumed by one and all, I wrote in this column: “Most people assume that a second Rudd term is inevitable. I think is quite likely, but Abbott should not be ruled out. The advantages that an Opposition has with apathetic, gullible and ignorant masses, a media rightly down on any glitches with government programs, easy populist one-liners, plus the present electoral-boundary advantage suggest an Abbott victory is not out of the question. . . .
“It would take an even swing of just 1.6 per cent of the vote for the Coalition to win the . . . seats it needs for Government. In that case, the Coalition would win with just 48.9 per cent of the vote.”
I still don’t think the Coalition will win. Governments do not get tipped out easily in Australia. You need three factors for that: a government that smells; an Opposition with a coherent, credible plan; and an Opposition Leader who looks prime ministerial.
Only the first pertains now. The third is getting closer, but still a fair way off and second is unlikely to be achieved.
Also, a fact is overlooked in all the talk about the mining states of Queensland and Western Australia looking bad for Labor: there was a swing to the Coalition in Western Australia in 2007, so there are no easy gains to be had there for the Coalition this time.
Further, in past elections there has usually been a bit of a swing back to the government. Though that may not happen this time because since the change of leadership voters moving to the Coalition will no have to go through the admission to themselves that they made a mistake last time. That fact often helps incumbents.
Even so part elections show you get a but of anti-government feeling expressed in polls that does not materialise fully when it comes to the crunch at voting time. This was particularly true of the 1993 election.
But if the Coalition wins, we should expect a frenzied flurry of legislative activity for 10 months. This is because the senators elected on 21 August will not take their seats until 1 July 2011, more than 10 months after the election.
The present Senate has a conservative majority. It will last for the first 10 months of the new conservative government. The Coalition has 38 of the 76 senators, which is a blocking majority (because even votes are resolved in the negative). It only needs one of the two quasi-independents to back legislation for a positive vote for it to pass. The quasi-independents are anti-pokies Nick Xenophon and Family First’s Steve Fielding who was elected in 2004 on less than 2 per cent of the vote in Victoria because of a bizarre preference fall-out from Australia’s ludicrous Senate voting system. Under this system political parties decide your preferences for you unless you want to go through the arduous task of numbering every box in order of preference for the several score of candidates below the line – a task that very few do.
It is surprising that Labor has not made more of the prospect of 10 months of virtually unchecked conservative rule. Any barefoot-and-pregnant social policy the Mad Monk puts up will attract Fielding’s support, and possibly Xenophon’s. Fielding, of course, will be doing a last hurrah and will want to make as big an impact as possible, economically and socially. The economic front is a bit different, but remember Fielding voted in favour of Coalition legislation to destroy university student representative bodies because those bodies were silly enough to call themselves unions.
If the Coalition wins, expect them to make the most of those first 10 months, after which an Abbott Government will inevitably have a hostile Senate.
I say “inevitably” because the half of the Senate up for re-election this time was elected in 2004 when John Howard trounced Mark Latham and got the Senate majority that allowed Work Choices through – incidentally giving substance to Oscar Wilde’s adage there is only one thing worse than not getting what you want: that’s getting it.
In 2004, the Coalition won three of the six Senate seats in each state except Queensland where they won four. That will not happen again. In the states where the Greens and Fielding won a seat (Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria) Labor only won two of the six seats.
Fielding has no hope of being re-elected and the Coalition cannot get four seats in Queensland, so the conservatives will lose at least two seats to Labor or the Greens. That almost inevitable result would give Labor, the Greens and Xenophon a majority.
But the Greens are very likely to pick up a seat from the Liberals in Victoria and/or NSW which would give Labor and the Greens a majority. Very likely. Labor is also likely to win three seats in one or more of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, rather than the two they got in each of those states in 2004. This will add to the Labor-Green control of the Senate. The Liberals’ Senate position might be made worse by a Xenophon clone getting a seat from them in South Australia.
With a Labor-Green Senate majority, Abbott can only expect repayment for the obstruction the Coalition heaped on Rudd Labor – all the more reason for him to bash through whatever he can in the 10 months he has of the existing Senate.
By the way, the two senators from each of the territories cancel themselves out. The major parties win one seat in each territory. Talk of the Greens winning the second Senate seat in the ACT is pure fantasy. The Liberals’ Gary Humphries will have no difficulty winning without resort to preferences.
In the House of Representatives the polls are suggesting an extremely tight election. It may be that the winning side will not have got a majority of the two-party preferred vote, as in 1990 and 1998.
The leader of the winning party is likely to benefit from a tiny House of Representatives majority. It tends to make a party more cohesive. Large majorities can breed ill-discipline, complacency and dissent.
A tight result may spare us from all the leadership turmoil of the past few years.
