"My hopes are that we can do good things for the Australian people," Mr Howard told reporters.
"We won't be abusing the majority the coalition now has but we will be implementing things that we believe in and things that the Australian people want us to do for their benefit.
"But it will be a modest, even humble, government that will take advantage for the benefit of the Australian people of this new found and, I have to repeat, unexpected majority."Sydney Morning Herald, 12:04PM, 24/06/05 (full article)
Of course it's an unexpected majority. In the seventy-six seat senate, the Coalition holds thirty-nine seats - a mere one seat majority. I'm almost certain that Howard expected pandering to fear and ignorance in the 2004 election might just earn a bigger majority, but it seems that this isn't the case. Still, even the slimmest of majorities is a majority, and can do all the damage you'd normally expect from one.
And don't they just plan to go to town with it. Howard wants to sink our industrial relations system, Ruddock wants to earch for inspiration in Shane Warne's messages and Nelson wants to make sure that no-one can follow his path of a free degree and a strong involvement in student politics in a university whose union made life Very Cheap™ for him. No doubt there's a few others - maybe Vanstone wants to turn long-term detainees into lunch, or Downer would like Spot to be added to the parliamentary library. Costello just wants Howard's job.
If I were in the mood to do so, I'd go into great detail about exactly how bad each of these things will be, if they go through. I could explain what will happen if worker's rights cease to exist on the first of January in the two thousand and sixth year of the common era, but I don't think that's really necessary. I could tell you about the ills that would come if Ruddock starting to read my email on New Years' Day, but all he'd see would be my LJ comment notifications.
That's right. I said if. We see, on the surface, that the Government can shove through its newest raft of unpopular, damaging legislation without a care in the world, safe and comfortable in the knowledge that they have a majority in both houses. In practise, this may not be entirely the case. There may just be some good news.
The Senate looks roughly like this:
| Liberal Party of Australia* 34 seats | Nat 5 | † 1 | Dem 4 | Grn 4 | Australian Labor Party 28 seats | |
| KEY - Nat: The Nationals, †: Family First, Dem: Australian Democrats, Grn: Greens, *: Includes the Country Liberal Party | ||||||
A crafty, intelligent National party might just realise that it now has incredible power within the Coalition. Assuming that voting all happens along party lines, then the Nationals quite clearly hold the balance of power. My, isn't that fun. Don't expect, though, that it'll benefit too many of us. Still, if the Nationals finally got back to representing their voters, things might seema shade more sensible. The question there is all about whether or not we have a crafty, intelligent National party.
Perhaps more importantly, there's 39 Coalition senators. That means that, if a bill reaches the senate, exactly one Coalition senator needs to vote against party lines to defeat it. I'll say it again - only one Coalition senator need cross the floor. This is because, in the event that votes are tied, the President of the Senate must always vote against the bill - the idea behind this being to preserve the equal say of the states. It'd be interesting to see if any of them are prepared to actually do this.
It'd take two, and the rest of the Senate, to withhold Supply. I don't at all think that's going to happen... but I would love to see it.
Lastly, we fall back on the Reserve Powers of the Governor-General of Australia - specifically the power to refuse any bill passed by Parliament the Assent it needs to become law. Hopefully, if the Government's bills pass, this power will be invoked.
Of course, the likelihood is that things will continue as they always have. Senators and MPs vote along party lines. Governors-General don't use their powers of office. The Nationals do whatever the Liberals say. That is the scariest part of today. I don't trust "Honest John's" claims of doing good.
And that's entirely enough politics for one entry.
