Extract from The Guardian
The
schadenfreude is obvious: the prime minister will have to make his own
dirty deals with independents and minor parties to get his bills through
- Lenore Taylor, political editor
Two moments in the house of representatives last week neatly summed
up the highs and lows of the Abbott government’s current situation.
On Thursday evening the House of Representatives voted to repeal the carbon tax, for the third time, and the Coalition was elated. Prime minister Tony Abbott was away at a meeting, but Christopher Pyne, Greg Hunt and Peter Dutton had a kind of back-slappy group hug by the dispatch box after the vote went through, such was their excitement that this time the repeal bills would almost certainly also make it through the Senate with the votes of the Palmer United party.
But earlier in the day, during question time the leader of opposition business, Tony Burke, had risen to ask this.
“In question time earlier today, the prime minister told us how he was looking forward to working with the member for Fairfax [Clive Palmer]. But before the election the prime minister said “There will be no deals done with independents and minor parties under any political movement that I lead.” Prime minister, how is that one working out for you?”
Abbott rose and tersely replied, “In case members opposite missed it, the member for Fairfax has agreed to support the government’s legislation to repeal the carbon tax. That is what he has done …. When it comes to supporting government policy, I am very happy to work with people.”
In this instance the prime minister is right, with the slight proviso that we haven’t yet seen the fine print of the single amendment Clive Palmer is demanding regarding power pricing.
But the list of legislation which appears unlikely to pass the Senate, or likely to pass only after substantial modification, is long and growing – including the Medicare co-payment, the changes to unemployment benefits, many of the other welfare changes, the re-indexation of fuel excise, the proposed repeal of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the proposed repeal of the Climate Change Authority.
Abbott very successfully painted Julia Gillard’s concessions to the Greens, particularly her concession to achieve an emissions trading scheme (the fixed-price carbon tax she said she would never have) as dirty deals that completely de-legitimised her government.
Now he will have to make his own concessions or see large parts of his legislative program fail.
With the opinion polls ruling out a double-dissolution election as an option, the Coalition is briefing that it is playing a “long game” and that some policies might not make it through parliament until after the next election. Some might swallow that line now, but it will get less tenable if defeated bills start stacking up.
And despite Clive Palmer’s extraordinary talent for drama, he is not the only crossbench actor who will decide whether this Senate plays out as suspense, tragicomedy or farce.
Advisers to the Motoring Enthusiast party senator Ricky Muir have been carefully positioning him as his own man, “co-operating” with Palmer but not bound to always vote with the PUPs.
They are keenly aware that the three votes needed to block bills opposed by Labor and the Greens could also be provided by Independent senator Nick Xenophon, Democratic Labor party senator John Madigan and Muir.
Reports on Friday that the three were considering demands for additional car industry assistance in return for their votes on the carbon tax repeal lost momentum when Madigan said clearly he didn’t intend to impose conditions on his repeal vote.
But the possibility of the three joining forces on issues is there and Xenophon is a past master at dealing himself into legislation-deciding positions.
The Coalition is also talking up the prospect of “peeling off” some PUP senators, which may or may not be possible, but certainly would not be without some kind of price being paid in legislation or electoral largesse.
Of course governments do not usually control both houses. The last prime minister who did was John Howard after the election in 2004. So prime ministers almost always have to negotiate and make concessions to get bills through, at least in the upper house.
But having been demolished for doing what was necessary to form a functioning government in 2010, Labor appears intent upon hanging Abbott with his own words about the weak and illegitimate nature of governments that do deals.
The schadenfreude is obvious. The irony is that because voters are increasingly disillusioned with both major parties, the consequence of constant criticism of the negotiations that are almost always necessary to run a government could be an increase in the number of smaller party MPs and senators – and that would make the deal-making all the more necessary. Whichever major party forms government.
On Thursday evening the House of Representatives voted to repeal the carbon tax, for the third time, and the Coalition was elated. Prime minister Tony Abbott was away at a meeting, but Christopher Pyne, Greg Hunt and Peter Dutton had a kind of back-slappy group hug by the dispatch box after the vote went through, such was their excitement that this time the repeal bills would almost certainly also make it through the Senate with the votes of the Palmer United party.
But earlier in the day, during question time the leader of opposition business, Tony Burke, had risen to ask this.
“In question time earlier today, the prime minister told us how he was looking forward to working with the member for Fairfax [Clive Palmer]. But before the election the prime minister said “There will be no deals done with independents and minor parties under any political movement that I lead.” Prime minister, how is that one working out for you?”
Abbott rose and tersely replied, “In case members opposite missed it, the member for Fairfax has agreed to support the government’s legislation to repeal the carbon tax. That is what he has done …. When it comes to supporting government policy, I am very happy to work with people.”
In this instance the prime minister is right, with the slight proviso that we haven’t yet seen the fine print of the single amendment Clive Palmer is demanding regarding power pricing.
But the list of legislation which appears unlikely to pass the Senate, or likely to pass only after substantial modification, is long and growing – including the Medicare co-payment, the changes to unemployment benefits, many of the other welfare changes, the re-indexation of fuel excise, the proposed repeal of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the proposed repeal of the Climate Change Authority.
Abbott very successfully painted Julia Gillard’s concessions to the Greens, particularly her concession to achieve an emissions trading scheme (the fixed-price carbon tax she said she would never have) as dirty deals that completely de-legitimised her government.
Now he will have to make his own concessions or see large parts of his legislative program fail.
With the opinion polls ruling out a double-dissolution election as an option, the Coalition is briefing that it is playing a “long game” and that some policies might not make it through parliament until after the next election. Some might swallow that line now, but it will get less tenable if defeated bills start stacking up.
And despite Clive Palmer’s extraordinary talent for drama, he is not the only crossbench actor who will decide whether this Senate plays out as suspense, tragicomedy or farce.
Advisers to the Motoring Enthusiast party senator Ricky Muir have been carefully positioning him as his own man, “co-operating” with Palmer but not bound to always vote with the PUPs.
They are keenly aware that the three votes needed to block bills opposed by Labor and the Greens could also be provided by Independent senator Nick Xenophon, Democratic Labor party senator John Madigan and Muir.
Reports on Friday that the three were considering demands for additional car industry assistance in return for their votes on the carbon tax repeal lost momentum when Madigan said clearly he didn’t intend to impose conditions on his repeal vote.
But the possibility of the three joining forces on issues is there and Xenophon is a past master at dealing himself into legislation-deciding positions.
The Coalition is also talking up the prospect of “peeling off” some PUP senators, which may or may not be possible, but certainly would not be without some kind of price being paid in legislation or electoral largesse.
Of course governments do not usually control both houses. The last prime minister who did was John Howard after the election in 2004. So prime ministers almost always have to negotiate and make concessions to get bills through, at least in the upper house.
But having been demolished for doing what was necessary to form a functioning government in 2010, Labor appears intent upon hanging Abbott with his own words about the weak and illegitimate nature of governments that do deals.
The schadenfreude is obvious. The irony is that because voters are increasingly disillusioned with both major parties, the consequence of constant criticism of the negotiations that are almost always necessary to run a government could be an increase in the number of smaller party MPs and senators – and that would make the deal-making all the more necessary. Whichever major party forms government.
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