AFTER 17 days of haggling we finally achieved a government – but at what cost?
To use a soccer analogy, the election result was a nil-all draw. We then went to a penalty shootout. Australia lost!
The outcome is endemically unstable. The situation is unsustainable.
The electorate really didn’t believe in either Party, Leader, or their policies. A significant protest vote was recorded, in part by way of support for the Greens and independents.
Yet, if the electorate had recognised that the outcome would be a hung parliament, with a handful of independents determining the final outcome, they certainly wouldn’t have voted for it.
They also certainly wouldn’t have wanted the three key independents – Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor – to have that responsibility and, in doing so, to disenfranchise the votes in the other 147 seats.
These three were just not up to the task, handled it badly, wallowed in the limelight of the national stage, and then sold out for their particular vested interests, electoral and personal.
Rest assured, they will feel the wrath of their individual electorates if they choose to stand again next time, while in the meantime they will have to wear the angst of the Coalition parties and the general public.
These three independents represent regional seats where they have made their names by essentially disowning the National Party, and the Coalition, and by bagging both them and the government. Yet, while their electorates may “hate” the Nats, they “hate” Labor much more, so they will find it hard to forgive them.
With only a one-vote margin, every day will be a brawl for the Gillard Government in the parliament, with every piece of legislation having to be negotiated, with the independents in the Lower House and the Greens in the Senate, after next July. Every performance, by every Minister, in and out of parliament, will be exhaustively scrutinised.
Abbott has an enhanced credibility, simply because he performed much better than expected in the campaign and came so close to winning.
His opposition to the government will therefore be even more incisive, pervasive and effective.
The government can’t afford any mistakes, any failings of, or misdemeanours by, its Ministers. Any by-election will become a general election.
Ironically, the independents apparently put a lot of weight on the prospects for stability of the government in deciding which party to support. The outcome is about as inherently unstable as you could get.
Tony Windsor made a bit of a goose of himself in explaining this stability point, by saying he decided to support Gillard as he believed that Abbott would be more likely to go to an early election, which he would probably win!
Is that logic dumb, or am I missing something?
Was he just telling us that he feared he might lose his seat if another election were called? That he had already failed his electorate?
The situation is already unravelling for the government, even before the new Ministry has been sworn in. Windsor wanted to include the mining tax in a Tax Summit. Swan initially said “no”, then he relented. But, in doing so, we are left to wonder whether there now really will be a mining tax, whether the Greens will seek to increase it or, if not, how the government will fund the “black hole” that would emerge in their budget.
Either way, the Opposition can enjoy an early field day, variously emphasising indecision, a broken promise, a black hole, or some combinations thereof.
Unfortunately, parliamentary gridlock and a weak, risk averse government will mean little real policy debate or progress.
Expect another election sooner rather than later, probably no later than 12 or 18 months.
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