Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, July 03, 2005
 
Greens white-out Democrats

After weeks of farewelling departing staff and Senators, July has arrived and official Government control of the Senate has arrived along with it. The loss of balance of power responsibilities will free up a lot of my time to focus on the issues I want to, although with such a wafer-thin majority for the Coalition, that situation might return again without warning on any issue even Industrial Relations is an outside possibility, as I explore in this piece). Despite this, the mainstream media continues their long-standing position of having little interest in the Democrats’ views. This contempt for the Democrats’ role and a lack of interest in reality is being taken a step further by the Greens, who have released some material that purports to show “a summary of what is required in 2007 to ensure the Coalition loses control of the Senate.”

Typically, but still disappointingly, the Greens’ material pretends the Democrats do not exist and have no relevance in determining whether the Coalition retains control of the Senate. According to the Greens, the only way for the Coalition to lose control of the Senate is for the Greens and the ALP to win seats at the next election.

Apart from being plainly wrong (and rude), it ignores the simple fact that the Coalition got control of the Senate through winning seats from the Democrats. Defending Democrat seats is an essential component in preventing entrenchment of the Conservative domination of the Senate. The fact Democrat seats went to the Conservatives rather than further to the left wing where the Greens sit is a simple demonstration that the Democrats gained votes in the past from people who won’t vote Green. As the Greens are now more clearly aligned with Labor and more clearly positioned and functioing as a doctrinaire left wing party than they were in the past, this is likely to be truer than ever.

This ‘campaign’ from the Greens proposes a Labor/Green Senate as the only alternative to a Liberal/National Senate. Labor and the Greens decision to glue themselves together in the last election helped the Greens, but undoubtedly hurt Labor, as the final week debacle over forestry policy in Tasmania showed. Whilst my own philosophical leanings are more comfortable with Labor than the hard-line Conservative vision which now dominates the Liberal party, I much prefer a Senate where no ideology dominates and diversity and pluralism rules. Having a Labor/Green controlled Senate strikes me as just the opposite side of the same coin we are now stuck with in the Senate –Labor may produce some mildly better legislative outcomes than the Coalition, but it would unlikely to be much better at all in terms of a better functioning democracy. The shallow dishonesty of this latest Green’s campaign in airbrushing the Democrats out of the Senate picture is a simple example that propaganda and populism will win out over pluralism whenever there is a choice to be made – hardly a good sign of what a Labor/Green Senate would be like.

It shows the same narrow vision of the political role of the Senate that all the other political parties display – just another place to crunch your opinions through if you have the chance. My hope for a more dynamic, inclusive form of democracy may be naïve, but I’ll keep pushing for it while I think there’s a possibility it can be achieved.

Two years from now, we will undoubtedly be facing election date speculation. It is almost certain the next federal election will be in the second half of 2007, which means anytime after July 1 2007 will be filled with the usual hints and kite flying about possible dates and imminent announcements. All of this is another argument for fixed terms, but that can’t happen without a referendum and whilst the major parties are happy to talk about giving themselves more power through extending terms to four years, they are not interested in limiting that power by having the election date pre-determined. Personally, Governments have so much more overall power now compared to the Parliament, I think arguments for longer terms have far less weight than they used to. I don’t see much evidence of better governance at state level from having terms extended to 4 years.

In any case, that is all academic as far as the next federal election goes (unless there is a referendum attached to that election). Now that July 1 is here, I and other Democrats have basically got two years to try to convince the public that the country is better off with a Senate not controlled by any one grouping. If the Democrats don’t rebuild or individual Democrat Senators don’t get re-elected, it will make it almost impossible for the Senate to return to being an independent House of Parliament.

The Coalition got control of the Senate by winning the Democrat seat in Queensland, and I don’t particularly want to have them entrench that control by doing that again next election (because it’s my seat, I have a personal interest in the matter which is sufficiently obvious that I barely need to declare it). However, it will be up to the voters of course, not me - all I can do is try to convince enough of them that keeping me there is the best option. It will be an interesting couple of years.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, July 03, 2005 Permalink
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