Senator Andrew Bartlett
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
 
Barnaby Crosses the Floor
The first significant crossing of the floor by a Government Senator occurred tonight when Barnaby Joyce voted with all the other non-Government Senators in opposing part of a Trade Practices Bill.

This is a fairly complex Bill with a range of different measures, but the specific issue at stake was Schedule 1 of the Trade Practices Amendment Bill (No 1) 2005 . This part of the Bill seeks to make corporate take-overs even easier by sidelining the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which currently has the power to stop a merger or acquisition that it considers may substantially reduce competition in the marketplace. Given that close to 98 per cent of mergers currently get the go ahead, it's hard to argue that the ACCC has been getting in the way too much, but this change would empower big business and weaken competition even further.

Barnaby's decision to cross the floor meant that a motion that Schedule 1 remain in the Bill was tied, and a tied vote is lost. This removed the offending Schedule from the Bill. There were many good aspects for small business in other parts of the Bill, although it still had a few other dodgy aspects. One particularly obnoxious Clause was Subsection 93AB(9). This is a blatant and totally uncalled for anti-union measure which will mean that "a collective bargaining notice is not a valid notice if it is given, on behalf of the corporation, by a trade union, an officer of a trade union or a person acting on the direction of a trade union." It is anti-choice and against freedom of association to prohibit people from being able to have a Union negotiate on their behalf, even if they clearly wish to be. Everyone from the 'Liberal' Party voted to keep that clause in. Disappointingly, so did the Family First Senator, Steve Fielding.

Barnaby was sitting behind me while the vote on Schedule 1 was being counted, with all his Coalition colleagues sat on the other side of the Chamber. I won't repeat specific comments made in that environment, but suffice to say that anyone who thinks it is gutless to cross the floor is kidding themselves. He had certainly been put under a lot of pressure from his 'colleagues' and copped some more after the vote.

The Government now has to decide whether it will proceed with the legislation without Schedule 1 in it, but still containing some measures small business are waiting on. Or will they sacrifice the whole lot just because the most blatantly pro-big business measure isn't it? I expect they will be telling Barnaby that it's all or nothing and he is throwing away all the 'good' measures because of one piece he doesn't like. If the Government is willing to junk the whole thing because they can't get their way, it will be their decision, not Barnaby's, but I'm sure the pressure they put on him will be very strong.

PS: Readers may be interested in a research paper just released by the Parliamentary Library on major party MPs crossing the floor in the federal parliament over the last 50 years. It’s a pdf file (135 KB) and can be accessed here.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, October 11, 2005 Permalink
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