Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Senate control now cheques for balances

John Howard had promised that he will use the totalitarian power he gained at the last election reasonably and responsibly - he will not become provocative simply because he can now exercise untrammelled control in both houses of the federal Parliament.

Well, how very reassuring that is - except that it all depends on what you mean by the word provocative. Without even waiting for the Senate to pass into his eager grasp, something which will not happen until July 1, Howard's Industrial Relations minister, the deceptively mild-mannered Kevin Andrews, has already brought back a mass of legislation already rejected many times as having been overly provocative - not only by Labor, but by the Democrats, Greens and Independents as well.

The same will apply to the rest of what he regards as his mandate, notably the sale of the rest of Telstra and the delivery of the country's mass media to Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch. Provocation is clearly in the eye of the beholder. What Howard presumably means is that he will not introduce legislation so outrageous that even those retaining a vestige of backbone within the government's own ranks may feel compelled to protest. But given their record to date, this still gives him something very close to open slather.

Those attempting to find a sliver of hope in this parlous state of affairs have reminded us all that there have been long periods in the past when the government has had control of the Senate and the sky has not fallen in. They are quite right, but the circumstances today are very different - and not simply because we now have a Prime Minister closer to the edge of megalomania than at any time in the last 75 years, although that obviously comes into it.

It will surprise many people to know that until the 1950s control of the Senate by the government was more or less the norm - either that, or absolute control of the Senate by the opposition, an even more absurd comeuppance. This was because in those days the Senate was elected not by the proportional system we have today, a system understood by almost nobody, but by a version of direct election similar to that of the House of Representatives.

On paper this should have led to the Senate becoming either a rubber stamp or a total obstruction, but in practice it didn't, because senators saw their roles as far more independent than do their counterparts of today. Some stubbornly stuck to their constitutional brief, which was to represent the states - particularly the smaller states - rather than their parties. Others saw their roles as above party politics altogether and took it upon themselves to enforce what they saw as the permanent will of the people. The Senate, whichever way its composition tilted, usually provided enough checks and balances to keep governments sensible while not impeding their overall programs.

This attitude persisted even after Labor changed the system; in 1948 the brilliant but apparently innumerate Doctor Herbert Evatt produced a complex thesis by which he persuaded Prime Minister Ben Chifley that introducing a system of proportional representation would guarantee a permanent Labor majority. With Labor in control of the Senate at the time, Chifley pushed through the necessary legislation, with the result that within two elections Labor lost its majority and has never regained it since.

The balance has generally rested with one or more minor parties and the occasional independent, but in 1975 Malcolm Fraser won it back for the conservatives and held it through the 1977 election. For five years the conservatives had no effective parliamentary opposition; but civilisation did not end, partly because Fraser exercised a restraint for which Howard now castigates him, but partly also because a kind of quasi-opposition emerged from within the Liberal Party itself. A group of four of five senators (and even the occasional member in the House of Representatives) made it clear that they were prepared to cross the floor if sufficiently provoked.

These moderates were subsequently purged from the party by the forces led by John Howard; this time around the Liberals are likely to be much more tightly disciplined. If there is any kind of revolt it will have to come from the Nationals, some of whom have signalled that they expect to be taken more seriously than they have been in the past.

However, this may not be much comfort for the rest of us; the new Queenslander Barnaby Joyce has already signalled that the top of his wish list is tougher laws against abortion, and that he might demand these as a trade off for his vote on the sale of Telstra. I doubt if this is what people normally mean by checks and balances.

What makes it worse is that the proportional system means that the Coalition will probably maintain its absolute control of the Senate for a second term, so even if Labor wins government next time around it will still have to contend with an implacably hostile upper house. And of course if Howard wants to get really serious about eliminating those pesky minor parties once and for all, he always has the numbers to pass legislation reversing Chifley's 1948 changes and bringing back a situation very close to winner takes all.

That really would be provocative, so he probably won't do it. But the bad news is that he doesn't need to. His political boundaries are now limited only by his imagination. We can only be grateful that this latter, though unquestionably warped, remains very small.