The huge price of Abbott's 'minority' rule

A week is a very long time in politics, but seven days out from the election the overwhelming likelihood is that Tony Abbott will win this election with a substantial lower house majority. 

However, in so many ways that couldn’t matter less. The real action will be in the Senate, and this election result is likely to give Abbott’s early days in power a very different context to those experienced by Julia Gillard. 

In fact, even with a lower house majority, Tony Abbott’s first steps will feel a lot like Julia Gillard’s early days learning to deal with minority government.

That’s because the 2010 election was not a ‘referendum’ on anything in particular. A broad raft of policies – good, bad and in some cases ludicrous – decided that election. 

Debate on issues such as ‘Big Australia’ might have degenerated into a discussion about whether it was a human right to play cricket in a decent sized backyard, but by and large it was an issues-based election, not a presidential competition between two cartoon characters. 

There was a real tussle over the NBN, the approach to carbon pricing (Gillard promised to gently coerce a 'citizens assembly' into agreeing that an ETS was a good idea), both sides backed the Fair Work Act (Abbott had no choice), migration levels were debated, development of regional Australia was on the agenda and the Murray Darling Basin even got a look in. 

The big difference is that ‘Gillard’ and ‘Abbott’ were not the number one issue facing the nation. 

And going back one step further, the 2007 election really was a referendum on a single issue: WorkChoices, the issue that lead to such a resounding defeat for John Howard and that drove Abbott, after his 2009 leadership win over Malcolm Turnbull, to declare that approach to industrial relations to be "dead, buried and cremated". 

Both these elections must be held in mind if we are to understand what is about to happen to Australia. 

Assuming a healthy lower house majority (which, of course, is not guaranteed but is highly likely), there is one overwhelming difference in this election. Here is the pattern:

The 2007 election was a referendum on WorkChoices. When the Coalition lost, they dropped that policy like a hot rock. 

In 2010, there was no single issue dominating the campaign, which meant Gillard’s minority government could claim a kind of mandate – by gluing together its own voter support with that of the Greens – for pressing ahead with the Clean Energy Future package, the central issue of the 43rd parliament. 

In 2013, Tony Abbott is almost correct in saying it’s a "referendum on the carbon tax", since it was his relentless attack on this policy that brought Gillard undone and gave him the primary vote to (most likely) repel the Rudd attack.

So what’s the big difference? It’s simply that the mandate to scrap WorkChoices was clear, and the opposition could not stand in its way. But this time the mandate to scrap the Clean Energy Future package will be almost as clear, but Labor is still likely to block its repeal in the Senate. 

Labor has said many times it will not allow Abbott to tear up its carbon price legislation, the way WorkChoices was torn up during Kevin Rudd’s first stint as PM. 

Doubts emerged in May that they would hold the line on that – Bill Shorten was, according to a number of my sources, lobbying caucus members to walk away from carbon pricing if Labor was defeated as expected at the 2013 election (Is this the end of Labor’s CarbonChoices? May 17). 

That assertion was angrily denied by Shorten, and nobody can predict for sure whether or not such a backdown will happen. That does rely, to an extent, on the scale of the walloping Labor receives in the lower house. 

However, let’s stick for a minute to the assumption that Labor will vote against the repeal of its main achievement from the Gillard years – that is, that Labor will stick with the position that this election is not a ‘referrendum on the carbon tax’ at all, but a choice between two divergent policy platforms. 

We then need to look closely at the Senate to see first whether repeal is possible and, secondly, what concessions Tony Abbott will have to give to achieve the promise he has virtually written in his own blood. 

The Rudd resurrection will, if nothing else, prevent a major rout in the upper house. Abbott really can’t take control with his own senators, and so will be dealing with a handful of independent senators to reverse this historic policy. 

The Greens, though likely to be fewer in number (Sarah Hanson-Young now looks doomed in South Australia), will vote against the repeal whatever happens. 

So Abbott’s eyes will fall on Victorian DLP Senator John Madigan, Katter Australia Party senator (if elected) James Blundell, South Australia's Nick Xenophon and potentially another minor party senator such as Pauline Hanson, depending on how the complex web of preference flows work on September 7.

This handful of senators will be given immense power, albeit for a relatively short time. Most legislation Abbott wishes to pass can be massaged through the upper house with fairly minor concessions – including, in some instances, to Labor.

But the carbon tax is different. For several excruciating months, Madigan, Xenophon, Katter (if he has one senator in place), or even Hanson, will have Tony Abbott over a barrel.

Madigan will have the least power, simply because he has been an outspoken critic of carbon pricing. Hanson too, may not even be in the Senate – we just don’t know.

That leaves Xenophon and Katter’s man (if elected), Blundell.

Xenophon will use that moment to advance his anti-gambling agenda. He is furious at the way the Greens have preferenced against Tasmanian independent and anti-pokies campaigner Andrew Wilkie in this election. 

Moreover, he will still bear the disappointment of seeing Wilkie cheated of his coveted pokies reforms in the last parliament – Wilkie thought he’d done a deal with Labor to get real reform but Labor went back on its word as soon as Wilkie lost his balance of power role in the lower house.

So expect Abbott to suddenly discover how much he hates gambling. 

Whatever you might think of Xenophon, he is one of Australia’s most stubborn and principled politicians. He will take the pound of flesh his power entitles him to and, unlike Shylock of old, won’t care if there’s a bit of blood splashed about (corporate blood, that is).

Katter’s shopping list will be longer if he has a senate vote to play with. But just where he will focus his attention is not clear.

It could be a federal government boost to the ethanol industry; it could be more protectionism via higher tariffs and controls on inward investment; he might ask Tony Abbott to hold a gun to the heads of Coles and Woolies to force better business terms to be offered to farmers and small food processors.

And his list keeps growing – even as I write, a media release has arrived saying: KATTER CALLS FOR WAR FOOTING ON ENERGY ... Katter’s Australian Party is calling for the urgent establishment of the Australian Energy Authority to deal with Australia’s looming energy crisis.

Like Xenophon, Katter would not walk away without the full concession on whatever issue(s) he chooses to prosecute.

The extraordinary politicking around the issue of carbon pricing during the 43rd parliament has brought us to a dangerous (or is that hopeful?) moment.

One or two senators are likely to have the nation in their hands for several months and the reforms they insist on could easily help, or harm, the nation in ways the more stable major parties would never do.

As Katter puts it in The Australian, “I am firmly convinced that if you hold the balance of power, you hold more power than the prime minister”.

You’re right Bob. Now why does that make me feel just a little uneasy...