Will Abbott play double-dissolution roulette?

The list of policies requiring legislation that may be blocked in the Senate is growing by the day, raising the question of whether we’re headed for a 1974-style double-dissolution election (not to be confused with 1975, when there was another famous double dissolution). 

While there is some ambivalence, particularly from the Palmer United Party, on some issues, the ones that are in trouble so far include: 

•  The repeal of the carbon and mining taxes
•  The creation of Direct Action 
•  Paid parental leave
•  Lifting the pension age
•  Repeal of section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act 
•  And most recently the ‘debt levy’ tax increase. 

The government has some options for effectively enacting some of those without specific legislation – for instance, piggy-backing the debt levy and funding for Direct Action with the budget bills. 

But even if those are off the list, there is plenty there to trigger a double dissolution. 

In essence, if the Abbott government presents a bill to the upper house twice and has it knocked back both times, with a minimum three months in between votes, it can request that both houses be dissolved and all lower house and Senate seats be put to a general election. 

This is what the Whitlam government did in 1974. It had six pieces of legislation, none of which were ‘supply bills’ (bills that control the flow of federal money), knocked back twice. 

Had supply been blocked, Whitlam would have been forced to resign and either cede power to the opposition directly or call an election.  

As they were not supply bills, Whitlam requested, and was granted, an election for both houses – an election he won with a reduced majority. (Many argue Kevin Rudd should have done the same with his ill-fated CPRS bills.)

After the election, Whitlam had the bills knocked back one more time by the Senate, and therefore was within his constitutional rights to request a joint sitting of both houses. 

In a joint sitting, there is a single vote of all MPs and senators and if the vote is in the affirmative, the bills pass directly into law. 

That’s what Whitlam did, and he did indeed see the six pieces of legislation pass into law. 

However, the beer-and-sandwich celebrations at ALP headquarters didn’t last too long. In 1975 Whitlam had supply blocked, leading to the famous dismissal -- involving another double dissolution that Malcolm Fraser won. For the moment, though, that is another story. 

Forty years later, one of the options available to an Abbott government hell-bent on pushing through controversial reforms, is to bounce them off the disapproving Senate a couple of times and then ask Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove to dissolve parliament. 

It is an intriguing prospect, for two main reasons. 

Firstly, it’s almost certain that the Coalition would not lose government, despite its poor standing in the opinion polls. Yes, Abbott would lose seats in the lower house, but in terms of prosecuting a reform agenda he may well reason that it’s worth a gamble.

Governing with a reduced majority and a hostile Senate would not be too different from the current situation – so Abbott may have “little to lose”.

Secondly, there is a reasonable chance Abbott would retain enough MPs and senators to win a vote in a joint sitting of both houses of parliament. 

Currently, the Coalition has 123 MPs and senators – which is well over half the 226 seats in both houses. Abbott would need 114 MPs/senators to win a joint-sitting vote, so could afford to see up to nine casualties on his own side at a double-dissolution election. 

In such a scenario, he could then push through any or all of the bills that counted as official “triggers” for the double dissolution (but no others).  

That is precisely how Whitlam got the Health Insurance Bill 1973 into law – the legislation that created Medibank, which after major modifications under Fraser was changed back to become the foundation of the Hawke government’s Medicare policy in 1984.  

Is a double dissolution a gamble worth taking? Without sophisticated polling data from within the Coalition bunker, I’d have to put it at close to 50-50 – a bit like throwing a ball onto a roulette wheel after placing a bet on both odds and evens. 

But as any gambler knows, that’s not strict 50-50 odds. On the roulette wheel, zero is counted as neither odd nor even.

In Australian politics, Clive Palmer is both odd and looking to get even. Chances are the party that would increase its numbers most at a double dissolution election would be the Palmer United Party. And that may be one gamble Abbott is not willing to take.