Question about the Australian Senate

[depakid]

From what I can tell from the results, come July when the new Senate sits, Labor will require all 5 Greens, the no pokie independent AND the fundy from first family to get their legislation through the Senate.

(Assuming the Liberals vote in a block).

If that's the case, what will the fundy expect in exchange for his vote on things like Kyoto, work choices and other matters deisgned to reverse the damage Howard & Co, have done?

How much can Rudd hope to accomplish under the circumstances?

[Matilda]

1. The Senate is an unknown quantity for at least another couple of weeks.

The major party distribution will be clear within the week, but with
preferential voting, the last Senate seats can take ages to decide.

Unfortunately, the Coalition will still have control until next July,
but we can only hope that some of the moderates among them, who have
been silenced under Howard, will be willing to pass sensible legislation.

After July, if it doesn't have Coalition support for any Bills, Labor
will have to do deals with whichever party/parties hold the balance of
power. We hope the Greens will have a couple more members, but Family
First could still be in a position to drive a hard bargain, as could
Barnaby Joyce, the maverick Queensland National Senator. And who knows
who else could find themselves with a Senate seat in July - there is
always the possibility of very minor parties suddenly finding themselves
elected, as happened with Families First - they got a Senator on just
over 1% of the vote, because of the way our preferential system works.

It's both the beauty and the weakness of our system.

[Kaotac]

2. Barnaby Joyce has said he'd

Barnaby Joyce has said he'd likely cross the floor on Work Choices and got smacked on the nose by Vale. Will be interesting to see if there's any other Coalition Senators that are tired of being treated like Johnny's lap dogs and will vote their concience.

[Djinn]

3. Hopefully it wont be an issue

If the Greens end up with 5 senators (keep your fingers crossed everyone - particularly if you want to halt the ALP's careen to the right) then they'll only need one other. Fielding has been OK as far as fundies go. I'll still be very happy when they're a footnote in Aus political history - religion has no business in politics in a nation where less than 10% go to church, let alone that narrow branch. FF voted against Workchoices originally.

The only issues where Fielding (not FF as a whole, from my experience he's a lot less fundie than the founders/backers) will clash with an ALP platform is; if they grow a spine and end legal discrimination against gay people - not very likely under Rudd, abortion issues - which are all state issues anyway and stem cells. So essentially it'll really only be stem cells.

I have real concerns about the rise of Hillsong/Paradise/FF because it doesn't take long for an organised (and regimented - union organisers would LOVE to hold the kind of sway over their members that religious officials have over theirs) group to become disproportionately represented in the corridors of power. Take a look at what the Southern Baptists were banging on about 30 years ago, it was actually useful stuff, then somewhere they were gazumped by the sex is evil faction for whom abortion is a higher sin than the murders of a million Iraqis.

Steve Fielding is OK in my book but his ilk are certainly not and I fervently hope he is the only FF Senator we ever see.

It's interesting that people view the Greens as being more similar to the ALP than FF are but if you look at their platforms that doesn't bear out. The Greens will pass ALP IR legislation (tho they believe it should go much further they think it needs to go even if the replacement isn't great either) but the ALP is seriously deluded if they think they can take Green votes for granted. Greens senators are there to represent those that voted for them - the majority of those are ex ALP people who can't stand the economic rationalist kool-aid that the party has taken. If we still agreed with the ALP we'd have voted for them. Honestly the relationship with the Greens is gonna be FAR more interesting than anything related to Fielding/Xenophon

[Andrushka]

4. Hi Djinn

Wow - someone who thinks exactly the same as I do on above issues and developments!!

keep your fingers crossed everyone - particularly if you want to halt the ALP's careen to the right

Duly crossed, and still are. Any word on di Natale's fate yet? I was all beers and cheers when his name came up as Vic senator Saturday night; now he's trying hard to catch up with that bloody Liberal candidate.

[Djinn]

5. Hey Andrushka

still no word on the last Vic spot, though it's looking better for Richard than it did earlier on.

The best thing about 5 Greens is that neither Xenophon or Fielding get to do a Harradine and hold the rest of us to ransom. Xenophon is basically a populist but I think he'd fall in line with the ALP more often than the Coalition, and he can probably be kept happy with plenty of exposure which seems to be what really gets him going. Fielding also isn't as close to the Coalition as he might appear. Voted against WC for example. If the Greens vote with the govt on an issue (if they get 5 spots) then Xenophon and Fielding have to BOTH vote against it to block the legislation, so you'd need an issue that BOTH Xenophon and FF disagreed with the ALP on and I don't know that's too likely.