Greenwash Political Action Party and Urban Grassroots Movement for the Green Party

Friday, June 30, 2006

Rescuing the Senate - the Magic 43%

One year ago tomorrow, the Australian political earth moved in a way it hadn’t for three decades - the Coalition gained control of the Senate.

Some have suggested that this was the fault of poor campaigning by the Opposition parties at the 2004 election. To some extent this is true, but it was not for a complete want of trying. You might remember the Magic 38 piece that Crikey ran in June 04 warning of the possibilities of Government Senate control, and Bob Brown pursued the issue relentlessly during the campaign. But there was scant coverage of the Senate issue in the mainstream media, with a few notable but isolated exceptions. This suited the Coalition of course, and they snuck in control of the Senate. Certainly a more engaged electorate would have been less likely to deliver the 39 seats they won.

Some commentators have suggested that the Coalition Senate control is here to stay for a while yet – that because Senators are elected for 6 years there is nothing much that can be done to prevent Coalition Senate control for at least another 5 years or more.

However if Coalition numbers were reduced by two seats to 37 seats at the next election it would not be able to pass legislation even with the support of Family First’s Senator Fielding. Although a tough ask, this is possible and needs just two things to happen at the 2007 poll:
- Firstly - a repeat of the Queensland 2004 result needs to b prevented (Coalition win of four out of the six seats).
- Secondly - Coalition wins must be limited to two out the six seats in at least two states.

While over the last decade the Coalition has typically won three out of the six seats in each state, there are precedents for this not happening. In 1998, the Coalition won only two seats in both Queensland and NSW (partly attributable to One Nation splitting the conservative vote) and in NSW in 1990 (with nearly in the same result in 1993).

The most likely states for the Coalition vote to go below the critical 43% needed for any chance avoiding a 3-seat win are Victoria and Tasmania, followed by NSW. The strength of the coalition Senate vote in WA, SA and QLD would make it considerably more difficult, but not impossible. And of course, the other possibility is for Gary Humphries to lose his Seat in the ACT (a strong incentive perhaps for his recent crossing the floor).

To fall below this magic 43% requires a swing of less than 5% away from the Coalition to, the Greens, Labor and Democrats. Given the likely increased focus on the Senate race in 2007, and voters’ reluctance to give any side of politics control of the Senate (if informed), this is far from impossible.

So a year on, the campaign to Rescue the Senate is slowly gaining momentum as people are realising that it’s possible to move the political earth back.

Ben Oquist

This is an edited version of a piece first published by crikey.com.au

posted by Ben Oquist # 12:42 PM 1 comments