PUP - A legitimate political force?

When most people think about politics they automatically think of the Government and Opposition of the day, and probably the last thing that was in the news, whether that be the Carbon Tax, Clive Palmer falling asleep during Question Time, fighting in a remote overseas country or some outlandish remarks made by a politician in the heat of the moment. Not at the top of that list would be the inner workings of the Senate, the chamber which makes up half of our parliamentary system and which holds enormous power when it comes to the passing and scrutinising of bills.

Since the introduction of the new Senators, who were elected last September, many have started to question the legitimacy of the new senators, and how just a handful of individuals can hold so much political clout, that the Government are seemingly being held to ransom. The Senate which consists of 12 representatives from each state and 2 from each territory and is commonly referred to as the House of Review, looks set to undergo a radical change in the way people think about its power and influence in the modern political system, given the influx of 2 minor parties and a handful of micro parties and Independents.

Famously called the house of “Unrepresentative swill” by former Prime Minister Paul Keating, the Senate is home to 76 Senators, each of whom are elected to the chamber for 6 years, and their term in power starts on July 1, irrelevant of when the election is held. Political experts will tell you that it is easier for smaller parties and single issue parties to get elected to the Senate, as the voting system we use, means candidates need just to reach a quota or a percentage of the overall votes rather than 51% of votes to win. It sounds simple enough but when it comes to determining who becomes a senator and who misses out, the count is a long and complex process which usually takes at least a couple of weeks to finalise.

From the 6 new senators usually elected at every election roughly 2 will be from the Australia Labor Party, 2 will be Liberal and the last 2 tend to me part of a minor party, who more often than not will be right leaning, or who have views similar to the Liberal and National Parties. Sometimes, there have been times when outliers have found their way into the Senate and have been hailed ‘true Aussies’ with their larrikin attitudes and who take on the persona of being “normal”, when in actual fact they tend to hold quite peculiar views. And so it seems that the Australian public, and particularly our Tasmanian and Victorian brothers and sisters have decided Canberra needed a shakeup, and believe me when I tell you, we are all in for one hell of a shakeup in the coming years ahead!

The Palmer United Party (and the biggest minor party after The Greens) with its eccentric and unorthodox senators, are already making a name for themselves by bucking the political trend, quickly becoming household names, for perhaps all the wrong reasons. With Tasmania’s Jacqui Lambie, Queensland’s Glen Larazus and Western Australia’s Dio Wang, and the acquisition of Victoria’s Motor Enthusiast’s Ricky Muir, it seems the Palmer United Party are fast becoming a force not to be reckoned with. That is unless you want to get burned, as the Abbott Government have recently found out, after they needed to compromise in order to pass the Carbon Price Repeal and other critical legislation that was the basis of their election campaign and win.

Our first introduction to these new law makers came in the form of an interview on channel 7 earlier in the year, where Ricky Muir was exploited as a media shy, underprepared senator who has a lot to learn about publically elected life and Jacqui Lambie who is quick with the one liners but from all accounts seems delusional when it comes to being held to the high standard of a Senator as opposed just another outrageous elected celebrity vying for media attention! Between her trivial comments regarding her becoming the next PM and wanting a man who is ‘well hung’ she seems to be new Nick Xenophon without a clue! Particularlly as time goes on, it is quite obvious that while she knows how to get media attention, sooner or later she will be nothing more than an outrageous individual Australia is ashamed of! Clive Palmer, ringleader and House of Representatives member extraordinaire, has always been a wild card claiming that Rupert Murdoch’s wife was a Chinese spy as well as condemning the carbon tax whilst in the same breath, claiming we need to be tougher on carbon pollution. This time however, it seems he has gone out of his way to find the most bizarre and peculiar Australians and thrust them into the Australian political sphere in the name of Australian democracy.

Traditionally minor parties have held some level of support in the Senate, but it has been a long time since we have had the breadth and variety elected to the Senate last September. It has become a common theme during election campaigns during the last decade or so, to say that voters have elected the lesser of two bad choices, with the major parties no longer being the obvious choice at the ballot box. But with such a shift towards the minority, many are asking if the system we have held dear to us, needs changing, or at least alteration. Voting trends suggest that although the overall domination of the major parties continues, people are increasingly voting against a party (the government) as opposed to, for the Opposition, which is creating this paradox of circumstances, whereby wild card candidates are being elected after preferences. Furthermore with the increase in smaller and single issue parties, coupled with a growing lack of confidence in the political sphere currently, the major parties are needing rethink who their core voter base are, and how to best appeal to their wishes and needs.

While it is true that only on a few occasions has the prime minister of any political party controlled both the upper and lower houses of parliament, think John Howard and his infamous industrial relations legislation WorkChoices was passed in 2005, many are disputing that it is quite a different matter for these so called minorities to have such a large amount of political impact, think The Democrats and the GST or the Palmer United Party in the modern day. However, given these minor and micro parties are becoming more and more influential, many in the know, are suggesting changes to the rules to ensure these so called fringe dwellers or extremities to the norm, do not have unguarded access and control over what legislation passes or fails. Further example of minor parties holding the government to this ransom, are The Greens and Independents in the last parliament, under the prime ministership of Julia Gillard. But while the press and the Opposition labelled that government as unstable and unworkable, one might be so bold as to say pot, kettle, black in terms of the new Abbott government needing to make deals to pass legislation, but that is the reality until at least the next election so it would seem.

The ABC’s fabulous psephologist (an expert on elections) Antony Green gave a televised speech in Federal Parliament House in February of this year on the need for electoral reform in the Senate, floating around the idea that Senate voting was well past due for modification. Due to the fact that voters can vote in one of two ways and the ballot still be counted, above or below the line is the simple way of defining the two. With 98% of people voting above the line and allowing the political parties themselves to dictate preferences, Green suggests it is time for parties to be held accountable and that backroom deals no longer play such a prominent deal in proceedings, especially as now 1 in 5 voters vote for a minor or micro party, a significantly higher statistic than in the past and going on the results from the September 14 election, if less than 20 people in the whole of Western Australia had voted differently, 2 different senators would have been elected!

Green however does suggest ways in which the system could be improved, one way would be to make candidates (or parties) achieve a minimum quota threshold on first preference votes to ensure that micro parties who receive under say 5% of the vote could not eventually get a seat. This does not totally discriminate against the minor parties, but does force them to have a sizable level of support before they can consider entering parliament or make to the criteria for being eligible to register as a political party stricter as there is an increase in parties of almost 50% prior to an election being called. Green also went on to advocate that change is inevitable, as the current system is unmanageable for modern day politics in its current form; but whatever form it takes, it must ‘ensure the Senate system reflects the will of the electorate’ rather than backroom deals and ‘voters must have the power over preferences’ rather than a complicated mess of party politics as is the case currently.

The Palmer United Senators have now been in parliament for a couple of months and yet we are still grasping at straws when it comes to what they believe in and what they want to see changed. Is Lambie an advocate for Viagra to be put on the PBS, is Dio Wang in favour of stricter control over election counting and is Muir in favour of nationalising learning to drive programs? We may never know, but one thing is for certain, students of politics will be kept entertained and some of us may even start… cough cough continue watching Senate question time. One thing the election of the Palmer United senators does, is make all voters aware of the power of their vote. It is very easy to believe that one vote cannot change the end result, but the proof is in the outcome, 480 people outright voted for Rick Muir in the whole of Victoria with an estimated 3.5 million voting peoples. If less than 20 people in Western Australia had voted differently, and with an estimated 1.6 million voting people that would not be hard to do, the results in the Senate could have been very different.

What does this mean for the current parliament, with its Jacqui Lambie’s, Nick Xenophons and Ricky Muir’s causing all this supposed havoc in the name of holding the government to account? A headache for the government to begin with, and a whole load of fun for the Labor Party, as the Government will have to negotiate and compromise in order to pass legislation. Something that is really quite normal but Abbott shot himself in the foot by labelling the ALP as illegitimate, when they needed to compromise with the Greens in order to pass their own range of legislation. The general consensus is that while the Palmer United Party will jump up and down at some of the proposed legislation from the Government, but at the end of the day they will help in passing the measures.

Whether you like politics or not, in the next couple of years it will be hard to escape the fabulous escapades of the quiet chamber, more often than not, the Palmer United senators will be the deciding factor when it comes to what passes and what fails. This is not new information, but the longer certain senators are in the public arena, and more importantly in the firing line when it comes to the Australian media, the more outrageous and more seemingly inappropriate these elected people become. Your vote is sacred and many people around the world die fighting for the right to cast a vote but one must seriously question the legitimacy and qualifications or lack thereof, of some of our newest parliamentarians.