It is always dangerous to single individuals out, but Jack Evans and Sid Spindler, alongside Don Chipp, were amongst the most crucial people in getting the Democrats established and functional.  Sadly all three have now passed on. Certainly when it comes to Western Australia, there is no other person who played a more fundamental role in the Democrats in that state, from the frantic early days, slowly building the party to a significant political force, in some very difficult days rebuilding the party in the west after some major infighting in the early 1990s – with the party ultimately reaching its strongest ever point in 1998 – and again in the even harder, distressing period where the party was struggling unsuccessfully for parliamentary and political survival.

Jack Evans not only hosted the huge town hall meeting in Perth in 1977 when Don Chipp was barnstorming the country setting up what to date has been the most successful minor party in Australian political history. He was a strong promoter of a ‘centre-line’ party and served as National President and in a number of other positions in those early years of the Democrats when the new party had lots of momentum and many wildy diverse and fervent members, but very little money or political experience. 

Jack Evans only served in the Senate for a single, shortened term, from March 1983 to June 1985.  There is a lot of hard, unglamorous work involved in party politics, and Jack was over represented in that category, but there is also a lot of luck, and he drew some short straws in that department. 

Jack Evans has a few distinctions in electoral history, some of which I’m sure he would have preferred not to have.  He gained the highest Democrat vote in Western Australia in the party’s entire history, at the Democrats’ very first effort in 1997.  With Jack Evans at the head of the ticket, the party gained around 12.6% of the vote.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to get him elected. Meanwhile over in NSW, his Democrat colleague Colin Mason was comfortably elected despite the party only getting around 8.3% of the vote. 

For those interested in political trivia and minutiae, the number 2 candidate following Jack Evans on the Democrat ticket way back in 1977 was Uri Themal, who later went on to head the Queensland government’s Multicultural Affairs department. The number 3 candidate was Olympic gold medal sprinter Shirley Strickland-de la Hunty, who ran as a support candidate for Jack and the Democrats a number of times through into the 1990s. Jack and Shirley know each other from their teenage years, and he spoke at her funeral in Perth in 2004)

Jack recontested for the Senate in 1980, and while the primary vote was much lower at 8.8%, after all the votes were counted and preferences distributed, he came much closer to getting elected – agonisingly so, missing out on the final seat by less than 1000 votes out of around 700 000 votes cast. That final seat went instead to the Liberal’s Noel Crichton-Browne, starting him out on a Senate career which would stretch for another 16 years. 

To rub salt into the wound, the Liberals had advertised in TV, radio and newspapers, as well as through direct mail, with false assertions that a vote for the Democrats was a vote for Labor, along with other alleged inaccuracies about the Democrats’ voting record in the Senate.  Given the final result was so close, it is not unreasonable to assume that these falsehoods may have had sufficient influence to make a difference.

This led to Jack achieving another unwanted political milestone, as the key appellant in a High Court challenge – Evans v Crichton-Browne – to that result.  I believe it was the first test of the provision of the Electoral Act which makes it an illegal practice to be:

“Printing, publishing, or distributing any electoral advertisement, notice, handbill, pamphlet, or card containing any untrue or incorrect statement intended or likely to mislead or improperly interfere with any elector in or in relation to the casting of his vote.”

The High Court found that this provision related only to misleading electors regarding the actual act of voting – i.e. how to fill in the ballot paper or which ballot box to put in it – not in regard to influencing them in deciding who to vote for, so Jack and the WA Democrats lost out again. 

It is not surprising that the Democrats strongly pushed for many years afterwards to get a prohibition against dishonest political advertising inserted into the Electoral Act.  These efforts to remove the ‘licence to lie’ at election time were actually briefly successful – for a short time after the election of the Hawke Labor government, amendments to this effect were passed by the Senate and inserted in the Electoral Act.  However, the two major parties decided to remove them once again before the next election could be held, so they were never used in practice.

Jack was finally successful in getting elected in March 1983. Ironically, the Democrat Senate vote was lower still, at just 6.8%, but the fact it was a double dissolution election, with a lower quota required for election, made the difference. 

However, the downside of being elected in a double dissolution was that firstly Jack only got a three year term instead of the usual six years, and secondly that the start of his term was back-dated to July 1982.  On top of that, the Hawke government, elected in March 1983, called an early election on 1 December 1984.  This time, the Democrat vote was seriously hampered by the brief shooting star of the Nuclear Disarmament Party. The Democrat vote in WA was just 4.8%, while the NDP’s lead candidate, Jo Vallentine, was elected on 6.8% after having been drawn at the top of the ballot paper – well below the level Jack had achieved in 1977 and 1980 without getting elected. 

As another sign of the vagaries of Senate elections for smaller parties, over in NSW the NDP’s rock star candidate Peter Garrett, who had helped generate so much of the momentum for that new party, failed to win a seat despite getting 9.6% of the vote, while the Democrats’ Colin Mason once again managed to get elected, despite polling lower at 7.2%.

If there was one area the ‘consider each issue on its merits’ Democrats had been unyieldingly dogmatic about since their formation, it was the anti-nuclear, pro-disarmanent message, so the splintering of that vote by the NDP,and especially the loss of a seat to them, caused a degree of teeth-gnashing at the time.

When the 1987 election came around, Jack Evans came second in a tightly contested pre-selection ballot within the Democrats.  Jean Jenkins, the lead candidate got elected – in another double dissolution election – with 5.8% of the vote.  Jo Vallentine – recontesting as an Independent, as the NDP has already imploded by this stage – was also re-elected with 4.8% of the vote – the same percentage the unsuccessful Jack Evans led Democrat ticket achieved in the previous election.

Such are the vagaries of Senate polls for smaller parties. The key message isn’t so much a series of hard luck stories, but rather a stark reminder for minor parties that unless they can gain enough support to get a quota in their own right, they will always be subject to the vagaries of preference flows.

But even though Jack had only a short time in the Senate – the second shortest of the 26 people who served as Senators in the Democrats’ history – he still made his mark in that time.  Perhaps most notably, he introduced one of only twelve Private Senators’ Bills (i.e. non-government legislation) to be passed into law in the nearly 109 years since federal Parliament was founded, and one of only two Democrats (along with former Victorian Senator Janet Powell) to be a sole sponsor of such a Bill.  His Income Tax Assessment Amendment Bill (No 2) 1984 was aimed at preventing a particular type of tax evasion.

The topic of tax evasion legislation was very vexed for the Democrat Senators of this period – the first term of the Hawke government. A shared strong aversion to tax evasion at times ran into conflict with a strong opposition to retrospective legislation.  Democrat Senators Chipp, Haines and Macklin tended to go towards only supporting non-retrospective aspects of legislation which clamped down on tax avoidance, while Jack Evans and Colin Mason leaned towards supporting closing tax avoidance loopholes regardless. 

Unlike the later tax troubles the Democrats ran afoul of with the GST legislation in 1999, this much more drawn our public difference of opinion amongst their Senators did not split the party or its supporter base.  Perhaps this was because the positions various Senators took were always openly and honestly explained, and were consistent with their public policies and principles previously pronounced.

In his first speech to the Senatein 1983, Jack Evans highlighted issues that he pursued in the all too brief period he served in that chamber.  Apart from the traditional Democrat emphasis on inclusiveness and the search for constructive cooperation ahead of combative confrontationalism, he strongly promoted the importance of supporting education at all levels as an investment for the future. 

He gave specific mention not just to the need to stop the Franklin Dam, but also to protect precious areas of Western Australia such as the jarrah and karri forests and Cockburn Sound.  While his mention of the women of Greenham Common may seem a bit dated, his emphasis on the importance of nuclear disarmament is as current as ever, as was his mention of the importance of a Bill of rights and individual responsibilities.

He expressed support for cultural diversity as well as economic diversity, with a display of traditional liberal support for individual enterprise, social supports and a reduction in constraints on fair economic competition.

Following the 1987 election, after Jack Evans had been defeated in pre-selection and Jean Jenkins had been elected to the Senate from WA, he moved into the background witin the party for a number of years.  However, Jenkins’ seat was lost at the 1990 election and she was unsuccessful again at the 1993 poll, with the WA Greens (which by that time had formed around Senator Jo Vallentine prior to her retirement in 1991) then holding 2 Senate seats. 

Around this period, a series of infighting broke out in the Democrats in WA which involved the most extraordinary, labyrinthian set of circumstances I’ve ever witnessed.  It reached the stage of one group of members taking another group to court to determine which people were the ‘real’ executive of the WA Division.  It would take far too long to outline the twisting disputes here – and if I started to try, it would probably attract a furious flurry of comments from a few people who are still determined to have their version history recognised, long after everyone else has forgotten the whole affair happened. 

This period ended with a mass expulsion from the party of the major protagonists from both sides of the stoush – plus others who I have to say were basically caught up as collateral damage.  In addition, some other people from outside the party tried to ensure the dispute dragged on in one way or another through the courts for a number of years after – and without raising the names of anyone from outside the Democrats who might already have been mentioned in this piece, suffice to say that there were some disconcerting similarities with efforts made some years later by other people using sizeable amounts of money to pursue court action to derail Pauline Hanson and her party.

In any case, with most of the active members of the WA Democrats either expelled or repelled by the whole saga, Jack Evans came back in to help rebuild the party in WA almost from scratch.  Within a few years, the WA Democrats not only had a Senator elected once again in 1996, with Andrew Murray gaining 9.4%, but in 1998 for the first time ever gained a second WA Senator, with the election of Brian Greig from 6.4% of the vote.

In between those two elections, for the only time in the party’s history they also succeeded in getting people elected to the Upper House of the State Parliament.  The election of Helen Hodgson and Norm Kelly at the state election in late 1997 not only gave the WA branch of the party it’s only ever taste of state success. That election was also historic because, in combination with the election of three candidates from the WA Greens, it broke the conservative’s hold on the WA Upper House for the first time in the state’s history.  The consequences of that were historic, not least because it – eventually – led to the removal of (most of) the disgraceful enormous malapportionment in favour of rural voters which had existed for so long in WA.

Sadly, both of these state seats were lost at the next WA state election in  February 2001- a result which also played a key part in the party’s members across the country moving to generate a ballot of the federal leadership, leading to Meg Lees being replaced by Natasha Stott Despoja less than two months later.

At the 2001 federal election, the Stott Despoja led Democrats – with Jack Evans serving once again as National Campaign Director, as he had in the earliest days of the party – provided the only occasion where the Democrats retained a Senate seat in WA, with Andrew Murray being re-elected on 5.8% of the vote.

I never heard Jack mention it, but if I was him I would have found it interesting to note that results of 12.6% in 1977 and 8.8% in 1980 when he was lead Senate candidate weren’t enough to get a successful outcome, whilst Democrat votes of 5.8% in 1987, 6.4% in 1998 and 5.8% in 2001 were sufficient to be successful.  There a range of reasons why this is so, not least a slightly lower quota after 1984 and the emergence of the NDP/Greens in WA cutting into the Democrat base vote whilst providing strong preference flows if the Democrats could stay above them in the count. 

Despite age and health starting to catch up with him, Jack one again played key roles in the 2007 election for the party in its efforts to stave off parliamentary annihilation.  It must have been a terrible thing for him to witness the final eradication of the party from the national parliament, after thirty years of effort and sacrifice.

I don’t pretend I had no disagreements with Jack now and then over the years, but I could never fault his commitment or his tenacity.  And while he was determined, he wasn’t dogmatic or inflexible. 

It probably sounds shallow, but I also have to say I was terribly envious of his voice, which was rich, deep and resonant – the sort of naturally authoritative and projecting voice which any politician would die for.

In the final paragraphs of the final speech made by a Democrat in the federal Parliament, I mentioned Jack Evans; wondering what might have been if he had had the chance to contribute over a longer period of time in the Senate.   But politics, like life, is full of ‘what ifs’. The most we can do is try our hardest to improve things for the better, and I have no doubt Jack achieved that.

In reading back through a piece I wrote about Don Chipp’s funeralthree years ago, I saw a comment I heard at the time from Paul Keating. He was talking about Chipp, but I think it is fair to give it some application to Jack Evans too, when he said Don Chipp “successfully achieved one of the most difficult things possible in Australian politics – starting a new political party.”

The fact that the party’s time may now have ended doesn’t in any way diminish its achievements over the thirty years when it reshaped the political landscape in Australia, especially when it comes to the Senate.  It doesn’t just leave a historical artifact or curiosity; it leaves an ongoing legacy that impacts on all that follow.

I know the 30 or so years of the Democrats’ history only played one part in the 80 year long life of Jack Evans. I focus on that because I don’t know enough about the rest of his life to comment, but on that score alone, it’s a very good effort.

Judging from what I’ve read, it seems I am more open than most in thinking there is a credible possibility that the Prime Minister might call an early double dissolution election – assuming the political environment at the time suits it (and assuming he gets a trigger).  A chance to strengthen their Lower House majority while immediately reducing the difficulty in getting measures through the Senate would be tempting.

However, the latest speculation that the government is considering recalling the Senate on or after December 10th so they can get a double dissolution trigger from a second rejection of the private health insurance legislation is ludicrous.  It is hard to believe anyone would treat this story as credible.

Firstly, they would have to get the Senate to agree to the extra sittings, which is highly doubtful. Secondly, it is unlikely the redistribution in New South Wales would have concluded by then, which would mean some unnecessarily messy issues surrounding pre-selections and interim boundaries.

And thirdly, whilst I think the government could call a double dissolution election if the circumstances were right, it is inconceivable that this could ever involve calling an election in December, which would run through Christmas and New Year; or anytime in January while the school holidays were still on.

Given Parliament normally resumes early in February, there is no reason why the government couldn’t wait until then, and put the private health insurance legislation up for debate first. An early election would only work for the government if they were able to convince the electorate it was justified. This could be possible in some circumstances, but not in a situation where the government takes unprecedented steps in an effort to speed up the process.

It is apt that the start of this debate coincided with publication of comments by Max Moore-Wilton, the former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, that he was told prior to the 2001 election that the infamous ‘children overboard’ allegation against a boatload of refugees was false, and that he passed on that information to the Prime Minister. After a lot of double and triple checking, Mr Moore-Wilton eventually said his “recollection was not sound”.

But it barely matters which version of Mr Moore-Wilton’s recollection people accept. It has long been obvious that key leaders in the Howard government willingly smeared these refugees for political gain, and the only reason they might not have been formally told the allegations were wrong was because it was quite clear this was something they didn’t want to be told. To this day, Mr Howard has never apologised for his slandering of the refugees, including his comment that “we don’t want people like that in this country”. He has still barely acknowledged that the children overboard claims were baseless.

The Senate debate provides a reminder of the previous federal government’s practice of (mis)using asylum seekers for political gain, with some of the familiar distortions about so-called “illegal entrants”, “jumping the queue”, “illegal immigrants” and the like being trotted out again by Coalition Senators. Still, debates on immigration – and on asylum seekers and refugees in particular – are not renowned for clarity of language and perspective. I have never seen any serious explanation of why asylum seekers arriving in boats should be treated as a matter of national security. Even linking it with a term like border protection is over-stating things, seeing these are people that want to be found, rather than being people trying to sneak themselves or illegal products into the country. Of the millions of people who enter Australia each year, there is no other group who are more thoroughly assessed for health, security, character and general customs and quarantine purposes.

Debate on the Migration Amendment (Abolishing Detention Debt) Bill will continue today. Senator Xenophon has stated he supports the Bill, as do Labor and the Greens. The Coalition Senators will oppose it – assuming none of them support the original recommendation of their Coalition colleagues on the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and cross the floor.

Which leaves the fate of the Bill with Senator Fielding. I had the understanding that he would also be supporting it, but his contribution to the Senate debate yesterday has left me unsure quite what he thinks about the whole issue, let alone the Bill. The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, also seemed rather perplexed by Senator Fielding’s depiction of the issue, judging by the numerous injections he made. Presumably all will become clear later today when debate on the matter resumes and a final Senate vote is taken.

UPDATE: Debate concluded on the detention debt legislation at 1:20pm today. Senator Fielding moved an amendment, seeking to keep charging people for the cost of immigration detention except for those who are subsequently recognised as a refugee. This wasn’t supported by anyone. Fortunately, any risk of the Bill being defeated if Senator Fielding sided with the Coalition was removed when Liberal Senator Judith Troeth stated in the Senate that she was supporting the legislation. A division was called on the final vote on the legislation, meaning Senator Troeth crossed the floor to vote differently to her party colleagues.

The final vote was 34 in favour and 30 against, with Senator Fielding also voting for it.

Among many things, he highlights the fact that the supposed ‘Westminster system’ we are repeatedly told Australia has, is in fact no such thing.  The almost totally rigid party discipline – a relatively modern thing – is one reason why Australian Parliaments often fail in their role.

As the Clerk says

It is an historically accurate statement that the Howard Government, with its Senate majority in 2005 to 2007, was the first government to control the Senate. Previous governments, especially non-Labor governments, lacked that control because they could not control their senators.

Sadly it’s true – since 1901, there have been times that the governing party also had a majority of seats in the Senate. But party discipline, especially amongst the allegedly ‘liberal’ party was never anywhere near what it became in the Howard era.

It is often said that the Australian Senate is one of the most powerful Upper Houses in the world. But any institution is only as powerful as those who inhabit it allow it to be.

There are many choice quotes from Harry Evans’ piece to pick from, but perhaps the most damning – and sadly far too accurate – is the following:

We still have one of the weakest legislatures of the democratic world, especially compared with our great and powerful friends. The Parliament here is under a degree of executive domination that would not be tolerated elsewhere, even at Westminster.

I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.

(Update – this originally linked to a piece in Crikey; I hadn’t realised this article could not be read by Crikey subscribers. The article was derived from a talk which Harry Evans just gave. I’ve now put the direct link to that in the item above.

Dark threats are being made by the government of making the Senate sit through the Friday and into the weekend for as long as it takes to deal with all the legislation, or even calling the Senate back for an extra week’s sitting sometime in July. Adding to the atmosphere is the speculation that the CPRS Bill, which almost certainly will not gain the necessary votes in the Senate to pass, is being lined up as a trigger to call an early double dissolution election before the end of the year. Various advices, some formal and some not so formal, will be thrown around about whether adjourning debate – and a final Senate vote – on the legislation until August would meet the definition of “failure to pass” under Section 57 of the Constitution, and thus start the clock ticking on the three months required before the government can reintroduce the Bill to see if the Constitutional requirements for a double dissolution election are met by the Senate failing to pass the Bill a second time.

The atmosphere is further ‘enriched’ by significant differences within and between both Coalition parties, adding to the general tetchiness and aggravation that will no doubt grow as the week progresses.  The unfortunate ‘babygate’ incident at the end of the previous week, and the extraordinary vitriol heaped on Senator Hanson-Young as a consequence of what was obviously a totally innocent action, probably won’t help add to the goodwill in the final week.

There is also the uncertainty over whether the two Independent Senators will support any Coalition efforts to adjourn a final vote on the Bill until August. It might all be ‘resolved’ first thing Monday afternoon, if the Coalition and the Independents decide to immediately adjourn further debate until August. Or the uncertainty about when the definitive Senate vote for or against the legislation could drag on right through the week and into Friday.

Leaving aside the CPRS and early elections for a moment, one almost certain outcome of all this argy-bargy, agitation and speculation about the CPRS is that inadequate attention will be given to some of the other pieces of legislation that will be pushed through along the way.  One other near certainty is that whenever the Senate vote on the legislation is put, it will be defeated – probably at the Second Reading stage.

In my view, the chances of the Senate sitting into Friday is fairly high. It is unlikely it will go all the way into Saturday. Regardless of what threats may be hinted at, the chances of the Senate being recalled for an extra week’s sitting in July is zero and the chances of an election being called before the end of the year are almost as low.

This year would be seen as just too soon by many people. In addition, an election called before the significant redistributions in Queensland and New South Wales are finished would create a very messy situation which would be unlikely to help the government.  That doesn’t mean the double dissolution trigger for an early election couldn’t be pulled sometime early next year.

Regardless of whether the next election is a double-dissolution which elects the full Senate, or the standard half-Senate election, it is a virtual certainty that the Greens will have the balance of power afterwards.  The key factor is that the Coalition will lose at least one in Queensland, where their fortuitous four seats out of six haul cannot be repeated now that the Liberals and Nationals are running on a joint ticket. They may well lose one or two more, but one is enough to give the Greens the balance of power, regardless of whether the Greens add to their tally or not.

ELSEWHERE: Tim Colebatch in The Age gives an outline of what might (or might not) happen to the CPRS in the Senate this week.

He said

“the 2007 Federal election loss was a devastating event for the Federal National Party, not only because it saw us out of Government in every single jurisdiction in Australia, but because it underlined the drift from our Party’s history and traditions that we permitted for a decade or more in the name of unity. “

……

“Our electoral standing is at root a consequence of the party’s decision to blend in, chameleon-like, with the approach of its Coalition partner.”

While not everyone would agree with him, I think the point he makes is quite plausible.  But regardless of how accurate his analysis is, I still cannot see how the Nationals can pursue a strategy of more clearly differentiating themselves from the Liberals in Canberra, while remaining merged with the Liberals in Queensland.  I didn’t hear a broadcast of his speech, so I don’t know if any of the media in attendance asked a question of Joyce seeking clarification of this.

Even if you view the LNP in Queensland as a Nationals takeover of the Liberals rather than a merger – which might have been broadly true at the time, but matters less and less over time – the point remains that a single merged entity can’t differentiate from itself.

From looking at the rest of Joyce’s speech, he seems to be suggesting the Nationals could/should play a role on the right of the Liberals, shoring up their Conservative base as the Liberals seek the swinging vote/middle ground.  This parallels what he sees as the role the Greens play on the left of Labor. 

I think his analysis of the Greens as Labor’s “able lieutenant” funnelling left wing preferences back to Labor is shallow and flawed, but it’s a view which many others also hold, so I can’t really be too hard on him for reflecting it.

But the key differentiator he is really suggesting is the between the Senate and the House of Representatives, not between the Liberals and the Nationals.

The media focused on his view that the Nationals (i.e. the Senate Nationals) would not support a Carbon Trading Scheme in any form.  But more significant was his suggestion that the Senate’s representation should be changed to regions, so that 2 Senators were elected from each region, rather than 12 from each state.  He draws a parallel with the USA, where each of the 50 states elects 2 Senators regardless of their population. 

Electing just 2 Senators at any election would just give you 1 Labor and 1 non-Labor Senator every time – as has occurred in the ACT and the Northern Territory at every election since they first gained the right to have 2 Senators representing each territory.  Electing Senators from regions rather than states would require a referendum, and will never happen.  But Joyce’s vision highlights a desire that the significant malapportionment which currently applies in the Australian Senate, where both Tasmania and NSW have equal representation despite huge variations in population, could somehow be spread across an even greater number of regions, thus enabling the survival of the Nationals in the Senate.

One of the great ironies of the call for greater differentiation between the Nationals and the Liberals, manifesting itself occasionally in the two parties voting differently in the Senate, is that the Nationals would probably have no representation at all in the Senate after the next election were it not for the fact that they now contest the Senate on a joint ticket with the Liberals in the three big eastern states.

Demographic reality makes it almost impossible for the Nationals to avoid further shrinkage over the long-term and I don’t profess to have any ideas how they could counter this.  But if there is a genuine belief that clearer differentiation from the Liberals is the way to go, then the easiest way for them to test it is to run on a separate Senate ticket at the next federal election.

There is always a certain romantic appeal to a death or glory strategy – in this case it would be very apt to call it a ‘Sydney or the Bush’ strategy. But having personally gone through the extremely unpleasant experience of being amongst the last Senate representatives of a dying political party, I wouldn’t recommend this path be taken lightly.

“What Family First has done has actually broken the back of the alcohol hold on Australia,” he said.

WTF?! The distilled spirits industry must really enjoy having their back broken, seeing they have put out a statement welcoming the outcome.

Senator Fielding seems to have use his negotiating position to produce a lose-lose outcome for pretty much everybody, except the spirits industry.  The spirits industry have as much right as any other legal business to make their case of course, but quite how someone who is an anti-alcohol crusader can see it as a good result is beyond me.

There was another vote in the Senate today where Senator Fielding’s vote was also critical which gained far less attention, as it was overshadowed by the Senate’s debates on alcopops and workplace relations.  This was on a motion to allow another debate and vote to be held on legislation which would prevent donations to political parties of up to $100 000 from being kept secret.

Having already used his deciding vote last week to stop this yawning invitation for corruption from being removed – using another curious rationale that a separate and far less serious issue wasn’t also being addressed – the Family First man voted today to prevent this matter being given any further consideration for at least another two months.

Sensible use of Senate balance of power is about assessing how far you are able to use the leverage you have in a particular situation to move things in what you believe to be a better direction, and then assess whether the final result would be a net improvement on where things are now if you supported it. It’s hard to see how either of these outcomes produce a net gain for families – or just about anyone else.

It’s no great surprise the Coalition voted against the move, given it was reversing changes they made to make it so much easier for large donations to be kept anonymous, but it’s surprising that there’s been so little outcry about it.

Here’s a reminder of  what the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008 [2009] would have done:

reduce the disclosure threshold (for donations to political parties) from the current CPI indexed amount of $10,900 to a non-indexed amount of $1,000. ….

The bill will improve transparency in the funding and disclosure regime by requiring participants in the electoral process to report every six months rather than every 12 months.

The bill will also provide consistency by reducing the deadline when the participants in the political process have to lodge disclosure returns with the AEC to a consistent period of eight weeks. This measure will replace the haphazard deadlines currently in the Electoral Act which range from 15 weeks, 16 weeks or 20 weeks, depending on the person or the entity.

To ensure that the new $1,000 disclosure threshold is not avoided by a person giving multiple amounts below the threshold to various branches or divisions of the same political party, the bill will treat donations to different branches of a political party as if the donations were given to the same political party.

The bill prohibits the receipt of a gift of foreign property or an anonymous gift outright for some people and entities while for other people and entities it will be unlawful to receive a gift of foreign property or an anonymous gift if that gift is used for political expenditure.

The bill seeks to prevent the possibility that some candidates and other groups may obtain a windfall payment of election funding by tying electoral funding to the actual electoral expenditure incurred.

Senator Fielding did not express opposition to any of these measures, but none the less voted against all of them.  His remarks focused on his view that there should be a limit of $10 million on the public funding any political parties can receive from one election.  This is a view worthy of debate, although in my view it’s not the best way to try to limit or cap election expenditure by political parties.

He also made the curious statement that “one of the biggest opportunities for corruption arises under public funding for federal election campaigns.”  It is actually private donations that provide by far the biggest opportunity for corruption – a key reason why public funding was brought in in the first place.

Senator Fielding concluded his remarks in the Senate by saying that “Family First is moving to cap the amount that each major political party can claim from the public to fund their election campaign to a maximum of $10 million.”  Barely fifteen minutes later, he then voted against the Bill, not only providing the crucial vote which enabled it to be defeated, but also preventing himself from being able to move the amendment he said was so essential.

Regardless of whether or not a cap on public funding is a good idea, this decision has left open a scandalous legal mechanism which allows anonymous donations of close to $90 000 to be made to political parties, for major donations to come from foreign interests and for long delays in disclosure of donations.

Labor Senators recommended some technical clarifications, while concluding that “the Bill be passed without delay”.  Liberal Senators “acknowledged that Workchoices is dead”, outlined “aspects of the legislation which appear to be unfair, which may destroy jobs and which are at odds with the Rudd Government’s promises”, identified some “significant and unresolved flaws” and said the “government should honour commitments made to Australian business” made in their election policy. Despite all this, they didn’t say the legislation should be defeated if these changes were not made. The Greens focused heavily on queries about whether the legislation is compliant with International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions, concluding by stating that the legislation provides “fairer regulation of workplaces than Work Choices. However, the Bill also contains too much of the Work Choices regime” and “represents a missed opportunity to cement a truly fair and progressive industrial relations system”.  They also don’t state that they will oppose the legislation if amendments are not made to make it “truly fair”.

The key point missing from most of the media commentary about the Fair Work Bill is that it doesn’t even go close to returning the law to a pre-Workchoices situation.  This is regardless of the fact that both major parties have now adopted the sensible view that we should try to maintain a consistent set of national laws governing workplace relations.  The issue is not that the laws are national, but what rights are contained in those laws.  For those who still like to portray industrial relations as a two dimensional contest, where workers and employers are constantly engaged in a battle with each other, there is no doubt that the Fair Work Bill leaves things tilted far more in the employers’ favour than was the case pre-Workchoices. 

This simple fact betrays the fervent cries that the Fair Work Bill will cost heaps of jobs are little more than bombastic nonsense.  These claims could only have substance if the same people argued that the workplace relations regime that operated under the first nine years of the Howard government were even worse.  Whilst there was a continuing campaign around a few specific measures, such as unfair dismissals, there was never any suggestion Howard’s laws were pro-union or anti-jobs.  It was only once the ideological monstrosity of Workchoices was bulldozed through a rubber-stamp Senate by a Coalition eager to hang itself with the extra rope the electorate handed them at the 2004 poll that history was rewritten to suggest that Howard’s own pre-Workchoices laws were some sort of trade union nirvana.

When the Senate considers amendments to the Fair Work Bill later this week, it is possible the Coalition may get some amendments passed with the support of Senators Fielding and Xenophon. It is hard to see the Greens getting the necessary Coalition support for any of their amendments, unless the Coalition decides to do so for the purposes of trying to embarrass the government.

However, it is possible that the government will accept a few amendments from the Greens or the others on the cross-bench.  This would give them a way to counter allegations that they are hardline ideologues captive to a union agenda, by showing them as being willing to compromise and consider different views (as long as they aren’t the Liberal’s views, who Labor is clearly trying to portray as hardline ideologues still pining for a return to Workchoices).  Accepting a few Senate amendments may also provide a way for Labor to get a few extra things the unions want in the final legislation, while being able to say to business that it was the Senate that made them do it.

Regardless of that, given public statements made by both the Coalition and the Greens, it is very hard to see a majority of the Senate insisting on any amendments it makes, should the government reject them in the House of Representatives.  This means Labor will make the eventual decision on what type of amendments, if any, they are willing to wear and the Senate debate will serve mainly as a vehicle for the various parties to do some positioning on what is still a politically significant issue.

The record of the various cross-bench players over the first six months of this new Senate, and the public comments and actions to date, have begun to provide a good idea of their attitudes and capabilities.  But this week looks likely to provide the first really significant test of Senators in the balance of power role.  There were a few Senate balance of power skirmishes last year over some of the measures in Labor’s first Budget, such as the luxury car tax. Many of the measures got through in some form after a bit of toing and froing, and there was no major measure blocked (although the so-called alcopops tax hike is still to be determined).

Thus far, the Greens have shown an ability to handle their new Senate balance of power role in a mature and balanced way, confounding the predictions of those who suggested their previous uncompromising approach would make them unsuited for this role and showing promising signs of filling the gap left by the Democrats – although having only 5 Senators still makes it hard for them to cover all the issues as thoroughly as could be desired.

Indications thus far is that Nick Xenophon is earning the respect of all sides for being reasonably straight in the way he deals with issues, and giving solid thought to the issues he has to make pivotal decisions on.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Family First Senator, Steve Fielding. He is not a new quantity, having already been in the Senate for three years and having occasionally played a balance of power role on key issues such as enabling the abolition of any form of compulsory student services fee at universities and removing even more of the restrictions on Australia’s media ownership laws.  The manner in which he handled these issues left plenty of people perplexed at the time, and nothing in the way he has approach balance of power issues in the last six months has served to change opinions.

An indication of the starkly differing attitudes of most of the Senate players towards the two independents is reflected in this column from Glenn Milne. However, despite this and other indications around that Nick Xenophon is leaning towards the Coalition’s option of tax cuts rather than one-off handouts, I’d have to say that I’d be very surprised if the government accepted a major change like this.  And I’d be even more surprised if, by the end of this week, the government doesn’t get its package through the Senate in one form or another. I agree with Michelle Grattan that Nick Xenophon would “have to be crazy brave, or just crazy, to block the $42 billion” package.