Albo’s pre-emptive kowtow to an imagined Westminster

Dec 10, 2024
Canberra, Australia View of inside of the House of Representatives chamber of the Parliament House where federal laws are debated and voted by members.

The Labor Party would like it to be understood that they would prefer that voters give their second preference to the Liberal Party or the National Party, ahead of any Greens, Independents or members of loose groupings such as the Teals. Elders of the party believe that the two-party system – which they consider to be fundamental to the Australian Westminster system – is otherwise in great danger and could, down the track collapse. Please, especially, do not vote Green.

Labor has been able to get most of its legislation through the senate over this past term because of support from the Greens and Independents. It seems it would rather forfeit that support, and thus fail to get Labor legislation on the books, than allow anything to happen that improved the capacity of the Greens to win any more seats in the House of Representatives, or senate seats. They are Labor’s worst enemy, or at least its worst threat.

Years ago, Anthony Albanese as political fireball said his mission in life was to fight Tories. It was the sort of thing a left-wing ratbag, such as, say, Albanese’s self-claimed political mentor, Tom Uren would say. Even Paul Keating would say it, and he was of the Labor right faction, no friend of Albanese’s.

But times have changed. The old Labor left has peeled off, and most who are still active in social justice or traditional Labor causes vote Green. Factions describe themselves as of the left or the right, but there is no longer a left-wing engine room of ideas. The prominent self-styled lefties, Albanese himself, Penny Wong, Katie Gallagher for example, are in political alliance with the most right-wing faction. No one has causes, lights on the hill, or coherent ideas about why Labor is there or what it should do. There’s a good chance its campaign special will be as the party to lead us into war, repel asylum seekers and wring its hands, regretfully over Palestinians. Labor has shrunk from conflict with the coalition, and abandoned plans to clean up the systemic mismanagement of government.

I have wondered before if Labor had a secret mission to uphold the two-party system ahead of success with the help of third parties or independents. Two years ago, I suggested that Albanese and Mark Dreyfus had cooperated with the Liberals to weaken the National Anti-Corruption Commission even though it had the numbers via the Teals and the Greens to keep the policies it had put to the electorate. Doing so had the additional benefit – or so it was argued — that neither the Greens nor the Teals would get any credit, even though they had done more to make the tough policy a major campaign issue than Labor itself. It was also argued, unconvincingly, that making a deal with the coalition would bind them more to the (castrated) commission because they had voted for it. Had the NACC gone into law against the coalition’s will, it might have felt able to promise to repeal it when it won back office.

There have been other occasions, for example with the ill-fated Voice referendum, when Labor held back on its commitments in an effort to get the Liberals on board. It failed to do this and made its proposal more lily-livered. It was sucked right in.

In a recent edition of The Saturday Paper, Jason Koutsoukis reported a conversation between Senator Don Farrell, the right-wing Labor minister responsible for election laws and Simon Holmes à Court, who has supported Teal candidates and other independents for campaigns based on climate change action.

Holmes à Court had complained that proposed “reforms” to electoral laws would entrench the two-party system and lock out challengers.

Farrell responded: “I mean, that’s the fucking point.”

When crossbench MPs had asked if the legislation was just a mechanism to lock-in the two-party system, Farrell responded, “Well that’s the way the Westminster system works.”

The legislation rushed through the House of Representatives in less than a day worked heavily to the advantage of Labor and the coalition and weakened the power of independents to compete with them. It has effectively grandfathered many of the rights and privileges of the long-established major parties and exempted them from a number of the limits on election spending. It has also continued a number of deliberately constructed loopholes allowing big donors to escape obligations to report party income, and mechanisms to help the big parties to donate eight times the notional donor limits, by allowing them to donate to each of the state and territory branches of the major parties.

Put bluntly, many of the proposals are rorts on the taxpayer and the minor parties. But one can be sure that the coalition will not complain. They have been colluding with Labor to get around the system for decades. And even as ministers have pretended that the various sham “reforms” over these decades have tightened up scrutiny and proscribed misbehaviour, party officials have been briefing big donors on how to avoid them. It would be a fit subject for an NACC inquiry, were it to have the leadership, the guts and the approach to its duty that voters expected. It might be difficult to argue that conduct engaged in by both sides by deliberately inserted loopholes could not be illegal or corrupt. It would be less difficult to show it involves deliberate deception of the general population, to be dishonest and dishonourable, and to provide evidence that where the two-party system is involved in election skullduggery, the system of democracy (including the Westminster conventions) is being abused.

Australia does operate by Westminster-style conventions, though not by the same rules as in Britain, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand. Each has adapted over the past century or more according to its own needs. It has never embraced, whether in constitutional form, or in practical reality, any assumption of a two-party system, or reason politicians or public should lean to a binary system. Having multiple players in the game magnifies the areas from which a party can attack.

There was no binary system in the first 14 years of federation. There were loose gatherings of people, sometimes bound by loose agreements about supply, but often in bitter argument with each other over matters such as protection, free trade, and states’ rights. A party system scarcely existed in the Australian states in the 19th century, and, as in Britain, many MPs may have belonged loosely to the Tories, the Whigs and the Liberals, but many were not bound by party membership. Labor, in Australia as well as Britain was the first to develop a legal structure. It is simply impossible to identify principles even of collectivism or individualism. That’s because being left or right wing does not predict whether you are authoritarian or laissez faire.

Indeed, it was not until very recent times that the Constitution even mentioned political parties at all. The usages of Westminster government have never much figured in constitutional arguments before Governors-General or the High Court. Likewise, “Westminster principles” of ministerial resignation have been honoured mostly in the breach.

Various Labor splits from 1917 to about 1942 mean that there were usually at least two, sometimes three Labor parties, each bitterly fighting the others. In the mid-1950s, Labor split again for another 20 years. Don Farrell’s party history owes more to the DLP side of that split than the ALP. At its peak, the DLP had five senate seats, which it used consciously to keep Labor out of power.

The electoral principle is that all candidates are treated equally

Likewise, coalition parties have long had splits, even leaving aside the role of the National (once Country Party), formed near the end of WWI. There was a rough unity for 20 years under the Bruce Page governments and the United Australia Party, but the split of 1941 caused the break-up of anti-Labor parties, until Bob Menzies wielded together the Liberal Party.

I do not know why Senator Farrell is misleading voters about the existence of some general principle of trying to preserve the two-party system. It is easy enough to understand why the coalition would go along with the idea that there was such a principle, because it could work only to Labor’s disadvantage. The fact that the coalition did so could not bind it forward or backwards. Nor could it justify the unequal treatment of parliamentary candidates. We need to require fair and free elections with the same rules applying to everyone. It is as fundamental as the implied right of freedom of political speech. The High Court does not have to play politics. It would simply judge whether the legislation treats all candidates similarly.

The High Court might recognise the fundamental and deliberate inequality. It is, after all, no different in principle than an executive decision to give funding to one party only, or only to parties which had achieved 25 per cent of the vote, or only to parties arbitrarily selected by the prime minister.

There is also the risk that the “reforms” rule could aggravate unequal treatment. Independent candidates may get the same $5 as major parties do for every vote achieved. In theory at least. But in practice they will not have access to the lurks by which they can classify some expenditure as not being devoted to the political campaign. Thus, for example, pamphlets, social media ads, and TV ads that merely say “vote Labor” or “Vote Labor for cheaper energy” do not amount to campaign expenditure marked against the particular candidate. Only advertising that mentions the candidate is marked as being for the campaign.

Because Labor (and the other side) are running in every seat, they have much more capacity to claim general rather than individual campaign expenditure. What this may mean in practice is that independents effectively get less money than the big parties do. Labor and the coalition are already getting over $100 million a year from taxpayers for election funding. If the gap increases between the practical amounts parties can claim, the disadvantage is multiplied. If all candidates were treated equally, Labor and the coalition would get about a third of the total funds each. And independents getting more than four per cent of the vote would get about a third between them, apportioned by their total vote. It is quite easy to imagine that the new system would have independents getting only about 15 per cent of total funding, even if they hold their proportion of the vote, or increase it.

Of course there are definite advantages in some of the reforms. It is good that all donations, whether to the party or the candidate be reported on-line, and simultaneously with its receipt. Likewise with expenditure. It may be that there is some justification for having higher fundraising limits when independents are involved. This is because of the capacity of party candidates to raise more and appear to spend less. Such limits would not permit the limitless spending of a Clive Palmer. But it could allow a crusading candidate, a Teal for example, raising $2 million from donors. That extra $2 million, added to the publicly funded war chest would be about equal to what was been spent in vulnerable seats at the last election. Some defending candidates, Josh Frydenberg and his challenger spent even more.

Propping up the coalition is a damn-fool idea on the road to electoral suicide

It is interesting that Albanese is trying to make it harder for independents and smaller parties at just the same time that voters are turning away from the major parties. The turnout for independents, the Greens, One Nation, Jacqui Lambie and others will probably be higher next year than in 2022. This is no evidence that the higher average vote is because voters are stupid or have been conned. Rather, the big parties are trying to make up for lost revenue caused by declining support.

But even more puzzling is why Albanese and Farrell have persuaded themselves that sending their preferences to the Liberals rather than the Greens can work to their benefit. Labor and the Greens may be struggling hard against each other so as to differentiate their policies and ideas. But Labor does not have any chance of retaining government if it cannot be sure of getting almost all of the preferences of the Greens. As things stand, Labor may get 32 per cent of the first preference vote. The Greens may get 14 per cent, with preferences going to Labor. The 46 per cent, with other preferences, could be the springboard for victory. In some inner-city electorates, Green candidates may secure enough votes that they actually defeat the Labor candidate, once (if) the coalition votes are distributed to the Greens. The Greens (or Labor) can win such contests if they come second in total votes, and are put in by the preferences of the third highest candidate, the coalition.

Labor may be assuming, as it always does these days, that they can automatically get Green preferences because the Greens, as a left-of-Labor team, have nowhere else to go. Even if Green leaders promoted a vote against Labor, most would revolt. But it might well be different if Labor were actively campaigning against the Greens. That could be a matter of retaliation. But it could also be because many Green supporters are disappointed with Labor in government, and with Albanese in particular. Albanese is not so well-stocked with friends that he can afford to spurn 40 per cent of the votes he received at the last election.

Labor indeed would be far better off attacking the Liberals as the actual enemy. It would be better putting the heat on its leaders, avoiding weak compromises and showing some guts and enthusiasm.

And dropping the damn-fool idea that it has some obligation to prop up the two-party system. It doesn’t and trying to do so is the sure path to electoral suicide.

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