Natasha Stott Despoja
Conscience pollution reduction scheme
The final Senate sitting this week is set for high drama and much of it will depend on parliamentary tactics.
As negotiations on the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) continue behind closed doors (Senator Penny Wong has now set a Tuesday deadline for presenting a deal to the Coalition party room), back-bench Senators are already preparing rear-guard action.
The leader of the coalition in the Senate, Nick Minchin, seemed to invoke the US Constitution last week when he declared every member of the Liberal Party had the ‘inalienable right’ to vote according to conscience.
While Senator Minchin is not keen to exercise that right himself – his plan is to win the numbers in the party room in order to vote the bills down – some of his colleagues have not ruled out crossing the floor if Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull decides to support an amended CPRS package. Liberal MP Dr Dennis Jensen believes more than a third of the party could cross the floor.
Some of these colleagues have form: Senators Barnaby Joyce and Julian McGauran have crossed the floor before so we shouldn’t dismiss their threats. The latter has crossed the floor at least eight times.
Failing that, another parliamentary tactic that might get a work-out this week is the ‘filibuster’. A filibuster is usually defined as the use of obstructionist tactics, such as prolonged speechmaking, to delay legislative action.
Senator Minchin – a renowned climate-change sceptic – is one of the biggest obstacles for both Malcolm Turnbull and the Prime Minister and they shouldn’t discount his nous. Minchin is a master tactician and knows how to use the Senate’s standing orders to best effect – he is just as able to implement a crushing guillotine (to halt legislative debate) as ensure an effective filibuster.
Mind you, after some of the gratuitous speeches in both houses last week on the CPRS, like Madam Defarge, I had my knitting ready in case of some sharp relief.
While filibusters were a more common feature of parliaments long ago, particularly when there were no limits on second reading speeches, these days they are rare.
The last filibuster I recall was executed by the former Howard government in order to give Senator Steve Fielding time to do a sneaky deal on the Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) legislation in 2005. As a result, Senators spent more time debating the application of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to Mongolia than seemed possible or appropriate.
On that occasion, the government had the numbers to do what they wished, whereas the current government lacks the numbers to use tactics, such as a guillotine (especially if the Greens see a filibuster as the best chance of stopping the CPRS before Copenhagen).
“Talking out” the bills might prove difficult and the preference for the avowed sceptics remains to defeat the CPRS even if that means voting against the party line.
Conscience votes are rare in our rigid party political system in Australia.
Even votes that are declared ‘free’ votes – usually associated with social policy – are few and far between. There were 32 bills determined by a free vote between 1950 and 2007, an average of 1.8 per year according to the Parliamentary Library.
The examples in my Senate career included the RU486 debate in 2006; stem-cell legislation in 2002 and 2006; and the euthanasia debate in 1996.
Similarly, conscience votes when MPs cross the floor against their party’s position comprise a small percentage (around 3 per cent) of all instances. Nonetheless, from the Menzies era onwards there are dozens of examples each year of MPs crossing the floor, particularly among the coalition MPs.
It's near impossible to find examples among Labor MPs (except for ‘free’ votes). Apart from the fact that ALP members belong to a binding caucus and, thus, face reprimand if they vote differently, the party prides itself on its displays of unity.
In recent times in the Senate, Senator Barnaby Joyce has been the most high-profile major party MP to exercise this ‘inalienable right’. In 2005, he voted against his party’s position on Trade Practices issues – specifically, he didn’t like proposals to limit the power of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to approve company mergers.
On one occasion, I was sitting next to him in the division and he said to me “you don’t know how hard this is”. I did.
Crossing the floor is one of the hardest political decisions you can make. To look at your colleagues – with whom you are bound not by the Whip but by shared principles, politics and membership – across the chamber as the votes are counted is as tough as it gets in politics.
My decision to cross the floor, specifically to oppose a GST on books and, thus, uphold an election promise, had an initial impact: a media frenzy; admonition in some circles and public debate about my party loyalty, but it also resulted in me being drafted to run for the Democrat leadership within two years. Nevertheless, the bitterness never faded and saw me ousted soon after.
Ironically, research shows that public and media support of MPs is often highest when conscience votes are taking place. I only wish we had more of them.
Crossing the floor was one my hardest political decisions but voting for something you don't believe in is tougher still. Let’s see what those outspoken Coalition MPs choose this week.
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