Sunday, August 22, 2010
Hung Parliament?
So the possibility of a Federal hung parliament looms over us. What do I make out of this? Neither party convinced the electorate that they were worthy of government. The government of Australia rests now basically with the independents and from what I've heard from them so far they seem to be taking the responsibility seriously - which is as it should be. However impatient the leaders of the major parties are to take control they are going to have to wait while these men weigh up the situation and decide on what course they will take. As they are independent, they will have to negotiate an arrangement whereby (whoever they choose to support) they will vote with the government on Supply bills and no confidence motions while either negotiating concessions in return for support of their own policies or voting according to their conscience. It remains to be seen whether this can be agreed and between whom or Australia faces the prospect of another election very soon. If that's the case I hope it's more impressive on the part of the major parties than the election campaign we have just endured.
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2 comments:
Bracks in Victoria and Beatie in Qld both had minority governments that worked. NSW had one and so did SA at one stage. Tasmania has one at the moment. Not sure if the NSW and SA ones were labour minority govenments, but the other three were/are, so we know labour can operate with minority governments at the state level. Interestingly, the party in power has to select the speaker in the lower house, and they can't vote, so if they can only cobble together 76 in the governing coalition including independents, there would be only one vote between the sides. So any pollie who wants to cross the floor has a lot of power. Maybe a Mal Colston will appear - he changed parties from Labour to Liberal a few years ago.
We have a minority government in WA at the moment. The Libs have cobbled together a mix of Nationals (who are not normally part of a coalition here) and independents.
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