The hung Parliament scenario has rightly led the Independents and the Greens MP to put a spotlight on the importance of improving the way Parliament – and in particular the House of Representatives – operates.

I think suggestions to provide more time for Private Members Bills and business (i.e. non-government legislation and motions), as well as reforming Question Time and moving to fixed three year terms are very good ideas.

There has also been a lot of talk of having an Independent Speaker in the House of Representatives. I don’t have any opposition to that idea, although I am not sure how it could be instituted permanently. There are only 4 Independents amongst the 150 newly elected  members of the House of Reps. One of the current 4 may be suited to the role, but that will not always be the case. Any Independent who is made Speaker in the current Parliament also has the problem that they will then not be able to vote on any piece of legislation (unless there is a tied vote, which is less likely with 149 people eligible to vote rather than 150). Read more »

For most of us, I suspect, uncertainty is a challenge. Despite that, the hanging question is who will form the Minority Government – Labor or the Coalition?

I am guessing there will be a Minority Government. While the Independents have conflicting interests there overriding self interest is to maintain their political leverage, and therefore to be in a position to gain benefits for their electors. Independents with long standing agendas can only flourish when the hold the balance of power. For example, and I suspect it is not generally known there are present six Independent members of the NSW Legislative Assembly. The situation was very different in 1991, when Dr Peter McDonald, Ted Mack, Clover Moore, John Hatton, and surprisingly Tony Windsor held the balance of power. Read more »

The Australian’s Kate Legge rang me during the week and asked why I was voting Green.  My response is in this article of Kate – basically it stems from my concern with climate change and more general environmental issues.  There are a few Liberal supporters in this article who had similar ideas to mine. Thgis raises a question.

Why don’t the Greens stick primarily to environmental issues and ditch their more general (and less plausible) pro-Labor agenda?   Why don’t they try to influence opinion on both sides of politics?   The resulting party might split on broad social issues but provide a cohesive platform for addressing key environmental issues.  On the right of politics there are large numbers of middle class voters who are very environmentally conscious.  It might be that this section od society provides a bbigger base for environmental policies that do what Julia Dronespeak calls the ‘working families’ of Australia. Read more »

How the National Parliament has changed even before sitting. Tony Abbott has refused to supply the Liberal/National Coalition policies and election bribes for costing by Treasury. That appears to be an untenable position.

A song comes to mind, apparently a great favourite of Winston Churchill during the London Blitz:

The new multi-participatory Parliament is going to change the way that things are done – and others will be caught out in the future as Tony Abbott has been on this occasion. The interesting question is whether this is a deep change rather than a superficial one. I suspect that the Australian electorate will come to the like these results and that they will be more inclined to vote for independents, perhaps particularly in the Bush. Read more »

Today the three independents put out a list of 7 demands: Read more »