Rich Bowden
Following unexpected gains made in last October’s general election, the Coalition will be the first Australian government in 27 years to control both houses of parliament from July 1.
While government members see this as a gilt-edged opportunity to pass divisive and controversial legislation that could previously be thwarted by the combined numbers of the Labor opposition, minor parties and independents, others have spoken out against the inherent risks of PM John Howard’s government assuming full political control.
One of these critics is NSW Greens Senator Kerry Nettle, who warns of a weakening of the capacity of the Senate to hold the government accountable. Nettle spoke to Green Left Weekly about the political and social ramifications of this historic transfer of power.
The Howard government’s achievement of a much sought after majority in the upper house at the last federal election has resulted in a “diminution of our capacity to hold the government accountable”, Nettle said.
“An area that has had significant influence on accountability is the ability to set up Senate enquiries.” Using the “children overboard” enquiry as an example of the Senate establishing an effective committee to review “government mal-administration”, Nettle warned that “obviously now the only enquiries in the Senate are the ones the government wants to set up.”
Nettle argued that this places greater emphasis on other methods of holding the government answerable. “There’s now far greater importance on the other part of the work that we do, which is the work in the community. When you work in an environment where the government has control [of both houses of parliament] and coalition backbenchers are feeling the electoral pressure of enough people in their community who are saying, we’re not comfortable with [for example] IR changes or mandatory detention, the way you’re going to get social change is to get those backbenchers feeling so uncomfortable that they revolt.”
Referring to the recently proposed private member’s bill by a group of Liberal backbenchers lobbying for a review of the government’s repressive mandatory detention legislation as an example of the effectiveness of this community-based pressure, she said: “I think there’s going to be change on immigration and I think it comes about as a result of a whole lot of different tactics that are being used; protests at the front of Baxter [detention centre], world refugee day, the [Senate] estimates process ... and all the people who have been writing letters [supporting the private member’s bill].”
Nettle ridiculed immigration minister Amanda Vanstone’s call for a “change in culture” in the immigration department (DIMIA) following recent revelations of cruelty and wrongful detention of Australian citizens. “We lead the world in the inhumanity and cruelty in our system of mandatory detention ... Yes we need a change in culture. There are people in the department of immigration who come from a law enforcement background, who see their job as [exactly that] but the reason they see their job [in that way] is because that’s what the legislation says, it says lock people up and ask questions later.
So yes, let’s have a change of culture, but let’s go all the way to the top. They’re implementing a policy that is fundamentally flawed. You can be the most compassionate person in the world working as a DIMIA official but if you’re asked to enforce mandatory detention you are inflicting cruelty and inhumanity on people.”
Another issue that has provoked the type of public reaction called for by Nettle is the proposed legislation exempting all businesses employing fewer than 100 people from unfair dismissal laws.
Describing these changes as the “thin end of the wedge” of the government’s reform of industrial relations legislation and a “licence to sack workers on a whim”, she asks the question, “Is this the first step to removing all unfair dismissal?”
“Going on just their track record over the last few years, you have got to assume that there are people within the government who are looking to remove unfair dismissal proceedings altogether.
“Now, whether or not they win that debate within the Coalition ranks, I don’t know, but they’ve certainly got an environment in which it’s far easier for them to now win given that the government is bringing the [legislation] in at 100 [employees].
“This is not to say in three months’ time everyone in small business will be sacking their employees — of course not — but with these cases the government has given [small business operators] the green light and then it’s up to them to decide how they implement that. The government has now created an environment where unscrupulous employers can do as they choose.
“This goes right to the heart of people’s everyday life. How much money they bring home in their pay packet, whether or not they’ve got a job, what their minimum wage is — these changes go right into the homes of individual Australians workers and families.”
The Howard government’s long-held ambition to sell the national public-owned telecommunications giant Telstra was previously thwarted by opposition in the Senate. The sale has now received priority on the government’s legislative wish list.
However the Coalition’s razor-thin margin of just a single vote has left some outspoken National Party senators, who are suspicious of the ramifications the sale will have on quality of service for their country constituents, with some room to make demands.
One of these senators is the newly elected National Party senator-elect for Queensland, Barnaby Joyce, who has threatened to vote against the bill should Telstra not meet guarantees of service. However, according to Nettle, “The National party and others have been talking about guarantees from Telstra for years ... the question about guarantees is, it’s only when it’s a publicly run system that guarantees can mean anything.
“Barnaby Joyce and others have indicated they want guarantees. In some respects they’ve said they might cross the floor. Let’s wait and see.”
Nettle does agree that people living in the country will face further service deficiencies should the privatisation bill be passed. “People living in the bush already know how difficult it is to get a 51% publicly owned telecommunications company to provide them with services ... what hope have they got of having any kind of even basic standard of telecommunications in the bush in a system where there’s not some government public community service obligations that requires them to provide some coverage.
“There’s no financial benefit to any telecommunications company trying to get in broadband to a remote Aboriginal community, it doesn’t make business sense to do so.”
Whether or not Howard is successful in his aim of leaving a lasting conservative legislative legacy will depend on the extent to which public opinion is, as Nettle argues it must be, successfully mobilised against his reform agenda.
From Green Left Weekly, June 22, 2005.
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