BY ALISON DELLIT
In a two-page
spread in the September 3 Bulletin (which hit newsstands on August
27), leading Packer political commentator Laurie Oakes argued that “A split
[in the Democrats] would be the quickest, cleanest solution” to their current
crisis.
Pointing out that some of the four dissident Democrats senators will lose their seats on current Democrats polling, Oakes finished with: “Putting together a party infrastructure from scratch, and building a profile that would enable it to get senators re-elected will not be a quick job. If [senators Andrew] Murray, [Aden] Ridgeway, [John] Cherry and [Lyn] Allison are fair dinkum, the earlier they start, the more chance they have of succeeding.”
On September 1, leading Fairfax political commentator Michelle Grattan followed suit with a full-page article in Melbourne's Age, in which she stated: “[Splitting] is a big risk, but it is one the [Murray-Ridgeway-Cherry-Allison] gang should take. Otherwise, it will just be a slow painful end for all the Democrats, with the public likely to judge them as a combination of crazies and wimps.”
Grattan claimed that the Democrats executive “is out of control”. However, she acknowledges that the party's “rank and file” largely supports the executive. So the control Grattan wants asserted has nothing to do with members or voters.
Grattan, and the corporate elite she speaks for, want control over Democrats policy exercised by the “rebel” senators, the ones willing to “play the game” of parliamentary deal-making.
If the “gang of four” was to leave — and hook up with ex-Democrats, now independent Senator Meg Lees — it would vastly ease the passage of attacks on working people planned by Prime Minister John Howard.
At the moment, the Coalition needs another four votes to get legislation through the Senate. If the ALP is opposing legislation, that leaves the seven Democrats, two Greens, Meg Lees, Tasmanian right-wing independent Brian Harradine, One Nation's Len Harris and Tasmanian ex-ALPer Shayne Murphy.
When Lees left the Democrats in July, she gave the Coalition the option of passing legislation without the support of the Greens, Democrats or ALP, if they could win all the independents and Harris. This was possible, but involved a fair amount of horse-trading. Around the third sale of Telstra, for example, Harradine and Murphy indicated they would consider it if Tasmania stood to “benefit”, and Harris hinted he was “open” to negotiation. Offered enough for the environment, Lees may also concede.
But to get each piece of legislation through, the government has to woo four different political perspectives and offer four lots of bribes. On some things it faces a complete roadblock: for example, on further industrial relations attacks which Murphy is unequivocally opposed to. Murray, on the other hand, was the key Democrats senator involved in negotiating the draconian Workplace Relations Act.
The advantage for the government in forming Democrats Mark 2 is that legislation only has to be negotiated once, and one set of inducements offered.
This would open up possibilities for the Howard government that go well beyond the sale of Telstra. They include further attacks on unions, particularly compulsory secret ballots before strike action and weakening of unfair dismissal laws; changes to media ownership laws; further cuts to welfare, dressed up as “reform”; and further privatisation, including of Australia Post. (On two of the biggest attacks on working people — support for a war on Iraq and continuation of mandatory detention of asylum seekers — the government can count on ALP support.)
While the ALP supports most of this agenda too, it is hampered from voting with the government on some questions by the need to retain the support of the trade union bureaucracy.
It was the Democrats' promise to “play ball” to help get the fundamentals of Howard's program through the Senate that won it effusive media coverage in the 1998 elections. It is the reluctance of the Democrats to keep playing that has won the party its “fairies at the bottom of the garden” tag from the corporate mouthpieces now.
And having failed to win Democrats members to a “sensible” negotiating approach, the corporate elite are now calling on the four senators to betray the party that got them elected, and jump ship.
There are a number of inducements to split. A number of parliamentary privileges are accorded parties with more than five MPs, including more staff (the amount of funds for staff is decided by the prime minister), more office space and higher salaries for the party leader and whip. If the four link up with Lees, not only would they get these privilege, but the remaining Democrats would lose them, being reduced to three senators.
Democrats Mark 2 would be highly unpopular with Democrats voters — and just about everybody else. But the senators could count on favourable saturation media coverage.
Murray and Allison were just re-elected for six years anyway, and Ridgeway and Cherry have three years before facing an election. Murray also confirmed on Channel Nine's August 31 Sunday program that a “significant” amount of funds has already been promised by an “outside source”.
There is nothing “democratic” about four senators leaving the party they were elected as representatives of. But if they take the bait, we can look forward to a comprehensive media rehabilitation of the “gang of four”.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, September 11, 2002.
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