From the moment in 2014 that Greg Hunt’s first attempt to repeal the carbon and mining taxes ran into Palmer United party’s objections in the Senate, this Coalition government should have known that it needed a better way to deal with the Senate crossbench.
Yet the government, under the leadership of both Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull, has regularly been incompetent in its crossbench negotiations.
Turnbull’s Senate voting reforms, designed to do minor party senators out of a job, was a high-water mark of this clumsiness. That is, until this week.
I don’t support Liberal Democratic senator David Leyhonhjelm’s position on lifting the importation ban on the seven-shot Adler shotgun. But I do sympathise with his frustration, and I don’t begrudge him his tactics.
In 2015, Leyonhjelm was given – in writing – a commitment by the Coalition government that it would allow the Adler ban to expire “in exchange” for his vote against the Labor amendments to the migration amendment (strengthening biometric integrity) bill.
Leyonhjelm voted accordingly, yet the Adler ban is still in place.
Leyonhjelm told Sky News that he raised directly with Turnbull his frustration that the government welched on its deal with him. Leyonhjelm says Turnbull acknowledged the situation and “was sympathetic that I had been dudded by it”.
Leyonhjelm said that he made clear to the Turnbull government that his support for the legislation to establish the Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC) was contingent on the government living up to its commitment to lift the Adler ban. Leyonhjelm claims that the government was considering his position.
When this proposition was put to the prime minister in question time on Tuesday – that is, that Turnbull was ready to horse-trade on gun laws in order to secure Leyonhjelm’s vote for the ABCC bills – Turnbull didn’t deny it.
John Howard’s gun laws are the holiest of all the sacred cows in Australian politics. It is extraordinary that justice minister Michael Keenan offered to remove the Adler ban once. And it is even more breathtaking that Turnbull appears to have contemplated doing so again.
Why would Turnbull even consider a horse-trade on gun laws to gain support for the ABCC? Why did Turnbull take several hours to rule it out on Tuesday morning? Is his political radar really that poor?
Consider this: maybe Turnbull never really expected to offer a horse-trade. Perhaps he had been stringing Leyonhjelm along, hoping to keep the senator in the tent as a likely “yes” on the ABCC legislation until the government had swung the three NXT senators and the four One Nation senators to its side. With seven votes plus the likely support of the new Family First senator, maybe Turnbull thought Leyonhjelm would get drop his gun demands and get with the momentum rather than stand in its way.
Turnbull has form with this style of negotiation. Former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s letters paint a picture of Turnbull stringing Rudd along on the question of whether the government would support Rudd’s UN secretary general nomination, letting him believe that support was likely forthcoming but never really committing. As Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, pointed out, it seems Turnbull thought he could “walk both sides of the street” on Rudd’s nomination until after the election – when Turnbull thought he would be better able to finesse a complex situation off the back of a bigger personal mandate.
As the Rudd saga showed, stringing someone along in political negotiations can have dire consequences. Leyonhjelm made the most of his opportunity and extracted more than a pound of Turnbull’s political flesh.
Leyonhjelm waited until his vote was most needed by the government. Not bound by cabinet confidentiality or party-room discipline, he adroitly used the media to his advantage. He produced written confirmation of his horse-trade. He made the government look, at best, opportunistic, and at worst, without core convictions.
He exposed faultlines in the Coalition: Tony Abbott tweeted barely veiled criticism of Turnbull for considering the Leyonjhelm deal (never mind it was the Abbott regime that offered the deal in the first place), while some Nationals MPs are still supporting the lifting of the ban.
Leyonhjelm created a media maelstrom that engulfed the government, making it abundantly clear to everyone that his vote on the ABCC legislation could not be taken for granted.
Leyonhjelm isn’t the first upper house crossbench parliamentarian to hold a government’s economic reforms hostage to pro-gun ultimatums. In 2009, the Shooters party demanded the NSW government allow hunting in national parks in exchange for supporting the sale of NSW Lotteries.
At the time the premier Nathan Rees didn’t acquiesce but the standoff ground his government to a near halt. Rees had to shut down the NSW Legislative Council in order to avoid not just a loss on the lotteries legislation, but also other politically messy problems the Shooters could have created: calls for papers, instituting inquiries or blocking other bills. The upper house shutdown was a drastic last step to avert political disaster. But the shutdown became a foul political problem in and of itself: the closed legislative council symbolised a government unable to function.
A crossbench MP on a single-issue mission can exact a lot of damage, especially when they perceive that the government fails to deal honestly, fairly and openly with him or her.
The Coalition government should have figured this out by now. Don’t tell me it can’t be done. My government kept the upper house open and got all our major legislation passed. Julia Gillard’s government, without a majority in either chamber, was incredibly successful in implementing its legislative agenda, with Anthony Albanese playing a key role in negotiating with the crossbench MPs.
It’s not rocket science. It starts with respecting that crossbenchers are duly elected MPs with their own mandates and constituencies. It helps to create one direct line of communication between the crossbench MPs and someone with authority to speak on the government’s behalf. The government should be clear on what it will and won’t do, and it should only make deals on which it can deliver.
It is somewhat staggering that, after three years in office, the Coalition still hasn’t figured this out. As senator David Leyonhjelm told Sky News yesterday, “If I am going to deal with the government, I need to be able to trust them. In this situation, you know, I’ve been dudded. How can I trust them in the future, and how can the crossbench in general deal with the government, if you can’t rely on their word?”
