The tyranny of the majority

The government-controlled senate is a totally different beast. The Howard Government’s first action was to reduce the number of questions asked each question time by non-government senators.

In 25 sitting days the government has moved to use the tyranny of its majority to overturn or deny every practice, procedure and mechanism that had defined the senate's modern role.

The handling of the Telstra Bills shows us what we can expect until 2008. The debate was a farce. The senate cut-off was overturned, the Bills were guillotined to limit debate and the gag was moved three times. Family First’s only senator, Steve Fielding, was kicked off the speaker's list so Senator Barnaby Joyce could jump in his place.

There was a one-day senate inquiry two days after the Bills were introduced, meaning public input and detailed examination were almost impossible.

This same arrogance and disregard for the senate and democracy is being repeated with the terrorism laws, industrial relations, welfare-to-work, voluntary student unionism and the Northern Territory nuclear waste dump proposals. The senate will have only ten days to scrutinise all this legislation.

The rudimentary committee inquiries into some of these Bills are constrained by limited terms of reference, short time frames and Canberra-centric hearings.

The senate’s mechanisms are quite simply buckling under the weight of government control. Only an end to the Coalition majority can restore the senate as a strong house of review, scrutiny and accountability.

Labor accepts without reservation the 2004 election result that delivered the Coalition a senate majority. But what neither Labor, nor the Australian community, will countenance is the trashing of our institutions and the abuse of power.

The Coalition must return three senators in each state in 2007 to retain its majority. The Australian people, alarmed by the government’s arrogance, are unlikely to renew that trust.

Future Labor governments with a senate majority would face the same temptations to which this government has succumbed, and Labor does not come to the debate with clean hands. Cynics would suggest that the unlikeliness of Labor senate control is at the heart of our modern view of the senate.

But Labor is fully committed to supporting the senate's review and accountability functions in government and opposition. Labor believes the senate's functions that have developed over the past 24 years are good for democracy and are worth defending and preserving.

For now, those checks and balances are lost to the government majority.

Australians are quickly learning that government senate control comes at a great cost - and in 2007 they will redress the balance.