Category: General news

March 24, 2013
The First Date for a Half-Senate Election is 3 August

Leader of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne was this morning referring to a half-Senate election in July, though it was unclear whether he was referring to a campaign or an election date.

However, let me add some clarity. There can be an election campaign in July, but it is clear from the Electoral Act and past High Court interpretations of the Constitution that the first possible polling date for a half-Senate election is Saturday 3 August.

This all stems from the second paragraph of Section 13 of the Constitution. It reads

The election to fill vacant places shall be made within one year before the places are to become vacant.

Paragraph three in Section 13, defining when the terms of Senators begin, makes reference to “day of his election”, but paragraph two above refers only to “election”.

The High Court stated in its judgment on Vardon v O’Loghlin [1907] that “The term ‘election’ in that section does not mean the day of nomination or the polling day alone, but comprises the whole proceedings from the issue of the writ to the valid return.”

On that interpretation by the High Court, the writ for a half-Senate election cannot be issued before 1 July, and the Commonwealth Electoral Act then makes Saturday 3 August the first possible polling date for a half-Senate election.

Writs for a House election can be issued up to 58 days ahead of polling day, which means about 7 June ahead of a possible 3 August election, but the half-Senate election writs would have to wait for 1 July.

The Opposition is proposing to table a no-confidence motion when the House of Representatives resumes in May. This will be the first no-confidence motion moved by the Opposition in this term, previous attempts actually being attempts to suspend standing orders to allow an immediate censure or no-confidence motion. It would be hard for the government not to take on this motion for debate. Accepting the motion for debate would invoke standing orders allowing members more time to speak.

If this motion passed, it would create a conundrum. The Prime Minister would have to visit the Governor-General and offer advice. That advice could be for an early election, but having lost confidence, the Governor-General would not have to accept the advice.

So what could happen? The Prime Minister could resign in favour of another Labor Leader who would then have to prove they have the confidence of the House.

Alternatively, the Independents could choose to switch sides and back an Abbott government for the balance of the current term. Presumably that would be until the first chance of a half-Senate election on 3 August.

I think the most likely outcome of losing a confidence vote is an early House election, along with the four Territory Senators. A separate half-Senate election would then have to be held between 3 August 2013 and late May 2014.

As I wrote last year, the half-Senate date problem means that it may no longer be in the interests of the Coalition to have an early election.

However, to maintain the pressure on the government, the Opposition must continue to call for an early election, to continue with its position that the nation is best served by bringing an end to the current parliament and government as soon as possible.

But the defeat of the government in May and an early election would bring on a change of government at a new House election but leave the current Senate in place, apart from the four Territory Senators. The new government would then have to face at the very least a half-Senate election by the end of May 2014.

However, there would be one advantage for the Coalition in an early election. It would reset the clock on double dissolutions. The new government would find itself with almost a year to engineer a doube dissolution trigger. And with no half-Senate election being held, there would no Senators in waiting to complicate when a double dissolution trigger could be used.

Posted by Antony Green on March 24, 2013 at 10:55 AM in Election Date Speculation, Federal Politics and Governments | Permalink

Inside Labor’s leadership meltdown

Linda Silmalis and Samantha Maiden
The Sunday Telegraph
March 24, 201312:00AM

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Julia Gillard in question time on Thursday, just before the spill that never was. Source: The Sunday Telegraph

“UNDERSTAND the thunderbolt that occurred,” Kevin Rudd says of the moment Simon Crean went on national television to demand the Prime Minister call a leadership spill.

It was about 1pm, Thursday, March 21, the moment Rudd insists that Crean “spontaneously combusted”.

In the Mural Hall of parliament, Crean, a former Labor leader, fronted the cameras to reveal that he had visited the Prime Minister in her office and told her to stand down.

Crean had championed and mentored Julia Gillard during the Beazley years. Now, he sought to terminate her prime ministership.

But Rudd insists he had no idea what Crean was about to “tap” the Prime Minister, the method used in 1991 to rip down Bob Hawke.

“Nobody knew he was going out,” Rudd tells Agenda. “Between 1.30pm and 3.30pm, you are trying to work out which way is up.”

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Privately, some Rudd supporters are calling Crean “The Unabomber”.

But the truth is more complex.

For his part, Crean is disgusted. The Rudd plotters were disorganised, he says, and their candidate gutless.

“Chris Bowen was urging me on Thursday morning to bring it on quickly,” Crean tells Agenda.

“They seek to blame me now? They’re good,” he chuckles. “I got involved with what I believed to be the best interests of the Labor Party.”

Rudd and Crean were an unlikely leadership duo. After all, it was Crean who helped precipitate the premature 2012 leadership spill when he lashed out on radio at Rudd’s failings.

But, behind the scenes, Crean had been bagging Gillard over how she ran cabinet before the 2012 leadership ballot, and enthusiastically resumed transmission after she won. Gillard was flawed, he argued, and her fortunes would only improve if she listened to him.

Crean had been encouraged to run as deputy Labor leader by cabinet ministers Martin Ferguson and Chris Bowen. He was supposed to spark the leadership coup but went rogue on the timing. When he visited the Prime Minister, effectively telegraphing his punches, he didn’t tell the Rudd camp. Then he held his press conference despite Rudd’s entreaties to check with him first.

Crean and Rudd had held face-to-face talks twice in the lead-up to the foiled leadership spill. The first meeting was late last week, the second on Tuesday night. At that meeting, Crean again told Rudd he wanted the job as his deputy.

With Bowen as a witness, Rudd insists he told him he could not deliver him the job. “It was completely initiated by Simon,” Rudd says. “And I did not support it.”

Anthony Albanese, one of the few Rudd backers not to quit the front bench, was on a promise to become his deputy, Rudd insists. “Look mate, I can’t do that,” Rudd told Crean. But Joel Fitzgibbon and Bowen decided to back Crean as deputy prime minister. What they didn’t appear to have done was tell Rudd.

“Albo released them from any agreement to install him a deputy,” a Rudd camp insider says. Albanese’s view was that if push came to shove in a ballot, he could beat Crean, but he wasn’t prepared to play an instigator’s role, as Crean ultimately did.

On Thursday, after Question Time, Albanese advised Rudd he did not have the numbers. “This is madness,” he told Rudd.

The party whip Joel Fitzgibbon admits the numbers were finely balanced, the Rudd backers had 47 or 46 votes in the ALP caucus, close to a majority, but not enough.

Crean argued Rudd could not be resurrected unless he promised to change. Rudd needed to be a different, more inclusive leader and the Victorian argued he was an insurance policy, just the deputy, to ensure that that happened.

Rudd admits he sent Crean a frantic text message on Thursday morning after hearing he had fronted the Prime Minister in her office the night before.

Rudd’s text message was sent at 9.20am on Thursday. It read: “Gidday, Simon. I’m told you saw the PM last night. If that’s so and if it in any way touches the leadership, and if you are making any public comments, please give me a call beforehand. My position is as before. All the best, Kevin.”

Rudd’s message was that his public declaration that he would not challenge had not changed. Only a clear majority would get him over the line to be “drafted”.

But Crean never called Rudd back. Instead he called his press conference and went bananas. All of his pent up frustration with Gillard and Wayne Swan’s leadership and the lack of trust in cabinet processes tumbled out.

“People have got to believe we have conviction, that we believe in what we stand for, there is a coherence of message and we are determined to pursue it,” Crean said.

“I get so many people in frustration to me saying, ‘We are not going to allow that man (Tony Abbott) to lead this country are we?’ We’ve got to change it. I hope this circuit-breaker does this.”

During the confrontation with the PM the night before, Crean told Gillard her excuses about Labor’s dire poll numbers were about destabilisation. Leaking was a cop out. “You need to look at your own performance,” he said.

Victorians Kim Carr and Martin Ferguson, who lost their ministry jobs over the coup, insist Crean acted with honour, a reluctant conscript to giving the Labor Party the best chance at the next election.

“Simon Crean did a very courageous thing but no one followed him,” Senator Carr says.

Ferguson, a respected party veteran, quit his post not under the threat of sacking but despair over Labor. He urged the party to dump the class-warfare rhetoric embraced by Swan and Gillard’s British communications guru John McTernan.

Defending himself against allegations he chickened out, Rudd insists that it was his own supporters who insisted he should not run.

“I gathered my key friends and ministerial colleagues together … after Simon Crean’s statement and I asked for their views,” Rudd said on Friday. “I asked Chris Bowen for his views. I asked Anthony Albanese for his views. I asked Joel Fitzgibbon for his view, Richard Marles, Alan Griffin, as well as Kim Carr.

“And the truth is this, I asked them: ‘What are the prospects for us obtaining a significant majority?’ Their collective response was zero.

“Each of them said to me, ‘Kevin, I believe you should not run because it would divide the party’.”

In the bloody wreckage that followed, three cabinet ministers, a minister, three party whips and a parliamentary secretary – all Rudd backers – were sacked or resigned.

Some younger ministers had their fingers burned. Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare and SA Left powerbroker Mark Butler were both accused of secretly switching to Rudd before changing back. In a Facebook update on Friday night, Labor MP Laurie Ferguson accused Albanese and Butler of being “gutless wonders” for not quitting too.

NSW secretary Sam Dastyari was in the Rudd plot up to his knees. “Kevin was never going to challenge. Some members of his camp got over-excited, including Sam Dastyari,” one source close to Rudd says. For his part, Dastyari now describes claims he tried to bind the NSW Right to Rudd as “bulls**t”.

It didn’t seem the Right needed much urging, however.

Some in the Rudd camp were still at it over the weekend, insisting Gillard’s take-no-prisoners approach to terminating Rudd backers was not backed by Swan.

“Swan was trying to restrain her from doing all this. But she is on a jihad. A serious jihad,” one MP said.

Another claim was that Swan had been “planted” in Bill Shorten’s office during the leadership rumbles to babysit the Gillard-backer Shorten to make sure he didn’t stray. “Shorten is the biggest double- dealer in history,” one Rudd camp insider snipes.

But Shorten was doing the numbers for Gillard. He was one of the cabinet ministers dropping in on the secret council of war to sandbag Gillard’s leadership.

The location was Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s office. In the midst of presiding over the bungled media reforms, the Victorian powerbroker was hosting frequent talks with Gillard’s numbers men office. In the midst of presiding over the bungled media reforms, the Victorian powerbroker was hosting frequent talks with Gillard’s numbers men Senator Don Farrell, SA powerbroker, Brendan O’Connor and Craig Emerson. Shorten and another “faceless man” of the 2010 coup, David Feeney, popped in to help.

The Prime Minister herself is businesslike, suggesting there was no great celebration after the ballot.

“How I felt was determined,” Gillard tells Agenda. “We’re moving on.”

As the challenge without a challenger unfolded on Thursday, Fitzgibbon, the party whip, had other coup management problems.

Dick Adams, the giant Tasmanian MP, was AWOL. Fitzgibbon had pleaded with him to stick around for the ballot but Adams had instead boarded a plane to a parliamentary conference in Ecuador. Some in the Rudd camp claim there was also a demand that Crean “show us the numbers”. They wanted Crean to send in the MPs he claimed to control in terms of votes so that they could “see the whites of their eyes”.

It was this delegation of Crean supporters that the Rudd plotters were waiting for before they wanted Crean to detonate.

But the Crean numbers never turned up. When Fitzgibbon heard that Crean had done a press conference anyway, he admits he couldn’t believe it.

“Oh mate, I thought. About what?” Fitzgibbon says.

And when Rudd was handed a note on Thursday afternoon advising him of the Crean explosion, Rudd was aghast.

“What the f*** is going on!” Rudd asked his supporters.

It was a good question.