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Friday, September 10, 2010

A New 'paradigm' -- 'ugly but beautiful'

In a day of high drama, Julia Gillard was granted the right to form a government—of sorts—with the tenuous promise of the backing of independents—with support more conditional than anyone has ever had in attempting to maintain government before.
Rob Oakeshott, the key architect of this traumatic arrangement, described its future operation as ‘ugly but beautiful’. It is a scenario to delight independents but give the new government many a headache, with guarantees limited to support for supply and opposition to frivolous no-confidence motions. He has cobbled together this combination of open, independent voting by some five independents without any limits to the dysfunctioning of the adversarial two-party system, since it transpires thatany member can initiate legislation and gain a powerful following.

There will.be little legislation which can escape controversy. Oakshott’s idea, as he suggested, is that the word ‘mandate’ would have no place in this parliament, meaning the power of the government to legislate will be based, virtually, on the PM’s persuasive ability, and the validity of the various members’ desire for stable government.

If the Prime Minister can manage to carry important legislation through the Lower House successfully she will be a tactical magician, not to mention a political diplomat of outstanding calibre. What may well be a problem is if a non-government coalition should pass legislation with costs beyond government control.

Oakshott’s attempt to achieve a non-partisan parliament with a handful of independents, is a bold attempt and is to be commended, for changes making parliament more sensible and accountable -- we hope it can work.

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