The government's public standing has eroded. How will it pass crucial laws?
As the citizenship saga aced another victim over the weekend, with one more following on Tuesday, the PM and his frontbenchers interrupted Remembrance Day ceremonies, red poppies in their lapels, to reassure us this was just another flesh wound.
But the 11 November anniversary that they should be paying more attention to could be the one that occurred 42 years ago, when a sitting prime minister fell foul of his own constitution crisis.
No one is suggesting the opposition is conspiring with the governor
general to seize power, but
with the uncertainty set to drag out over the summer, real questions are emerging over whether we have a legally constituted government in accordance with Westminster principles.
A big call? Think about it.
We have a legislature that appears riddled with people who are not qualified to be there, a list that will likely reach double figures if the universal disclosure process foisted on the prime minster does its job.
We have a judiciary that has settled on a particularly restrictive interpretation of citizenship requirements sitting tight for another round of referrals, likely to trigger a mass round of byelections in the New Year, if they manage to get a decision before they head off for their extended summer break.
As for the executive branch? Well, we have a prime minister prepared to pre-empt decisions of the high court (incorrectly as it transpired), asserting a parliamentary majority that may not bear scrutiny. We have a former deputy PM who refused to step aside compromising a swathe of decisions he made while illegally sitting in his role. We have a Senate president who concealed his own ineligibility with the knowing acquiescence of at least one Cabinet member. Not to mention a senior minister who has asked the AFP to investigate her own staff over the leaking of information linked to a politically motivated attack on the Opposition leader from an agency she controls.
Still think I’m being overwrought?
As this week’s Essential Report
shows, the saga has eroded the Turnbull government’s standing with the public. While our rolling average sits at a two party-preferred of 54-46, the standalone figures this week match Newspoll’s 55-45.
In the modern political context this is as close to a repudiation of a government as the public delivers. Indeed this would be the biggest 2PP gap at a federal election since … 1975, when the Whitlam government managed just 44.3% of the 2PP despite the outrage of the dismissal.
The crisis has also further driven down the approval ratings of the prime minister who has experienced one of the most comprehensive turnarounds in personal ratings – from a positive of 33 points two years ago to negative 12 points today. That’s a decline of 45%, meaning nearly a quarter of the population have changed columns.
While the wave of Coalition referrals is not of the PM’s design, his response, first imperiously pre-empting the high court, then his double standards on the treatment of members of his team referred and his refusal, until Monday, to agree on a disclosure regime have all undermined his standing with the electorate and within his own party.
In fairness, the crisis has done nothing for Opposition leader Bill Shorten’s stocks either, with hard won gains to personal popularity in recent months being wiped away, as politics’ failings are portrayed in stark relief.
But it’s what comes next that should be exercising the minds of people seeking stable government in Australia.
On Wednesday, the result of the same-sex marriage postal survey will be released and despite a process that most Australian’s had no love for, the strong likelihood is that there will be a decisive vote in the affirmative.
If the results come in anywhere in this range, two things are clear. First, I can keep my job as a pollster. Second, there will be an expectation that parliament can give effect to the will of the people.
But already the conservative rump of the Turnbull government has flagged its determination to torpedo the process; either through framing an unacceptable set of “protections” to override discrimination laws protecting homosexuals or through contriving a need to delay a vote until the constitutional crisis is resolved.
It will be this second argument that will be the more telling if it is prosecuted: will a legislature that has members who could be ineligible have the authority to pass laws that change the fundamentals of our nation – even if it’s for the better?
And then there are the antiunion laws the government has lined up: attempts to increase the power of the Registered Organisation Commission, even as the AFP investigates its first abuse of power; or the pursuit to change super laws to give banks a better chance of gobbling up industry super.
If a prime minister operating with a single seat majority cannot be sure of the status of his own members, then how can he in any conscience continue to pass laws that will dramatically reshape the nation? I’m no constitutional lawyer, but surely if there ever was a role for the governor general, then this is it.