Australian minnow socialist parties give the left the mandate to govern!

The Australian election over the weekend has dealt a hung parliament with neither Labor or Liberals (ie Tories) with a overall majority.

Straight away the Tories started screaming that because they won the most number of seats and the highest number of primary votes they should be the government. This is constitutionally a lot of bullshit and is based on some self serving mathematics.

Under a Westminster style parliament government formation is based on gaining a majority in the House of Representatives. If Tony Abbott cannot gain the support of 76 MPs in a house with 150 seats he cannot be Prime Minister. Projected results expected to give Tony Abbott one or two more seats than Labor. Yet if the centre-left can combine the support of the Greens and a few independents they will be able to form a legitimate government.

The inescapable fact is that no party won the election. While there was a 4.87% swing against Labour, the party led by Tony Abbott only gained 0.63%. Hardly a strong mandate to be Prime Minister. The Greens gained by far the largest positive swing of all the parties, gaining 3.63%. While the election of the first Green MP in the lower house is to be celebrated, the inescapable fact is that the Greens were robbed by an electoral system that is fundamentally broken. With 11.42% of the primary vote the Greens would have won 17 seats under proportional representation. It is a small consulation that the Greens hold the balance of power in the upper house (the Senate).

Back to Abbott's dodgy maths. Abbott is attempting to claim a mandate because the Liberals and the parties that normally support the Liberals gained more votes than Labor on its own. Of course its is fundamentally ridiculous in this situation to compare a coalition of parties on the right and not also add the Green vote to the centre left.

If we add the Labor total of 38.51% to the Greens 11.42% we get a figure stupidly short of a majority - 49.93%. Rather amusingly, it is the stupidly small Socialist parties that push the centre left over 50% and give the left the mandate on a first preference basis. These are the Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Equity Party, on 0.07% and 0.09% respectively!

Hence my tongue in cheek title :)

The Labor party won the popular vote, on a two party preferred basis, with 50.67% of the vote, compared to the Liberal share of 49.33%.

Over on Red Alert, Chris Hipkins wonders about the public reaction in the situation where the government ends up being led by the smaller of the two major parties. This could happen in Australia as a result of this election, and is even more likely to occur in New Zealand given we have a proportional electoral system.

The public reaction will only be a problem if the born to rule screaming from the Tories is given the oxygen it does not deserve. What it represents is a demand for single party rule on the basis they failed to gain the support of a majority of the population, just as the Tories used to demand their right to rule under First Past the Post when over 60% of the population did not vote for them.

Despite it being constitutionally improper and fundamentally undemocratic Tory friendly commentators in Australia on Saturday night started the screaming - 'our party won the most seats'. They were just following the lead of the UK Conservatives who attempted the same swindle in the aftermath of a hung parliament in the UK earlier this year.

In the case where the smaller of the two main parties gains a majority in the house by forming a support arrangement/coalition with a minor party, in my view the left needs to welcome this as a result representative of the wishes of a larger number of voters.

I look forward to the day the National party in New Zealand is stranded on 55 seats, and Labour forms a government with say 49 MPs and support from the Greens and other parties providing 12 or so seats. Let the Tories scream away - it will be a day to celebrate as our proportional electoral culture matures once again, and the FFP mindset of the dinosaurs finally gives up for dust.

PS: Of course there is an argument that the policies of the Australian Labor party are essentially those of a centre-right party, and it is true that many Labor MPs would have more in common with the Liberals than they do with the Greens or the real social democratic left. A grand coalition of the major parties is not going to happen - the aim of my post was to highlight Abbott's dodgy maths and willful constitutional ignorance.

PPS: The percentages may change over the next few days!

Its the wrong ICC - Howard as President of the International Cricket Council is a joke

In a move that stinks of pure cronyism and 'jobs for the boys', Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket have nominated former Australian Prime Minister John Howard to become President of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 2012.

The only ICC John Howard should be sent to is the International Criminal Court for sending troops to the illegal war on Iraq.

As Peter Roebuck says, the International Cricket Council is "no place for this inexpert right arm slow" and the actions of Cricket Australia in promoting Howard as their candidate is "as pitiful as it is disrespectful". "Plain and simple, he is not qualified for the job".

To be fair to New Zealand Cricket they resisted backing the Howard appointment for some months, but the Australians just would not let it go. New Zealand Cricket put forward former banker and cricket administrator Sir John Anderson for the job, and by all accounts he is a constructive and credible candidate, as well as being an existing ICC board member. That said, even the appointment of Anderson would not be free of the stench of cronyism. Anderson is the former CEO of the National Bank, which just so happened to be New Zealand Cricket's major sponsor for many years.

Under a protocol adopted by all cricketing nations a few years ago, it is Australasia's turn to choose the next President of the ICC, and Australia and New Zealand were expected to chose a candidate by the end of 2009. "Instead they kept arguing and were obliged to ask the ICC to extend the deadline by two months. Inevitably the other nations chuckled. Administrative bickering was supposed to be a subcontinental custom."

Cricket Australia appears to believe Howard can act to curb on the growing Indian dominance in the administration of the game, something Roebuck says is "much resented" in Australia. But how can such a divisive figure, and at times a divisive figure on race issues at that be an effective leader when cultural understanding. credibility and diplomacy are key parts of the job? While Howard did recant on his infamous 1988 remarks about curbing Asian immigration, modern South Africa may be interested to know Howard did everything he could to undermine the anti-apartheid movement, even going as far as to tell then Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser he had it wrong when Fraser told the 1981 Springbok rugby team, on route to New Zealand, that they could not refuel their plane in Australia. Afghanistan also plays cricket - not only did Howard invade their country he endangered the lives of the Tampa boat people in a cynical election motivated stunt.

Watch this and weep - the same man had the gall to accuse of Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan of being a chucker.



So while the Australian cricketers are here I hope there might be a few homemade banners* around the ground highlighting what a joke the Howard appointment is. There is a facebook group opposed to Howard's appointment here.

If John Howard does go to the ICC, there may be grounds for a plea bargain if he testifies against George Bush and Tony Blair. What a shame both ICCs are unlikely to function as they should.

* I mean banners with some wit, like those seen before the banner competition become sponsored by corporates and became all about pretty pictures and bland messages. There was a particularly good example spotted at the 20/20 this week, "Tsunami covers more of New Zealand than XT"

Edit: Fixed broken link.

Howard comes second

Wonderful to see the defeat of John Howard last night. Not only will Howard no longer be the Prime Minister of Australia, it looks like he will lose his own electorate as well.

While the TV coverage last night claimed this will be the first time a sitting Prime Minister has lost his own seat, this is not the case. While Howard may not be the first, a comparison of the fortunes of John Howard and Stanley Bruce is far more poignant.

Like Howard, Bruce attempted to drum up fears of trade unions in order to protect the interests of his mates in big business. In 1929 Bruce prevented the prosecution of John Brown the 'coal baron' following a lockout of workers in his mines.

There were a number of high profile industrial disputes between 1927 and 1929, including strikes by sugar mill, waterside and transport workers. Most noteworthy was a nasty lockout of mining workers by employers in Rothbury NSW who sought to lower the miners wages. Police provided heavy protection for scabs, leading to a tragedy on December 16 1929, when two miners were shot dead by police.

Stanley Bruce then introduced controversial industrial relations legislation - The Maritime Industries Bill - which was designed to do away with the Conciliation and Arbitration Court and return arbitration powers to individual Australian states. The proposed legislation effectively dismantled the federal arbitration system, except in the maritime industries.

On 10 September 1929, Billy Hughes and five other Nationalist members joined Labor in voting against the Bill. The Bill was lost 34 votes to 35 when Littleton Groom, the Speaker, abstained, bringing down the Bruce–Page government and sending Australians to the polls in the 1929 election just one year after the Nationalists won the 1928 election. Labor won a landslide victory and Bruce lost his own seat to Labor's Ted Holloway.

Ted Holloway was a prominent trade unionist - making the 1929 victory even sweeter.

So assuming Howard loses his seat - he will be the second Australian Prime Minister to lose his electorate in response to unpopular right wing industrial law changes. Lets hope future Prime Ministers on both sides of the Tasman take heed of this lesson.

Dangers in the addition of an 'Investment Chapter' to CER

On Thursday this week the Minister of Finance Michael Cullen and his Australian counterpart announced “solid progress” towards the creation of the ‘Single Economic Market’ between Australia and New Zealand. “ Ministers also decided to investigate the possibility of adding an investment component to the Closer Economic Relations (CER) agreement.”

Thus the idea of an ‘investment agreement’ was floated again, with no analysis or explanation of what an ‘investment’ chapter of CER would entail. Perhaps Cullen gave nothing away because giving such an explanation would reveal an ‘investment chapter’ as a direct threat to democracy.

The benchmark for ‘investment agreements’ is the infamous ‘Chapter 11’ of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These provisions give multinational corporations the right to sue governments for compensation or reversal of laws/regulations that threaten their profits.

For example, the Canadian Government placed a ban on a toxic petrol additive, MMT on the grounds it caused nervous system damage and interfered with car emission control systems. In response, the producers of MMT, the Ethyl Corporation, used the provisions of the NAFTA to sue for $250 million, claiming lost Canadian profits and damages. Faced with lengthy court action, the Canadian Government was forced to revoke the ban in 1998, pay the company US$13 million damages and issue an apology. There are many other similar examples. As Bill Rosenberg (2001) has noted, even the threat of such proceedings acts as a break on a government acting in the interests of its citizens. Mary Lou Malig (July 2004) reports;

Canada had good reason to want to avoid a large damage reward. Since the implementation of NAFTA, the total amount of damages claimed by foreign investors has been a total of $US13 billion - $US1.8 billion from US taxpayers, $US249 million from Mexican taxpayers and $US11 billion from Canadian taxpayers"

These provisions are a direct threat to democracy, as they give foreign investors the right to challenge the mandate of governments to implement policies in the public interest; even in the case such policies formed part of a successful electoral platform.

A likely model for the CER investment agreement is the ‘Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement’ (HKIPPA) New Zealand signed with Hong Kong in 1995 (signed by National’s former Don, Don McKinnon that is). This agreement contains equivalent ‘expropriation’ clauses to those found in NAFTA, which aim to also cover Government actions that have an ‘effect equivalent’ to direct expropriation. In NAFTA this has been interpreted to include loss of an investment’s value through loss of profitability.

It also must be noted that the Government's new Overseas Investment Bill, currently before the house, allows the Government to further liberalise investment law by regulation (such as the threshold for business investments and the definitions of associated land). In the context of negotiations over the extension of CER or any other 'free trade' agreement this would allow the government to make further concessions largely free of parliamentary scrutiny (the RR committee is not sufficient!).

While at present it may seem unlikely that an Australian investor would make such a claim, it does beg the question why overseas investors are being given greater rights than local citizens or businesses. Consider the clearly signaled, high profile policy of the Labour party in 1999 to renationalise ACC. ‘Investment protection’ agreements could have affected or prevented the implementation of this policy following the election of the Labour/Alliance Government, especially if private insurance companies had a legal presence in Hong Kong. In this case, it was probably lucky the private ACC market had not been going for very long.

To give a contemporary example, any attempt to further regulate the privatised electricity market created by Max Bradford and embedded by Pete Hodgson could be met by a challenge by the new Australian owners of Contact Energy, who could claim that Government actions negatively affected the profitability of their ‘investment’.

Given the NAFTA experience of Canada and Mexico, perhaps such challenges are not so unlikely after all. Any proposals to include NAFTA or HKIPPA like clauses in CER, or any other ‘free trade’ agreement, should be steadfastly exposed and opposed. Such provisions are a direct threat to democracy as they could prevent our Government from implementing policies given a democratic mandate by the New Zealand people. And that, at the end of the day, is what democracy is all about.