NATIONALS senator Barnaby Joyce has admitted it is unlikely he will contest the seat of New England at the next federal election, claiming his party would allow him to run against popular independent Tony Windsor only if "they wanted to get rid of me".
"I believe strongly that the electorate council will end up pointing me in the direction of a lower house seat. I've got a rough idea where that seat will be, and I'd be very surprised if it's New England."
Actually Joyce is right about the parties view, regardless of what seat he runs for (and potentially wins). Going to the House of Representatives would deprive Joyce of all his current power, and as he will never become PM, deny him any real future Power in return. Given his independence I'm not surprised the party wants to get rid of him.
Joyce only has power at the moment because there is a tight senate where every vote counts. One coalition senator moving over means Labor gets a significant increase in its chance of passing legislation.But in the House of Reps, Joyce could vote against his colleagues every single time and would be irrelevant (indeed such an act would only make him more irrelevant). We are unlikely to ever return to governments of a 1-seat majority (the last was 1963 if memory serves) and Joyce wouldn't be the only one to realise/exploit the opportunity presented in such a circumstance.
While the PM must be from the lower house, the deputy PM could easily be a senator. Equally, as a Senator Joyce could easily take any cabinet role he would demand in a future Coalition government. So the only possible view is that Joyce thinks he could become PM. If so he is a worse politician than I thought. His support is limited to a very rural Queensland basis, and is only because of what he is against (coalition party discipline) than what he is for (he's an agrarian socialist with a decidedly christianist bent).
His views wouldn't sell in the major cities, and most people who like him (including the media) do so because he plays an unpredictable role these days that would be denied to him in the HOR and especially if he tried fighting for leadership of the Coalition. If nothing else, the Liberals will never let the Nationals have the PM's role. That last happened in 1967, when 'Black Jack' McEwen was PM for all of 21 days until the liberals coalesced around John Gorton.
Joyce should stay where he is. He is popular, he has the opportunity to dictate/shape legislation, and can regularly blackmail colleagues and opponents into giving him goodies for his region/voters. Going to the HOR removes all of that, with no future pay off possible..
Don't do it Barnaby. Ahh hell do it, the political theater will be fun to watch.
2 comments:
While the PM must be from the lower house, the deputy PM could easily be a senator.
What about John Gorton he was from the upper house?!?
Well remembered, but Gorton moved to the lower house in a specially arranged by-election to enable him to carry on the practice of the day.
This is more tradition than constitution, as the role of the Prime Minister is not mentioned in the Constitution. However, the government of the day needs to have majority support of the Lower House (aka the House of Representatives) and hence the need for the PM to be in the lower house.
That said the tradition(began with the English westminster) was often held as controlling question time debates was seen as a base of power. But with the undercutting of parliament begun with Keating and ramped up under Howard, that perhaps is no longer the case. If so, that is a sad day for Australia's parliamentary system.
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