Desperation has seized both the Government and Paul Kelly:
Malcolm Turnbull is a prime minister prepared to “do and say anything to try to cling to power” — this is the lethal hyperbole from Labor’s Tony Burke in his assault on the government over the Barnaby Joyce crisis, his purpose being to destroy the Prime Minister’s governing legitimacy.
Turnbull’s government is not terminated. But this question depends on the High Court and defies prediction. If the court finds Joyce’s eligibility as an MP invalid then it will cost the government its majority and force a by-election that Joyce should win — but this struggle will be consuming.
Whether or not Joyce is found ineligible, the government’s standing will be diminished and its vulnerability paraded. It proves yet again that Labor is structurally superior on politics — it outsmarts, outmuscles and out-thinks the government on almost every issue. Luck runs Labor’s way but that is no accident. The government must hope another twist will trap a Labor MP in the citizenship provisions.
How long before the Prime Minister will address the political weakness at the heart of his government, a weakness obvious to the entire world? As if to prove its ineptitude the government’s tactical response yesterday — accusing Bill Shorten of seeking to seize office by a conspiracy with a foreign power (New Zealand, of course, who else?) — was gobsmacking. When Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned she would find it “very hard” to build trust with New Zealand Labour if it won power, a diplomatic furore broke out across the ditch.
The net impact: a bad situation for the government made to look even worse as well as absurd. The Turnbull government sank into panic conceived in apparent desperation. Labor took more heart from this touch of madness.
The Joyce dual citizenship crisis strikes at the heart of Turnbull’s central claim since the election — that as a pragmatist he can govern effectively and secure his bills through parliament, and that his slimmest majority of one is no impediment. Nothing has been more important to him than this claim to governing stability and getting the job done.
The cycle that plagues the Turnbull government keeps recurring: it seems unable to find clear air, seize control of the political agenda or damage its opponents. The best the government can expect from the Joyce fracas is repeated damage every day the parliament sits because, as Burke says, “We do not know whether or not this is a majority government.”
A good summary of the politics but, as always, missing the deeper political economy resonances. Turnbull does not “rule from the centre”. If he did he would have a entire suite of policies that aimed at reform to lift the living standards of Australians out of the post-mining boom funk. He has the opposite.
Turnbull rules for himself, mostly doing nothing. And when he does rule for others it is a business elite that benefits disproportionately from a patchwork of mass immigration, tax cuts and reform fatigue, energy failure and Budget waste that hangs wage earners out to dry. The only thing that is centrist in him is that he is a little less obviously stupid about the rabid class war than was Tony Abbott. But he still lacks any kind of coherent narrative for the polity to explain it.
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This is why he has no grass roots support, opening him up to internal division, weakening him further. Baaaarnabygate is nicely symbolic of the general ideological and policy ineptitude.
As the crisis deepens, Domainfax is reporting another stupid move by Turnbull:
The government is moving closer towards unilaterally referring four Labor MPs to the High Court to have the validity of their election tested, in a move that would mark a dramatic escalation of the citizenship stoush that has so far seen five MPs – Nationals Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan, former Greens Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters, and One Nation MP Malcolm Roberts – referred to the High Court to have the validity of their election examined.
The move to refer those four Labor MPs – Justine Keay and Susan Lamb (both with British heritage), Tony Zappia (born in Italy) and Maria Vamvakinou (born in Greece) – would force them to produce documents that back up the detailed explanations they have given that they say proves they have complied with section 44 of the constitution, which states a person cannot be elected to the federal parliament if they are a dual citizen.
A senior Labor source warned: “if we go down this path, it will destroy them.”
The ALP was, the source said, “confident in our vetting processes, while they don’t have one, that’s why they need the High Court”.
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The Guardian has more on the immediate fallout:
With Barnaby Joyce’s eligibility to sit in the House of Representatives referred to Australia’s high court, Labor has said that the Turnbull government’s majority “is in question”.
The loss of its majority would destabilise the government and could topple it entirely. That would require a successful motion of no confidence.
To force a vote of no confidence by suspending standing orders requires an absolute majority of 76 votes. It’s a high threshold and the numbers aren’t there now to bring it on: the Coalition has 76 seats and Labor just 69.
Another path to a vote of no confidence is for the government to grant leave for the motion and bring it on, in which case it is dealt with as a priority and only a simple majority is needed to win it.
The reason the high court case is so significant is if Joyce were ruled ineligible, the number of Coalition MPs in the lower house could fall from 76 to 75. That is no longer an absolute majority of 150 members; it would be technically a minority government.
If Joyce were ruled ineligible and Labor or a friendly independent won the resulting byelection (the former independent Tony Windsor has not ruled out running) the risk for the government increases.
Labor has 69 MPs. If it won votes from the Greens MP Adam Bandt, Joyce’s replacement, the Nick Xenophon Team’s Rebekha Sharkie, and the independents Bob Katter, Cathy McGowan and Andrew Wilkie it could reach 75 votes.
With Joyce ruled ineligible and the Liberal MP Tony Smith sitting in the speaker’s chair Labor could theoretically win a no confidence vote 75 to 74.
But this scenario assumes the crossbench lines up unanimously with Labor.
As noted yesterday, McGowan has recommitted to the Government so it is not going to fall. But the polls are going to as governing is forgotten and Turnbull’s slow plod down death row is all but assured as his own party closes in.
