And he’ll hold his breath until he turns blue to get one!
Senator Fielding threatens to be a one-man obstructor of Labor legislation by siding with the Coalition on every Bill that a minority Labor government proposes until his term expires on June 30, 2011. Of course he’s not acknowledging that potentially providing multiple Double-Dissolution triggers over the next 9 months is blatantly in his self-interest – he’s just lost his Senate seat in the last election – under the reduced quota in place in DD elections, he stands a good chance of winning it back.
But no – he’s just all so morally outraged by it all that he just has to make a stand.
Oh, what a nong. Will he block coalition legislation (if a coalition minority government is formed) on the basis that voters are clearly just as unhappy with the coalition?
Of course not, Jo – the Coalition minority government won’t be including that evil Greens MP, who wants to put an injecting room on every street corner
Of course! And the fact that Fielding has God’s warrant explains why it’s ok for him to work against such evil, even though the (poor misguided) voters of Melbourne and Victoria voted for the Greens MP and not for Fielding…
Just add him to the list of people who, upon not getting their own way, are quite prepared to spend 170 million dollars of tax payers money for a new election.
Oh, lovely. I believe we may need to get a small delegation of kindergarten teachers to head on up to the Federal parliament, and hold a special session on “sharing” and “how to accept you don’t win everything” – with emphasis on the nice people in the Liberal party and Senator Fielding.
Of course, if they want to hold another election (and deal with the consequent voter backlash – if there’s one thing the Australian public doesn’t like it’s dealing with elections) then far be it from me to stop them from trying. But I would suggest that the brighter members of the policy pack in the Liberal party would be better off trying to hammer the concept of “premature election = massive vote loser for the culprits” through the heads of those persons in the Liberal party who cannot deal with the notion of a coalition government which isn’t theirs.
My own guess is that if the ALP is able to form a minority government under the current conditions, they’ll be doing their level best to try and woo away the Nats from the Libs at whatever cost is necessary – and they’ll be quite willing to use Messrs Katter and co. as their salesmen (“Look, we’re getting a good deal for our constituents; it’s a better one than we would have got from the Libs if they’d been in power; and we’re not being made invisible partners either!”) – because most of the time, the ALP is quite capable of forming government on their own, while the Liberal party inevitably needs the Nationals to form a coalition. Tug hard at the ties which bind the two coalition partners, and it may well do some serious damage to the chances of the Liberal party getting things together for long enough to take a decent shot at the House on the hill.
Me, I just want to see whether we’ll actually get a government out of this mess at all. At the moment, my guess is it’s looking like Labor as the primary contender, with a minority government which will tend strongly toward middle-of-the-road legislation which covers the middle ground of both major parties (and they’ll do this for long enough to leave the Liberal/National whips in absolute despair… “what do you mean we have to vote against our own policies?”) with a strong rural and infrastructure support bent.
Well here’s a pleasant surprise: Abbott has said that “if there is a Labor administration, the Coalition would be responsible and not combine with Senator Fielding to block supply.”
Of course, I don’t know whether he was reading from a properly written speech when he said it.
Antony Green says Fielding couldn’t block supply anyhow, as this year’s bill has already passed and next year’s Supply won’t run out before he goes. Which would make the Coalition’s remarks… what? Empty point-scoring? Ignorance? A bit of both?
They’re saying what needs to be said without calling Fielding a blithering ninny. He’s still a useful stalking horse for them – they won’t want to get him off-side. So – mostly point-scoring.