Once again the myth is perpetuated. Passing the GST was not what did the Democrats in.

This is evidenced when one looks at the Results of the 1998 Federal Election (Prior to GST), the 2001 Federal Election (AFTER the GST) and the 2004 Federal Election (After significant Democrat infighting – including destroying the party’s biggest asset – its leader at the 2001 Federal Election Natasha Stott Despoja).

House of Reps Results – Democrats
1998 Federal Election – 5.13%
2001 Federal Election – 5.41% (Up 0.28% – After the GST!)
2004 Federal Election – 1.24% (Down 4.17%)

Senate Results – Democrats
1998 Federal Election – 8.45% (4 Seats)
2001 Federal Election – 7.25% (Down 1.2%) (4 Seats – matching 1998 – after the GST!)
2004 Federal Election – 2.09% (Down 5.16%) (No seats)

Looking at those results – it is clear that Stott Despoja managed to maintain much of the Democrat vote at the 2001 Election (Yes, it is true she did not support the GST and that explains some of her appeal, but she had a wider appeal than just being against the GST. Many voters would not have known of her opposition to the GST and would only have known that “The Democrats helped pass the GST”)

Still, Stott Despoja’s popularity meant that most voters had moved past the GST in relation to the Democrats at the time of the 2001 Election.

This is proved by the Democrats vote increasing at the 2001 Election in the House of Reps – Once Again – After the Introduction of a Democrat-assisted GST! and the maintenance of the 4 Senate seats up for re-election.

What really did the Democrats in – and did for me for instance and many I know – was the bitter infighting that took place in 2002-2003 against the leader!
Sure, the elected members of the Democrats might not have always agreed with their leader, but how they did not appreciate the fact that they maintained their electoral position after the introduction of the GST – at the 2001 Federal Election – is beyond me.
Could not Democrats see that the only reason their “brand,” their party, had been preserved after what many regarded as a betrayal (but not at that stage a complete betrayal) at the 2001 Federal Election was because of the electoral appeal of their leader at the time of the 2001 Election?

It frankly staggered me that the Democratic Senators set about destroying Stott Despoja’s infant leadership – and in the process their own electability.
As the Election results show – their destruction was not wrought by the passage of the GST, but by their own infighting!

I think you are misstating things a little.

I don’t think so. It may be in Labor’s interest to go to an early election. It is not in Labor’s interest to go to a double-dissolution.

I don’t disagree with that. My disagreement was with your explanation of why this is the case, specifically the statement:

Labor does not have, and never has, an interest in sharing power (with the Greens Party in the Senate).

Labor does have an interest in such power-sharing insofar as such power-sharing is inevitable, and insofar as power-sharing with either the greens or coalition alone would be preferable to power-sharing with the greens and independents together.

I think you are misstating things a little.

I don’t think so. It may be in Labor’s interest to go to an early election. It is not in Labor’s interest to go to a double-dissolution.

With all those free loving bohemians I used to hang around with they didn’t have a chance. (Nor was I ever successful in talking them into sins of impurity.) Ah, well, them’s the breaks.

You were a lot more Catholic than I was (unintentional irony). We only went on Sundays and then only when we’d been playing up and a sanction was needed.

Labor does not have, and never has, an interest in sharing power (with the Greens Party in the Senate). The idea that they would have a DD election just so the Greens Party could get a couple of extra seats, so that Labor + Greens Party senators could get things through, is laughable.

I think you are misstating things a little.

Of course the ALP would prefer an option where they had the balance of power in their own right in the Senate. However their is no such realistic option. The ALP sharing power in the Senate is inevitable. The question is what power sharing arrangements are more favourable to them.

The fact is that either DD or half-Senate are likely to end in a situation where the Greens have sole balance of power, and so the ALP needs to negotiate with either the Coalition or the Greens to get things through. It is also the case that this situation would clearly be tactically preferable to the current arrangement.

The reason (on Antony’s analysis) why a half-Senate election is more favourable to the ALP is not because the Greens would be improved by a DD. Indeed Antony’s analysis suggests that they would only be marginally assisted by a DD (depending on whether the Greens could squeak over the line in either NSW or Vic in a half-Senate).

The reason is that micro-parties of the right would be advantaged by a DD, with the potential of that gain coming from the ALP in NSW and Vic. Thus the outcome will be more stable from a half-Senate. A DD runs the risk of producing a situation much closer to the current arrangement.

So it is not that the ALP dread sharing power with the Greens, because that is inevitable. It is that such powersharing will be more stable after a half-Senate than after a DD.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of projecting one’s own desires onto others. Doubtless there are many of us here who’d prefer to see the Greens hold the balance of power, because many of us are more sympathetic to their policy set. But Kevin has one primary aim — to stay in power and that always only requires doing just enough and no more than is necessary to get there.

It’s like those cricket games where the proessionals on the field know they only have to avoid getting out and average a score of about 60 runs per 100 balls to win and that if they keep doing that the other side will be forced to give them chances to score to you in order to force them to take bigger risks. The crowd wants them to go at 120 balls per hundred, because it’s more exciting, but the percentage players know that at the margins, this rate increases the chances of a debacle in which you throw away a won position.

Kevin knows that if he doesn’t rock the boat he will get two terms and probably a third and become an ATG ALP leader. But to do that he has to keep tension in the position so that he can maintain the kind of discipline over his side that will force them to rely on him as manager. As long as he can hand out largesse, even those who are dissatisfied will have to bite their tongues because the alternative is less appealing still.

Like almost all successful politicians though, he could hardly care less about what happens after he has left the building. Not his problem. That’s somebody else’s problem.