IN eager anticipation of a tectonic shift in Australia’s political crust, commentators have turned a spotlight on Mark Latham’s office. Those who follow national affairs are encouraged to focus on the House of Representatives – though seismic rumblings in the Senate are again being ignored.

Relegating the Senate to the sidelines by political commentators is not a new phenomenon. As we draw closer to the next election we can be reasonably confident of one thing: reports and comment on the views of the two contenders for the Treasury benches to the exclusion of the independents and the minor parties, especially those in the Senate.

There are reasons for this. The adversarial point-scoring that comprises much of our politics is much more interesting than policy. By and large, political debates are conducted in the House of Representatives while policy debates are conducted in the Senate. However, focusing on the lower house to the exclusion of the Senate does the national debate a disservice; Australians rely on the Senate to protect them from the vagaries of the two major parties.

Since 1993, the primary vote for minor parties and independents in the Senate has risen significantly, from 13.5 per cent to more than 25 per cent. However unpalatable to the two major parties, this trend shows every sign of accelerating and reflects a growing understanding by voters that Australia’s national affairs are, in large part, conducted in the Senate.

During time spent as a political advisor in Canberra from 1998-2001, I remember being surprised that the government and opposition voted together in the Senate about 75 per cent of the time. As the press gallery is almost wholly fixated on adversarial politics, this legislative cooperation (or collusion, depending on your perspective) goes unremarked.

Only when the two major parties differ, and the balance of power shifts to the cross-benches, does the role of the minor parties and the independents become critical.
There is, therefore, a sound argument that the shape of the Senate after this year’s election will have as great an impact on Australia as a Latham-led ALP government. But what sort of Senate will we inherit?

Democrat Leader Andrew Bartlett’s reprehensible performance in December and the party’s limp response means that the Democrats are now in the political hospice. In reality, Bartlett’s stupidity only hastened the inevitable. Of the 50 Newspolls taken since the 2001 election, the Democrats have polled 2 per cent or less in 28 of them. It is ironic that the party dispensed with Senator Lees after only two successive polls of 3 per cent, taken when Lees was on leave.

The demise of the Democrats must be heartbreaking for such hardworking people as Sandra Kanck, Ian Gilfillan and Senator Andrew Murray, though the seeds of destruction were planted with the elevation of Senator Stott Despoja to the leadership. After Stott Despoja’s failure to unite the party room and provide effective leadership and management, Bartlett did admirable work in re-assembling Democrats’ parliamentary division. However, as leader, he failed to drive reform of the party’s constitution, which has been at the heart of its woes. And despite Bartlett’s work, the party failed to reclaim its political territory in the centre-left.

The demise of an experienced, policy-driven and demonstrably effective party of moderation and reason on the Senate cross-benches is of national concern, though the two major parties won’t weep tears of blood at the passing of the Democrats. Still, both have been affected, with perhaps Labor suffering more than the Coalition. Labor succeeded in destabilising the Democrats by seducing Kernot then supporting Stott Despoja against Lees, but the resultant surge in support for the Greens has come largely at Labor’s expense. And at the beginning of an election year, John Howard is under the hammer like never before; he has the right, the resurgent Greens have the left, Labor under Latham is trying to cobble together a centre-right platform and the Democrats, as I observed, are in the hospice.

If Latham doesn’t “do a Downer” and self-destruct in a spectacular fashion, the new Opposition Leader could well take the Lodge. Regardless of the outcome, Democrat representation will be reduced to a gaggle of half-termers and Australia will confront a Senate in which the Greens dominate the cross-benches. This will give whoever wins government a serious case of heartburn.

A Senate in which the Greens hold the balance of power would be troublesome, to put it mildly. It would also be a triumph of politics over policy.

Unlike the Democrats, the Greens are not a “cross-bench” party: rather they are a lobby group in Parliament. As popular as the Greens are now, and despite the reverence many press gallery journalists accord them, they have not demonstrated a capacity for the sort of sensible negotiation required in the Senate if real policy wins are to be achieved.
One has to trawl Senate records very thoroughly to find Green legislative achievements, or find examples of Green activity on the various Senate committees where legislative grunt work is done (investigate on the web www.aph.gov.au).

In his attempts to gain ascendancy over the Democrats, Senator Bob Brown has worked tirelessly over several years to convince his constituency that “pragmatism” is a dirty word. His success, however, has effectively locked him out of the game. For instance, after idly speculating about the sale of Telstra in exchange for money to address Australia’s very serious environmental problems, Senator Brown was yanked sharply back into line by his party.

Playing politics and delivering one-liners on the steps of the Senate is relatively easy and Senator Brown is extraordinarily adept at charming the swaying cobra that is the press gallery. Policy, on the other hand, is hard, unglamorous and invisible work. No-one could accuse Senator Brown of being bogged down in policy. By way of contrast, prior to Senator Stott Despoja’s reign, the Democrats were wholly focused on - and demonstrably good at - achieving policy gains.

It is interesting to note that, having been driven from the Democrats by the Stott Despoja faction, Senator Lees and fellow cross-benchers Senators Harradine, Murphy and Harris have assumed the balance of power and left the Democrats floundering in a sea of irrelevance. Often convened by Lees, these four independents have taken the legislative running and delivered a number of outcomes. This is what being in the Senate is supposed to be about.

For her part, Senator Lees’s new grouping, the Australian Progressive Alliance, is a transparent attempt to occupy space on the centre-left of the political continuum once held by the Democrats. To brand this new party and get herself re-elected is a significant challenge for Lees.

Talented senators such as Democrats Andrew Murray, John Cherry and Aden Ridgeway are clearly under-utilised and have been diminished by association with a party that needed a serious constitutional overhaul. Indeed, Cherry and Ridgeway will have a tough time being returned in a half-senate election. Even if they are returned, one wonders if such tough-minded policy people would want to be in a Green-dominated Senate where politics prevails over policy.

One could be forgiven for wondering whether Senators Cherry, Murray and Ridgeway would serve their constituencies – and their electoral prospects – better by chancing their arm with Senator Lees. Such a realignment of the old team is probably Australia’s best hope for a Senate that will hold the government of the day to account, not ransom.