Caitlin Doyle and James Supple look at the experience of minority government in the past and why it has not delivered serious change
As the federal election draws closer, Labor and the Coalition are neck-and-neck in the polls.
There is even a good chance that Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton, who many had previously seen as too right-wing to win power, could win the election.
Current polling suggests neither party will win a majority, and will still need the support of independent MPs or The Greens to form a minority government. Many see this situation and the use of the balance of power in parliament as a chance to force some meaningful change.
Pro-Palestine independents are running in a number of Labor electorates in Western Sydney, and the Climate 200 grouping is supporting 35 candidates, including teal MPs and other “community independents”. They are hoping to elect even more independent MPs at the coming election in order to increase their parliamentary bargaining power.
The Greens have announced they would support a minority Labor government and that their priority this election is to “keep Dutton out”.
But the chance of Labor working with The Greens or pro-Palestine independents is slim. Anthony Albanese, like Bill Shorten before him, has sworn to never go into coalition with The Greens, not wanting to be associated with their left-wing policies.
In addition to The Greens there are already 13 other crossbench independent and minor party MPs in the lower house. Labor is certain to talk to them first before looking to The Greens. The chance of Labor needing to rely on Greens MPs in the lower house is very slim.
Most of the teal MPs represent traditional Liberal Party electorates in some of the wealthiest areas of the country. Allegra Spender’s electorate of Wentworth in Sydney, for instance, includes the suburbs of Double Bay and Darling Point, two of the three richest in the country.
She recently told ABC’s Insiders that she was “very open to working with a Coalition government”, saying that when it came to, “my view on the world and the Coalition’s view on the world, there are a lot of parallels”.
This applies not least to her attitude to Palestine. After 7 October Spender declared she was “particularly pleased” by the decision to light the Opera House in the colours of the Israeli flag and was “appalled” by the Student General Meeting motion at Sydney Uni last year backing Palestinians’ right to resist under international law.
Teal independents Kylea Tink, Zoe Daniel and Zali Steggall also opposed capping superannuation accounts at $3 million, defending tax breaks flowing to the wealthiest Australians.
A Labor minority government relying on teal MPs would not be a shift to the left.
Greens in power?
Many within The Greens believe that entering into government with Labor would also allow the party to push Labor to the left and pass more progressive policies.
In January, Greens leader Adam Bandt declared that a power-sharing arrangement between The Greens and Labor, with the support of the teal independents, could usher in a “golden era” of progressive reform.
But we have already seen an example of this kind of “power sharing” in the Senate.
The Greens have held the balance of power in the Senate since the last election, with Labor needing Greens vote to pass any legislation that the Coalition opposes.
So Labor has simply worked with the Liberals instead on many occasions. We have seen this over the recent electoral funding laws, imposing administration on the CFMEU, cuts to the NDIS, anti-refugee laws and many other measures.
Anthony Albanese has simply refused to make concessions on issues such as housing and climate change, telling The Greens pointblank that they can either vote for Labor’s policies or see nothing done.
Far from The Greens being able to use their parliamentary numbers to shift Labor to the left, they have given in and passed Labor’s measures on several occasions, wilting in the face of accusations from Labor that they are blocking change.
Much the same would happen if Labor was forced into minority government—as recent history shows.
Gillard Labor government
Labor was last forced into minority government after the 2010 election under Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The Greens even had a share in the balance of power in the lower house, with Labor relying on three independent MPs as well as the sole lower house Greens MP at the time, Adam Bandt, to hold onto power.
At the time many celebrated this as the beginning of a break with the “two party system”, and a way to force progressive change from Labor. But the experience was a failure.
Far from any shift to the left, the Gillard Labor government moved further and further to the right. Labor reintroduced offshore detention of refugees on Nauru and Manus Island and insisted on austerity through delivering balanced budgets.
This saw it impose cuts to single parents payments and rip $2.3 billion out of universities in its last budget.
It refused to increase taxes on the rich to fund public services, caving in to the mining companies to produce a mining tax that raised almost no revenue.
The major concession The Greens point to from this experience was the introduction of the carbon tax. This was a useless policy that did very little to reduce emissions, aiming to deliver just a 5 per cent reduction target. It relied on the use of dodgy offset schemes and gave billions of dollars in compensation to big polluting companies.
But its biggest failure was political—it played into Liberal leader Tony Abbott’s hands, since the whole idea of the tax was to increase power prices. Abbott ran a ruthless campaign that successfully branded it a threat to the cost of living.
It was so unpopular that it helped deliver Abbott the next election.
There was also a deeper problem that resulted from The Greens’ decision to join a minority government.
The Greens’ desire to prove that they could be a reliable parliamentary partner saw them repeatedly defending an unpopular and indefensible Labor government.
Their Agreement with Labor itself only committed The Greens to keeping the government in power through supporting confidence and supply motions.
In return Labor agreed to a handful of items including a climate change committee, a debate on the war in Afghanistan and an investigation into spending on dental care.
But instead of attacking Labor’s drift to the right The Greens too often defended the government. They constantly talked up the “achievements” of their Agreement and what The Greens had extracted from Labor.
When Julia Gillard’s plan to deport refugees to Malaysia showed Labor had reached rock bottom over refugees, The Greens finally had to attack Labor, with Bob Brown commenting, “I’ve bitten my tongue for quite a while on this.”
Yet when Kevin Rudd finally toppled Julia Gillard as Labor leader then Greens Leader Christine Milne said she was, “very sad” and claimed her government had, “delivered some tremendous outcomes”.
This certainly wasn’t the way workers and the wider electorate saw it—booting the government out of office just months later.
Fighting the right
The danger of a Coalition victory in this year’s election is also very real.
Dutton has gone out of his way recently to imitate US President Donald Trump’s “anti-woke” racism and bigotry.
Just as Trump did with the Democrats, Dutton is pointing out Albanese’s failure to address people’s real economic pain, while using minorities and the left as scapegoats, going after trans rights, refugees, Aboriginal people and pro-Palestine activists.
The Greens are right to unequivocally oppose Dutton and everything he represents.
But vowing to support Labor in government will not build the fight we need against Dutton and the right. Nor will it pull Albanese to the left.
Albanese’s primary goal in government has been to prove that Labor could be a safe pair of hands for the ruling class’s profits and the economy.
Far from pursuing any serious left wing agenda, Albanese carried over the worst of the previous Coalition government’s policies—the massive expansion of gas and fossil fuel projects, the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal, and the refusal to act on negative gearing on property that is driving the cost of housing out of reach for many working class people.
On top of this, Albanese has repressed and smeared the Palestine solidarity campaign, sided with the Liberals to pass draconian refugee legislation and attacked the CFMEU—previously one of Labor’s strongest and most powerful supporters.
Meanwhile, Labor has overseen a further decline in real wages in the face of a cost-of-living crisis. This economic misery is one of the primary reasons for the fall in support for the Albanese government.
Positions in parliament can help build social movements, union struggles and resistance on the streets. The Greens have been an important voice of opposition from within parliament, most recently against Labor’s backing of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
But real change is not going to come through electing more Greens, pro-Palestine or left-wing MPs into parliament to take the balance of power.
The experience of the Gillard minority Labor government shows that trying to extract concessions through parliamentary horse trading won’t shift government to the left.
Focusing on parliament and elections as the way to win change is a dead end. The power to win change lies in mass social movements and workers’ strikes and industrial action outside of parliament.
Instead of a focus on door-knocking and electioneering, we need more activists working to build the movements for Palestine, climate action and housing and rebuilding fighting unions.
