WA Senate vote: Labor and PUP call on high court to uphold original result
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Version 0 of 1. Labor is joining the Palmer United party to demand the high court declare the original West Australian Senate result valid. That would secure the seats of their candidates, but might do the Coalition a huge favour by allowing it to avoid a new election in WA that could make the Senate make-up after July more difficult for the Abbott government. In separate petitions to the high court Labor and the PUP argue that given what is known about the 1,370 missing Senate ballot papers and other mistakes they list in the counting and recounting process, the court should declare the original winners of the fifth and sixth Senate positions (PUP’s Zhenya Wang and Labor’s Louise Pratt) are elected without another half-Senate election being held. Initial counting gave the fifth and sixth positions to Wang and Pratt, but after a recount the seats were awarded to the Sports party's Wayne Dropulich and the Greens' Scott Ludlam. The Australian Electoral Commission itself has petitioned the court to hold another ballot. The petitions by Labor and PUP to declare the original winners and avoid a rerun election, which would cost around $13m, will be heard in Melbourne on Thursday by a single justice of the high court sitting as the court of disputed returns. The court’s decision could have significant consequences for the Abbott government, which has been counting on getting key elements of its agenda – including the carbon tax repeal, which will be blocked by the existing Senate – through the new Senate, which sits from July. Under either the existing WA result (three Liberals, one Labor, one Sports party and one Green) or the original result that the ALP and the PUP want to stand (three Liberals, two Labor, one PUP) the government can probably expect four votes in favour of most of its legislative proposals and two against. But a Newspoll published on Tuesday has the government trailing Labor 48% to 52% on two-party-preferred terms. If that result was reflected in a WA half-Senate poll, it might result in the election of two Liberals, two Labor, one Green and one minor conservative-leaning party. In that case, the government could expect three votes in favour of most of its proposals and three against. That would make the balance of power in the new Senate a much more fluid proposition and possibly reduce the power of the PUP. For example, the independent senator Nick Xenophon and the DLP senator John Madigan have said they will not vote for the government’s proposed abolition of the $10bn Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is also opposed by Labor and the Greens. As things stand, the government needs six of the eight crossbench votes, which it is likely to be able to achieve without Xenophon and Madigan. But if the Coalition lost a seat in a new WA election, it would need seven of the eight votes and the position of the two independents would probably mean that could not be achieved. Xenophon has also said he will not vote for the carbon tax repeal until he is convinced that the Coalition’s Direct Action policy is a feasible alternative. Both the Labor and Palmer United party petitions say that if the court does not agree to reinstate their candidates as the elected senators, it should call a new half-Senate election. In a report released last Friday, the former federal police commissioner Mick Keelty found that ballot papers in WA went missing because the AEC did not follow sufficiently rigorous procedures ensuring their security. Keelty strongly rebuked the AEC in his report but was unable to conclude whether the ballots lost were the subject of “deliberate human intervention” or were discarded by accident. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |