New Hung Parliament Ready to Begin

Laurie Oakes wrote an interesting column yesterday. He talked about another hung Parliament that happened way back in 1944. The Labor Party had a crucial vote coming up on a bill to control the coal industry and the Labor whips found one of their senators was missing.

John Curtin's government faced defeat if he wasn't found so a search party went out to find Senator Thomas Arthur, a man who loved a drink. Hard to believe, he'd been kidnapped by the Opposition who wanted to block the legislation. They didn't have far to look, they eventually found him in the Hotel Canberra with a bottle of whiskey.

The story was told by political journalist Don Whitington in Strive To Be Fair, an unfinished autobiography published a year after his death in 1977. "The amiable Senator allowed himself to be transferred, still with his bottle of whiskey, to a room in Parliament House in the suite of Labor's Senate Leader" he wrote. "There he spent the rest of the day being assisted into the Chamber for divisions and so the coal legislation was passed."

What a great story and it shows what can happen in a hung parliament. Every member from now on will have to be present when the house is sitting. Every time there is a division, an Opposition win is possible and Tony Abbott will be waiting in the wings.

For the Government to maintain control of the House, even the PM - normally excused from such duties - will have to be available and ready to dash into the Chamber for a division at any time. The Opposition will get more opportunities to attack the Government and Parliament may need to sit an extra four weeks a year.

Ministers wont be able to travel overseas unless under exceptional circumstances, so that grounds Kevin for a while. And the independents wont be exempt. Windsor missed 158 divisions in the last Parliament, Bob Katter missed 264, and Oakeshott missed 71 of the 237 votes he could have taken part in. From now on though, absences by independents won't be tolerated.

So Australian politics should be anything but boring when they go back this week. I wonder who among our esteemed MP's might be swayed from his or her duty by a bottle whiskey. What? Aussie pollies tempted by the opportunity to knock off early and go to the pub? Never!