JOHN Bishton (“Occasional need to work together”, The NDL, May 13) has an attractive theme in “working together”, but just on the point of democratic minority governments, while he is right that they are common, we should also note that many of the democracies concerned are falling apart – debt-ridden, drifting to extremes, policy incoherent.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In coalitions, stability based on common policy and philosophy is the critical factor, setting the Liberal/National Coalition apart from any coalition with the Greens.
Labor, to add it to the real argument here, and the Coalition have common ground on asylum seekers/border security, defence spending, terrorism, including overseas military commitments, and new coal mines, to name four policy areas where both major parties are opposed by the Greens.
So whether you vote Coalition or Labor, if a government can only be formed in coalition with the Greens, you have no idea which policies you’ll be supporting in the event.
Hence Ms Gillard’s (never be a) carbon tax, as I understand it.
Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away, the major party leaders jointly announced that if the election produced a hung parliament, whichever of their parties had fewer members elected would assign the required number of members to the other to support its forming a government, explaining that if government was to depend on coalition with another party, it would be the one that received 40 per cent of the primary vote, not 10 per cent.
But this was a galaxy that had rid itself of phoney party ideology and its hidebound divisions, John, where the occasional need to work together was recognised, and voters were much less confused and disinterested.
Stan Heuston
Oxley Vale
