In Australian politics, the word mandate can be both a shield and a weapon. It can be a single sentence defence of a complex or controversial issue in government and it can stone hurled back by an opposition when circumstances change. It is also vague. There is no direct measure of what entails a mandate. Generally if a party gains a majority in the House of Representatives, then they institute their policy plan, because they have a mandate from the Australian public to do so.
That is rather simplistic though. It assumes that if you vote for a party you agree with its entire platform. Policies are not voted on individually, it's all or nothing, so the mandate defence can generally only be used for policies that were front and centre during the most recent election. Oppositions however, will use the mandate attack whenever a government does something even slightly different from what they said they would do.
When it comes to close elections, everything becomes vague.
In 1998 John Howard took the GST tax package to an election. He won, just, so he claimed a mandate and introduced the tax. But did he actually have a mandate? Howard received 49.02% of the two-party preferred vote to Beazley's 50.98%, but had won more seats. In other words, if there had been a referendum GST (which was the central issue of the campaign), on those numbers it would have been voted down. That however, is not how Australian politics works, and the tax was implemented. Rightly so. He was in government, so he did it even if claiming that the Australian people had 'spoken' was a bit rich.
The current situation involving Julia Gillard's reversal on a 'carbon tax' is a bit different, but the issue probes the same grey area as to what a mandate actually is. Julia Gillard said that if she won the election, her government would not institute a carbon tax. The thing is, she didn't really 'win' the election in the traditional sense. She is currently leading the government with the help of another party and independents who were not party to her election platform. She cannot be expected to institute her entire program 100%, because the 'Australian people', like some unconscious hive mind, decided that any government would have to be tempered by the Greens and four mostly agricultural gentlemen. Basically, a hung parliament means that it is open season on policy, and crapping on about mandates in this situation is ridiculous.
After the government was formed, Gillard invited all parties to join the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee to discuss a national response. This is what they came up with: Carbon Tax. The Liberal and Nationals refused to join that particular committee, and thus missed an opportunity to have any input. Why? Because to do so would have been participating in the process of governing, and the Liberals are so obsessed with pointing out the 'illegitimacy' of the government that they dare not take part in anything that would actually acknowledge Gillard's leadership. Tony Abbott is scaling new heights of hypocrisy. It was only a few months ago that he was decrying this government's lack of mandate, now he's bitching that they've had to turn around on one policy. His demand for an election on this issue reveals his complete inability to accept that he is not the Prime Minister.
If Labor had a majority, then maybe they'd still be pushing for an ETS straight away, rather than having a carbon tax first, but they don't have a majority. They have to negotiate policy across the political spectrum with other parties and individuals. They will have to make many alterations to promises made at the last election. In a lot of cases we are going to see better policy. This is what politics is: Negotiation and compromise. Particularly in hung parliaments
It's going to happen a lot this term and it's time to get used to that.
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