When a majority isn't good enough

With his much heralded control of the Australian parliament the dogged John Howard seems to be in as much bother as ever. The thing about Johnny is that he has a reputation of ‘sticking like shit to a blanket’. He fought hard to get Liberal control of the senate and intends to stay around and implement every last bit of his ugly agenda.

Part of that agenda is to make Australia safe from asylum seekers, those poor bastards who will try and go anywhere rather than suffer the butchers of their own country.

Don’t worry about the news that everyone of the Afghani asylum seekers Australia recently sent home were executed, Johnny doesn’t worry.

But obviously there are some in his majority government who are concerned about mere humanity and a new raft of legislation to keep the riff raff out once and for all looks like it might be bought undone by his own followers.

According to reports, Howard pleaded with government backbenchers in his party room yesterday not to vote with Labor on new legislation to process offshore all asylum seekers arriving by boat.

In reply, the small "l" Liberal MP, Petro Georgiou, said he would be voting against the legislation because it breached an agreement struck with Howard last year, and Liberal values meant voting on principles.

I agree with Petro on the substantive issue, but his application of ‘liberal values’ is a bit dubious in the Liberal Party of John Howard.

Others opposed to the proposed laws don’t have the same backbone as Georgiou, but have vowed to abstain at the very least.

Australian party politics is quite different from the US or even Canadian models. Parties are run on strict discipline, and crossing the floor to vote a bill down is punishable in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

There is no Liberal leaning Labor members or vice versa, there is little leakage of the party vote ever. Well ever, until a government achieves full majority of the two houses, then something miraculous occurs, the government party seems to supply the willing Georgious who fill the opposition vacuum.

The cynical would say that these Georgious are the result of too few plums available to government to buy total loyalty, but I doubt if Petro was ever in a position to benefit from the plum jobs. While he would rarely cross the floor he is generally vocal with his views.

A vengeful party will try other punishments, like ensuring the member doesn’t get the party nod for the next election, but the damage is done by then.

I’m just thankful that, for whatever reason, there are politicians like Petro Georgiou with the courage to stand up to party bullies, and I this case to stand up for a slice of humanity. So much for majority government.