Labor victory comes with a nightmare One Nation twist

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson. Picture: AAP

It’s the dream result — with a nightmare twist.

If Labor won the next election — and the Newspoll published in The Australian suggests it would win one held today — it would face the ultimate contradiction in political alliances to achieve its legislative agenda.

The ALP would have to rely on the left-wing Greens and the right-wing One Nation to get legislation through the upper house, as current senators from the six states remain until June 30, 2022.

The opposition currently holds just 26 seats and would need, at the least, the nine Greens senators, the two from Centre ­Alliance and the two from One Nat­ion to reach the 39 votes needed to pass legislation.

Reliance on One ­Nation’s support in the upper house might not be a temporary problem.

Veteran Labor senator Kim Carr said it would not be a surprise if there were a conservative majority in the Senate after the next election, even if Anthony ­Albanese became prime minister.

Senator Carr said Labor had been disadvantaged by Malcolm Turnbull’s reforms to the Senate voting system ahead of the 2016 election, which introduced preferential voting that “worked against progressive parties and in favour of conservatives”.

“The changes to the Senate voting system were always aimed at providing the conservatives with a Senate majority in the longer term,” he said.

The reforms passed the upper house with the Greens’ support.

Senator Carr, who has served in the upper house since 1993, said Labor would work with other parties to try to secure legislative support “but in the first instance Labor has to increase its primary vote”.

After poor results at the 2019 election, Labor has only 11 senators from the six states whose terms carry through to 2025.

On current polling, Labor would face an uphill battle to win any more than two seats in each state, plus an almost guaranteed one in each territory, giving it 25 in total.

Labor typically needs an upper house primary vote of 40 per cent for a chance of having three sen­ators elected from one state because of the strength of the Greens vote. At the past three half-Senate elections — 2010, 2013 and 2019 — the ALP has managed to hit that threshold only once: in Tasmania in 2010.

When Kevin Rudd led Labor to power in 2007, the party did much better, winning three Senate seats in four states: NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania.

The ALP’s upper house primary vote has slumped in the 12 years since then: down more than 16 percentage points in Queensland, more than 12 in NSW and more than 10 in Victoria at the 2019 election.

The Coalition, on the other hand, regularly has three senators elected in any one state with a primary vote of about 37 to 38 per cent, given right-leaning minor parties such as One Nation usually poll slightly behind the Greens.

Labor’s best chance of three senators being elected from one state is Victoria, where the ALP’s primary vote is strongest.

The most recent Newspoll analysing voting state by state put Labor’s primary support in Victoria at 39 per cent.

Labor’s national primary vote at the time was 35 per cent. Given the national poll has Labor on 39 per cent, it is fair to assume Labor’s Victorian primary support has also risen.

Labor’s upper house primary vote in Victoria has lagged its lower house primary vote by five percentage points at the past three half-Senate elections, suggesting Labor would need a Newspoll result of about 45 per cent for lower-house support in Victoria to be confident of hitting the 40 per cent target in the upper house for getting three senators elected.

Given the Greens are a good chance to increase their representation by picking up seats in NSW and South Australia, on current polling Labor and the Greens look likely to hold 36 or 37 upper house seats between them.

Centre Alliance faces an uphill battle to retain either of its two South Australian Senate seats — both secured under the Nick Xenophon Team banner at the double-dissolution election in 2016. The Greens would be ­expected to pick up one and the Liberals or Labor would win the last seat on current polling.

Pauline Hanson, whose term also ends next June, could weather a small fall in primary vote and still be confident of retaining her seat in Queensland, Labor’s weakest state, setting up a Labor-Greens battle for the sixth seat.

Barring any shock minor party or independent successes, that would leave the Coalition with 36 or 37 seats, Labor with 25 or 26, the Greens with 11 or 12, One ­­Nat­ion with two and Jacqui Lambie, originally elected as a Palmer United Party senator, holding the final seat.

Even if Labor managed to win the last Senate spot in Queensland and had three senators elected in Victoria, for a total of 26 senators, it would be able to manage only 37 votes with the Greens on side — and winning Senator Lambie’s vote alone would still not be enough to pass legislation.

When Mr Rudd won power, Labor held 32 Senate seats and typically relied on the five Greens, Nick Xenophon and Family First to pass legislation.

After the 2010 election, the Gillard government had 31 upper house seats but, with the Greens’ nine senators, it needed only one minor party on side. Never before has Labor faced the prospect of needing One ­­Nat­ion to achieve its legislative ­agenda. Of course, if that proves too hard, there’s ­always the ­Coalition.