A terrible week for the government — hoisted by the petard of its raid on the Australian Workers’ Union and exposed by a series of other embarrassments, big and small, during estimates — ended about as badly as it could have, with two ministers (who happen to represent the leadership of Coalition junior partners the Nationals) kicked off the benches. The High Court has ruled Deputy Prime Minster Barnaby Joyce and Nationals deputy leader Senator Fiona Nash have been ruled to have been ineligibly elected. Redressing this loss is a relatively straight forward process in the Senate — although messy in this case, and most likely career-ending for Nash.

However, Joyce, the only member of the House of Representatives to be so far bogged in the dual-citizenship morass, now faces a byelection in his New England seat, dropping the number of seats held by the government to 75 out of 149. Speaker Tony Smith has vowed not to use his casting vote to prop up the government, while independent Cathy McGowan has guaranteed supply and confidence until Joyce is re-elected, assuming that happens. 

In the meantime, what mischief can Labor bring about? They’ve already let anyone who cares to know that they’ve received legal advice that over 100 decisions by Joyce and Nash are now open to legal challenge. What are the chances they will also be able to use the government’s disarray to get a major win through? Earlier this year, a push for a royal commission into banks came perilously close to passing — what will happen now Joyce is out of the picture?

Scenario:

Of all the proposals Labor might put forward, the royal commission seems to have the greatest chance of success; it has the support of the crossbench and nominally attracts the support of some of the harder right, populist elements in the Coalition. Member for Kennedy Bob Katter, who crowed in the aftermath of the decision that he was one of the six most powerful people in Australia (let that sink in), has been calling for just such an inquiry for years and rogue Nationals MP George Christensen has threatened to cross the floor in support several times. A royal commission has been a popular idea with voters for a while, even before the CBA money-laundering scandal enflamed anti-bank sentiment in the electorate.

Outcome:

Yet, when presented with a chance to vote for a banking royal commission back in June, Christensen backed off, citing a technicality and voting with government. Labor called him a “lion in Mackay, and a mouse in Canberra” at the time. And as the Australian Financial Review‘s Phillip Coorey pointed out on ABC’s Insiders this weekend, it would take quite some gall from a Nationals MP, whose party’s incompetence has thrown the government into chaos in the first place, to take advantage of that chaos to vote against the Coalition. 

Still, that was the single vote that sunk the proposal at the time; the whole crossbench — Katter, NXT’s Rebekha Sharkie, McGowan and fellow independent Andrew Wilkie — were in support. If a motion were introduced by Labor or the Greens calling for a royal commission, and the vote were a tie (as happened last time), Smith would vote to continue the debate (as he did last time), not to decide the issue. Without Joyce, and assuming no member of the crossbench has changed their mind since June, that leaves us with a 74 to 74 tie. And a tie is no good for supporters; in the absence of a majority, the proposal to establish a commission would be defeated. 

So, assuming that:

  • Smith doesn’t renege on his commitment to the impartiality his role;
  • Christensen doesn’t fancy making himself any more of a pariah in the Coalition party room than he already is; and
  • Christensen’s fellow Nationals MP and bank critic Warren Entsch can’t be coaxed to forward flip back into supporting a royal commission …

… the banks remain safe, for now.

This would likely also be the case for a motion of no confidence, or an attempt to undo the Fair Work Commission’s decision early in the year to cut penalty rates.