Section 44 Strikes, But The Government Hasn't Lost Its Majority Yet

Many news sites have now claimed that, in light of today's dramatic Section 44 disqualification of Barnaby Joyce from Parliament by the High Court, the beleagured Turnbull government has now lost its majority.

This is an exciting claim, but it isn't actually correct.

Pending the holding of a by-election for the seat of New England, the government will, when the House of Representatives next sits, hold 75/149 seats, with one vacant.  74 seats will be held by other MPs.  75 is larger than 74.  75 is larger than half of 149.  75 divided by 149 is 0.5033557... .  It is more than 0.500000.

The government's new and very temporary position is no different mathematically to that of the Cook Liberal government in 1913, which won 38/75 seats.  The Cook government is widely referred to as having had a one-seat majority.



Its previous position (76/150) is no different to that of the Menzies government in 1961, which held 61/120 seats with voting rights.  The Menzies government is widely referred to as having had a two-seat majority.

Certain Australian state governments have held one-seat majorities in parliaments with odd numbers of members.  In my own state, an example is the Nielsen/Lowe government from 1976-1979, which held 18 seats out of 35.  Such governments are invariably considered to have been majority governments.  The Goss government in Queensland lost a majority of one when one of its members was disqualified, and failed to regain it (and as a result lost office) at the subsequent by-election. The  Beattie government in Queensland and current Weatherill government in South Australia both gained a majority of one at by-elections.

Should New England be lost at the by-election, the government will hold 75/150 seats, which is exactly half the parliament, and is not a majority.  At that point the government will have lost its majority.

Various conventions are used for calculating the majority.  One, which I think is the better one, calculates it as the number of government MPs minus the number of other MPs.  On this convention, the Turnbull government has had a two-seat majority until now.  The Abbott government had a 30-seat majority.

The other, which seems to have taken over in Australia since the last election, calculates it as the number of government MPs minus half the parliament.

75/149 is a majority whichever way it is sliced.  On the latter reading, it is a half-seat majority, which is one of the reasons why the latter reading is a silly.

What the vacating of New England does is takes away the government's "floor majority", on the assumption that the Speaker will vote to maintain the status quo.  However, it is only a convention that the Speaker votes that way, and one-seat majorities are a case in which that convention is often discarded.  (It is also a convention which should not exist in parliaments, in my view, but I digress.)  Moreover, the question of who has a majority relates to the number of seats a party can hold, and not whether it can govern effectively.

The latter question may not be massively relevant with only two sitting weeks left this year, and with impedements (such as selection committees and inability to suspend standing orders) on Labor's ability to introduce legislation. But if Smith sticks to the Speakership convention in this context, the Government could at least have difficulty in passing gag motions during debate.

Regarding the consequences of today's four other ineligibility decisions (Ludlam, Waters, Nash and Roberts) I addressed Ludlam and Waters here and Nash and Roberts here.  The main development since is that bankruptcy proceedings against Fraser Anning have been withdrawn leaving him free to take Roberts' seat should he so desire.  Also, Andrew Bartlett's eligibility to replace Waters may be tested given questions about whether his university employment was an office of profit under the Crown, and Hollie Hughes may at least have to throw in a current position if she wants to be a Senator.  (Even this, on some views, may not be enough, opening the door to Abbott-backer Jim Molan.) Senator Canavan was ruled eligible because it was not clear after everything that he actually was ever an Italian citizen after all, while Senator Xenophon's limited form of dual citizenship was ruled not to create an allegiance.

Well done to voters on the sidebar Not-A-Poll who on average correctly picked six of the seven results (missing only Canavan).  321 voters said Roberts was gone, 303 Ludlam, 258 Joyce, 255 Canavan, 251 Waters, 197 Nash, 117 Gillespie (still to be heard), 108 Xenophon and 14 said none.  A snap Twitter poll I conducted of (mostly) my followers there in the hours leading up to the decision had the same result with similar relative percentages (I'm assuming almost everyone in the sidebar who didn't vote for "None of these" voted for both Roberts and Ludlam).