Sign Up
..... Connect Australia with the world.
Categories

Posted: 2021-11-22 05:43:12

Walk down the street and you'd struggle to find many people who could name more than a handful of senators. 

In the case of Gerard Rennick and Alex Antic, it's likely you would struggle to find many Liberal branch and file members able to identify them in a line-up.

It's not that either man is special in that regard, it's just that for most Australians, who sits in the Senate is largely irrelevant to their lives.

These are people who have been elected on the back of support for their party, rather than a personal endorsement Lower House candidates receive.

But now Rennick, from Queensland, and Antic, from South Australia, have gone from people few Liberals expected to get elected to now potentially holding Prime Minister Scott Morrison's legislative agenda just months out from the next election. 

Gerard Rennick sits on the backbench in the Senate looking into the distance
Gerard Rennick has issued the Coalition with demands in return for his continued support in the Senate.(ABC News: Tamara Penniket)

Break with party a long time coming

Rennick and Antic were third on their respective Senate ballot papers at the last election. 

In Rennick's case, he received little more than 1,000 first preference votes. The LNP group ticket he was on received more than 1.12 million first preference votes.

For Antic, he received 687 first preferences, on a ticket that received more than 413,000.

Speaking after that election, a Victorian Liberal, talking on the condition of anonymity, said it was hard to convince candidates willing to be third on a ticket.

The politician said some feared losing could mean they wouldn't get another chance to run.

"Tell that to those that just got a six-year term," he said of the five Coalition senators elected from third on the ticket in 2019.

Other Liberals after the election privately predicted Rennick, who had been outspoken against some Coalition policies during the campaign, would eventually end up on the crossbench, knowing he could use his vote to leverage demands from the government. 

To find him now starring down the Prime Minister has been a long-time coming for these Liberals.

Pauline Hanson speaks in the senate via a video link
Pauline Hanson, appearing via video link, put forward a bill that prompted Coalition senators to break ranks.(ABC News: Tamara Penniket)

Liberals issue Morrison with demands

Rennick and Antic arrived in Canberra for the final sitting fortnight of the Parliament for 2021 having issued their own government a mandate.

The pair want the Commonwealth to override state vaccine mandates, arguing they infringe on civil liberties.

They insisted they wouldn't vote on government bills as a result, making the already difficult task of getting bills through the Senate even more problematic for the Coalition. 

The government in response brought on a vote on Pauline Hanson's anti-vaccine mandate bill, which the duo crossed the floor to support on Monday morning. 

That bill was comfortably voted down 44 to 5, with the bulk of the Coalition, Labor, Greens and crossbench against it. 

The government's leader in the Senate insisted "the government won't be dictated to" by backbenchers making demands.

And while the PM spoke against the bill, he played down the significance of the Liberals breaking ranks.

Just days earlier he'd been accused of dog-whistling to anti-vaxxers and their parliamentary supporters — a claim the PM rejects.

Nothing new in backbencher threats

The Coalition likes to dub itself as a broad church of political views.

Bringing together two parties — the Nationals and Liberals — always bring with it inherent tensions but for the most part, they find common ground. 

Allowing politicians to cross the floor and vote against Coalition policies is trumpeted with pride, and strikes a contrast to Labor, which prohibits it under party rules.

Nationals have been no strangers to threatening to cross the floor and in Parliament as tight as this, where the government holds the slimmest of margins to govern in majority, the threat carries very real consequences for Morrison's agenda.

Barnaby Joyce, now in his second stint as Deputy Prime Minister, built his political brand on being willing to cross the floor early in his career. 

Fast-forward to today and he was out questioning the motives of those threatening to do just that.

Just weeks ago, his Nationals were threatening to break with the Coalition over climate targets.

That debate prompted moderate Liberals to find their voice, making their own threats about being willing to cross the floor unless their government adopted stronger climate targets.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Play Video. Duration: 2 minutes 6 seconds
Fully vaccinated skilled workers and international students allowed to enter Australia from December 1.

Morrison under pressure from his left and right

Tight margins in the upper and lower houses leave the Prime Minister at threat of being squeezed from both his left and right flank, something he appears all too aware about.

"Since I became Prime Minister, I've always made it clear there are those who are going to drag me over here, and there are those who want to drag me over there," he said on Monday.

"I know where Australians are. They're not at those extremes, the vast majority of them.

"They're looking for people just to make sensible decisions."

These are the quiet Australians that Morrison believes enabled the Coalition to be re-elected in 2019. It's the same Australians he'll need to back his party if he's to be re-elected next year, but getting the preferences of those on the vocal fringe won't hurt either. 

It leaves him with a tight rope to walk — appeal to the masses without alienating the vocal extremes.

Within an hour of the Senate rejecting Hanson's anti-vaccine mandate push, Morrison fronted the cameras to announce further easings of the international border

It came with a condition — you need to be fully vaccinated to enter. 

Just don't expect anyone in the Coalition to call it a vaccine mandate any time soon.

View More
  • 0 Comment(s)
Captcha Challenge
Reload Image
Type in the verification code above