Let's imagine for one moment that Labor wins the election, as is seeming increasingly likely.
One of Labor's main pledges going into this election has been to scrap the Coalition's Industrial Relations laws, including WorkChoices, most crucially AWAs.
In order for their new legislation to pass, it must be passed by the Senate. The newly elected Senate will not come into effect until 1st July next year, so until then the Coalition will still have an outright majority. Presumably they will not pass any IR reforms.
The most likely scenario for the new Senate, post July 2008, is that the Greens, Family First and an SA independent will hold the balance of power, with Labor & the Coalition each unable to gain an outright majority.
This could pose a significant problem for Labor. Rudd and Gillard have repeatedly said that the IR legislation they intend to introduce will not be altered, no matter what. The Greens have put their foot down and said that they won't pass the current Labor plan because it doesn't go far enough.
In that case, there will be three possibilities.
1) Labor relents, and makes their reforms more far-reaching, so that the Greens will pass them. Labor has made it clear they do not want to do this, and given their current position on the political spectrum, such reforms would be far too socialist for them.
2) The Greens relent, and pass the Labor reforms in their current state. The Greens have made it equally clear that they will not do this. If they did, it would put them, in the eyes of their supporters, on par with Meg Lees selling out to the government over the GST. The minor parties are usually absolutely adamant that they'll stick to their principles, so this would be a highly unpopular cave-in and could well spell disaster for the Greens, just as they're on the verge on being Australia's legitimate third party.
3) No-one relents. The reforms are taken to parliament twice, they cannot be passed in their current state, and a double dissolution must be called, possibly in less than a year after this election.
A double dissolution (an election where the whole senate is up for re-election, not just half as normal) after a close election could easily go either way. What's more, because the quota in each state is halved, due to double the number of seats being up for grabs, minor parties have a much better chance of getting seats in the Senate. So even more (and even more extreme) minor parties and independents could win upper house seats. There's still no guarantee that the legislation would be passed.
So, would the Greens sell out? Would Labor finally shift slightly back to the left and agree to make their changes more extreme? Could we be facing another election? If we did go back to polls, would the result be different?
