Well, here we are. Malcolm Turnbull has put the nation on an election footing.
The Prime Minister used a snap press conference in Canberra to reveal he had visited the Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove and advised him to prorogue the Parliament - officially ending the current session - before also using the Governor General's powers to recall both houses to sit for three weeks from April 18, ahead of a re-scheduled May 3 budget.
The move, which relied on the little-used provisions set out in section 5 of the constitution, means the seven-week pre-budget parliamentary break leading up to the scheduled May 10 budget has been halved with the special sitting dedicated entirely to consideration of a once-defeated bill to re-establish the Howard-era Australian Building and Construction Commission and the already twice-defeated registered organisations bill.
Both bills have come up against stiff Senate opposition from Labor, the Greens, and six of the eight cross benchers, almost all of whom were elected in 2013.
Passing them - both articles of faith for the conservative pro-Abbott wing of the party - would be a major win for Mr Turnbull's internal prestige. But their rejection would be even more advantageous, allowing him to run a full-throated anti-union militancy campaign in which he would attempt to paint Labor's Bill Shorten as a fellow traveller.
Mr Turnbull's action follows last week's successful passage of changes to Senate voting procedures which ended elaborate and opaque preference deals, and will almost certainly mean fewer independent and minor party senators will be elected in future.
So it turns out that not only the micro-parties wildly successful at stifling the Tony Abbott government's agenda, they've now become the victims of their own success. Yet that is only the passing story; the big story is how Malcolm Turnbull waited until this moment to spring the ABCC bill which is classic Liberal Party union-bashing. What we're now figuring out is that the ABCC bill was Turnbull's ace in the hole and he has been lying in the reeds waiting for the Senate voting changes to go through before he sprang this trap on the crossbench senators.
And while it's high stakes, for Turnbull it's actually low risk. Why?
He has issued a challenge to Labor, the Greens and the independent senators to join the government in a Senate vote to impose law and order in the construction industry.
The strong-arm union in the industry, the CFMEU, has gone rogue and the government is intent on taming it.
The government has a bill before the Senate to reintroduce a specialised federal regulator, the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The ABCC was created by the Howard government and dismantled by Labor.
The Senate has already rejected the bill once. Labor and the Greens are intent on protecting the CFMEU, a major donor and client of both parties, and some of the Senate independents voted with them.
By asking the Governor-General to prorogue the Parliament and then bring back the Senate to deal with this specifically, Turnbull has put maximum pressure and maximum scrutiny on the Senate.
If the Senate refuses, Turnbull has promised to dissolve both houses of Parliament and take the country to an early election to get his way.
If it buckles, he will let the Parliament run its normal three years and call a customary general election - for the House and half the Senate - in September or October.
Turnbull figures he can't lose. If the Senate agrees, he gets his way and he is seen to be a strong, determined leader. The Senate crossbenchers will hesitate to frustrate him again.
If the Senate refuses, Turnbull calls a double dissolution election which, on the current outlook, he would win handily. He would then hold a joint sitting of both houses to legislate the bills. Again, he gets his way.
Win-win scenario for the incumbents right there. The Turnbull government has turned out to be an extension of the Abbott government simply because he can't persuade and wrangle the lunar right of his party. It's only improvement is how deft Turnbull has been to talk about a lot of things without committing to anything. The worst case might be all the talk about the necessity of tax reform and then curling away from all the important reforms on the agenda, only to turn around and run a scare campaign on what the ALP had to offer to the discussion. It's understandable that it's politics; it's less understandable that Turnbull thinks this is him being of better behaviour than Tony Abbott. If the base is so low, incremental improvements don't net you points.
Also, all of this Senate reform manoeuvre puts the Greens in an interesting light. The Greens colluded with the Coalition government to put through the changes to the Senate voting rules. To that end, they abandoned their own marriage equality proposal. They sold out the micro-parties so they can secure a monopoly on being the third party in the Senate. As the third force in the Senate, they're doing a much worse job than the Australian democrats did back in the 80s and early 90s. The question is, is this the moment that the Greens are shown to be no different from 'the bastards' and lose credibility with the electorate? Right now, they look like a party that's only init for the power and their own pay checks.
Also, all of this Senate reform manoeuvre puts the Greens in an interesting light. The Greens colluded with the Coalition government to put through the changes to the Senate voting rules. To that end, they abandoned their own marriage equality proposal. They sold out the micro-parties so they can secure a monopoly on being the third party in the Senate. As the third force in the Senate, they're doing a much worse job than the Australian democrats did back in the 80s and early 90s. The question is, is this the moment that the Greens are shown to be no different from 'the bastards' and lose credibility with the electorate? Right now, they look like a party that's only init for the power and their own pay checks.
As for the ALP, they're in a zone of irrelevance. It's hard to see them fight back to the middle with the policies they've got. Every time Climate Change becomes front and centre for the public, the votes seem to bleed to the Greens, and every time there's a pushback against doing anything, the votes bleed right to the Coalition. The same could be said for taxation - every time they talk about the tax system needing reform and how the multinational corporations need to pay tax the votes bleed left to the Greens, and every time they mention cutting negative gearing, the votes bleed out to the right.
It's as if the ALP are in a no-man's land waving their policies around as if they're going to make a difference. There are already grumbles amongst ALP voters about wanting to replace Bill Shorten. When I ask them who they want, I get answers like Plibersek, Wong and Albo. It's as if the ALP voters don't understand just how destructive the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd swaps were to electoral confidence. I'm not much of a Bill Shorten supporter but as a long-time pinko, I think the ALP needs to make a proper fist of contesting the election with Shorten as leader and Plibersek as deputy, and not make noises about polls dictating a swap of leadership. They need to grow up and fight a good fight like adults instead of infighting and squabbling like student politicians. Turnbull is eminently beatable, given that his party won't let him be his best self.
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