Minority government is as good as any alternative when its advantages and disadvantages are weighed up. Three years of minority government from 2010–2013 showed that.
Effective minority government is common around the world. It is a form of government which depends on compromise and negotiation and can deliver fairer and more inclusive outcomes.
It can also be slower, apparently messier and less decisive. It can give too much power to individual MPs.
Those who dislike minority government include the big parties which prefer a two-party system with government alternating regularly between the two. They want sole control over executive government when they hold the reins of power.
But when the big parties condemn the idea of a so-called hung parliament it is just self-interest speaking, as when both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten expressed their horror at the prospect of any sort of alliance with the Greens. Adam Bandt, the Greens Member for Melbourne, had indicated that the Greens were ready for an alliance if the big parties fell short of a majority in their own right.
The Coalition and Labor didn't want to show any lack of confidence in their prospects by admitting that possibility. They particularly didn't want to invite speculation about an alliance with the Greens because of their policies on climate change and refugees.
The prospect of a Greens alliance drew front page publicity, but the bigger issue was minority government itself.
The Gillard government was not a Labor-Greens alliance at all but a more broadly-based minority government. Julia Gillard needed four extra votes to govern and she managed to negotiate the support of first the Greens, then Andrew Wilkie, and finally both Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott. Surprisingly no one pointed this out.
"A much bigger problem for Labor during the Rudd-Gillard years than minority government was leadership instability. That is the legacy that will hurt Labor."
It was also surprising that Shorten missed the opportunity to defend the legacy of the Gillard government, a successful minority government which executed a considerable legislative program under extreme pressure.
There were good reasons for this hesitation, given his role in Labor's two leadership changes. However, despite that, Labor must always express pride in its legacy. Unwisely, after Labor's 1996 defeat, the new leader Kim Beazley failed to talk up the positive Hawke-Keating legacy. If Shorten allows 2007-2013 to be portrayed as disaster years it will ultimately hurt his chances of becoming prime minister.
A much bigger problem for Labor during the Rudd-Gillard years than minority government was leadership instability. That is the legacy that will hurt Labor, despite Turnbull subsequently ejecting Tony Abbott from office. The stain of deposing two prime ministers remains, but it should not be conflated with minority government.
Australia has a bicameral system with two chambers of parliament. At any one time there are many governing possibilities and we have had many permutations and combinations since 2005 when the Howard majority government won control of the Senate. During all this time government has continued quite effectively as governments have learned to live with the cards they have been dealt. There has been some grizzling about the supposed effects of both minority government and/or Senate power. Eventually this led the Coalition and the Greens combined to change the Senate voting system to eliminate micro parties.
But the outstanding negative characteristic of this period has been the three occasions on which prime ministers have been deposed. The next most negative examples have come from over-confidence and broken promises, leading to the two most damaging events for the Coalition over the past decade. The first was Work Choices, the extreme industrial relations legislation introduced in 2006 when John Howard's government over-reached because it controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. That led to Howard's defeat in 2007.
The second major aberration was Abbott's 2014 budget, the most unpopular recent budget. It was the product of out-of-control self-confidence by a newly-elected majority government and led eventually to Abbott's demise. It remains to be seen whether the Coalition can recover from that hit.
So when major party leaders express their absolute horror at the thought of minority government, remind them of the adverse consequences of unchecked majority government.
John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University and a former chair of the Australian Republican Movement.
Julia Gillard graffiti image: 1llustr4t0r.com, Flickr CC