Internally, the former Labor government had plenty of problems, most of which have been relentlessly unpicked and examined in the year since Julia Gillard lost the leadership to Kevin Rudd.
But when it came to negotiating, the previous government did, for the most part, do a good job. Especially when Julia Gillard was prime minister. She won the support of the independents in order to form government in 2010, and continued to work with them and keep them onside in order to run an effective lower house during her three years in power.
One week into the new Senate, and negotiation skills seem few and far between. Yesterday’s surprise move by the Palmer United Party to join the ALP and the Greens in voting against the Coalition’s Carbon Tax Repeal Bill was an embarrassing defeat for the Abbott government in the upper house.
The PUP senators had been expected to vote in favour of the repeal but somewhere along the line negotiations broke down between the new senators and the government. It came down to a number of key amendments, with a two-hour period of frantic talks yesterday morning not enough to meet a consensus and see the repeal passed. The chaotic scenes have led to calls today by the Labor party that the Coalition needs to improve it negotiation skills and work better with the minor parties, just as they were able to in the lower house during the previous government.
The Coalition has it tough in the Senate, with the unpredictable Palmer United Party holding a key block of votes that will in many cases determine which way the floor goes. As PUP senators including Jacqui Lambie are repeatedly demonstrating, they’re not going to be pushed over when it comes to putting their stamp of approval on new legislation. Indeed, Lambie’s comments yesterday – in which she called for Senator Eric Abetz to be sacked as Liberal leader of the Senate — signal a refusal to cooperate may actually come down to how they’re treated during negotiations.
“We’re giving them the words and they’re not coming back with what we’ve asked them to draft up,” she told 3AW, saying it came down to words like ‘may’ instead of the ‘must’ that they’d originally requested in the amendments. “He’s [Senator Abetz] absolutely made mince meat of out of the Senate … We’ve actually embarrassed them and they should be embarrassed by the way they’ve handled it this week.”
Could more gender balanced negotiations have helped? Perhaps a style similar to how Gillard managed to get legislation through the lower house during her time as PM, in which she was dealing with a minority government? There are currently 29 female senators in the Upper House. Although just three of the 12 new senators sworn in this week were female, the current representation of women in the Senate is not as diabolical as other areas of public life. However, the majority of these female senators are in the Labor party, and not those who are chiefly responsible for negotiating the Abbott government’s agenda.
Women are often told our negotiation skills need work, that we don’t ask for what we really want and hesitate when it comes to the crunch. But just because we negotiate differently to men, and don’t always put ourselves first during such discussions, doesn’t mean we necessarily negotiate less effectively. There are and have been great examples of female leaders around the globe whose negotiation skills have led to productive and civil outcomes for all parties involved.
There are number of studies that show women and men negotiate differently – as such, it can be helpful to have both genders at the negotiation table, especially if you’re goal is to represent the interests of both men and women.
The Liberal party is up for some tough times in the new Senate. Perhaps a few more women at the negotiation table — in the party’s key positions of leadership especially — would help after all.