Peter Dutton’s Bicep Injury Could Have Serious Consequences In Parliament
Nothing's right I'm torn.
Bad news, folks: Peter Dutton has injured his bicep and will have to miss Parliament this week. That’s a real shame for him, seeing as he’s been pushing for Parliament to debate his big scary new national security legislation, and also because his colleagues are talking about referring him to the High Court.
The injury’s actually pretty gruesome — Dutton reportedly tore his bicep from the bone while trying to mend a (literal, not metaphorical) fence on Friday, and needs multiple surgeries to fix it. That means he’s going to miss quite a few high stakes developments in Canberra this week, which is the second last parliamentary sitting week of 2018.
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) November 25, 2018
Dutton’s absence could be pretty bad for him, and also for the rest of us, because there are quite a few important things involving Dutton on the agenda this week in Parliament. For one, Dutton has been pushing for Parliament to pass new national security legislation before the end of the year, which would give him new powers to strip Australian citizenship from people convicted of terror offences.
He’s also pushing for Parliament to pass that encryption bill before the end of the year — you know, the one that would force tech companies to hand over data. In a statement on Twitter, Dutton said that Attorney General Christian Porter would continue to act for him and push for these laws while he’s away, but the clock is ticking.
Dutton’s absence will also affect Parliament in another important way. See, today Kerryn Phelps takes her seat as the member for Wentworth, which means the government has officially lost its majority in the House of Representatives. That should have made it easier for Labor and the crossbench to band together and force a vote on certain issues (including, potentially, a vote to refer Dutton to the High Court over his eligibility to sit in Parliament), but Dutton’s absence complicates things.
The reasons for this are nerdy, but stick with us. Basically, to win a regular vote in Parliament you just need a simple majority of voters who are in the chamber at the time of the vote. But for other types of votes, you need something called an absolute majority. Basically, that means that if Labor and all six crossbenchers vote together, and one government MP crosses the floor, then the opposition will have an absolute majority of 76 votes.
But when a member is on medical leave, like Dutton is, the opposition party typically grants them what’s called a paired vote (that means one Labor member will also not vote on stuff today, to balance out Peter Dutton not being able to vote).
What that means is that Peter Dutton’s absence will affect the number of Labor MPs who can vote in Parliament this week, but it won’t change the fact that Labor still needs to secure an absolute majority of 76 votes to pass legislation. That means that instead of needing just one government MP to cross the floor, Labor will now need to persuade two to change sides.
If only there was a handy infographic to explain this oh wait pic.twitter.com/8S9MbuHccI
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) November 26, 2018
If all of that was too boring, here’s the upshot: Peter Dutton’s absence will make it slightly harder for the opposition to suspend standing orders — that means stopping the Parliament from discussing normal business — and force votes on some important issues this week, including the issue of whether Peter Dutton is even eligible to sit in Parliament in the first place. Get well soon, Dutton.