Senate to deliver on greed and corruption

The ramifications of the Liberal/National Coalition's control 
of the Senate began to emerge last week when the newly elected 
National Party Queensland Senators laid out some of their 
reactionary agenda. The National Party took four of the six 
remaining Queensland Senate seats and from July 1 next year the 
Coalition will have an absolute majority for the first time since 
1981.

The Senate will become a conduit for delivering the Government's 
policies of greed and corruption for corporate Australia and the 
imposition of increased hardship for working people.

Although the National Party Senators say they might prevent the 
full privatisation of Telstra if service levels in the bush "were 
not up to scratch", their main objective will be to calm rural 
community fears of a loss of telecommunication services. 
Ideologically, the Nationals do not oppose the sell-off of 
Telstra but they are caught in a contradictory bind, claiming to 
stand for the interests of country Australia while in reality 
representing the interests of big business.

By whatever manipulative means — maybe sexing up the service 
figures, or giving empty guarantees of service delivery by 
private operators — they will come around to backing the full 
sale: for the Liberals and Nationals, corporate profits, be they 
in telecommunications or elsewhere, come first.

This also is why the union-busting agenda of the Howard 
Government is set to be given a boost from next July. The 
Nationals in the Senate will ensure that the Government's anti-
union legislation is passed into law.

They backed to the hilt the free trade agreement with the USA 
which will hit services in every part of Australia. The FTA also 
threatens the very existence of the Pharmaceutical Benefits 
Scheme and will wipe out local industries and production, 
including in agriculture.

The hit list is diverse and vicious: from ending Medicare 
coverage of abortion (women's right to choose has been openly 
under attack by the Government for some time) to scrapping cross-
media ownership laws.

The make up of the Senate from July 1, 2005 will be: Liberals 33; 
Labor 28; Nationals 5; Greens 4; Democrats 4; Country Liberals 1; 
Family First 1.