Abbott Faces Test in New Senate Poll

Feb. 20, 2014 5:48 a.m. ET

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott visits drought-stricken New South Wales on Sunday. Getty Images

CANBERRA, Australia—A rerun of botched Senate election in Australia’s biggest state is set to test support for conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s administration, which is struggling to overcome political resistance to its main promises and has by some measures experienced a short honeymoon.
The nation’s High Court on Thursday voided the result of last September’s upper house election for Western Australia, forcing the state’s 1.3 million voters back to the polls within months. The decision comes after a recount following the tightly fought contest revealed that more than 1,000 votes had been lost.
Mr. Abbott’s conservative Liberal-National coalition swept to office in September. It recaptured the lower house of Parliament and ended six years of center-left Labor Party rule with promises to unravel environmental and mining taxes seen as a burden on the world’s 12th-largest economy, and to simplify government regulations and procedures.
But the conservatives failed to gain a majority in the Senate, where Greens and Labor opponents hostile to Mr. Abbott’s agenda hold the largest voting blocs, and whose support is necessary to pass legislation.
The conservatives had hoped for more backing in a recast Senate after July, including from a handful of unpredictable new members from broadly right-leaning minor parties, among them one run by maverick mining billionaire-turned-politician Clive Palmer.
Under that scenario, Mr. Abbott would have needed to win backing from six of eight Senate crossbenchers—who sit outside the two main party blocs—to pass his reform laws, including the key repeal of a controversial carbon-pollution tax blamed for driving up business costs.

Shipping containers are loaded onto trucks at the Port of Fremantle in Perth, Western Australia. Bloomberg News

The High Court’s decision has called into question the makeup of coming Senate. New elections in Western Australia could make Mr. Abbott’s job of delivering on his promises even more difficult. The vote will be a referendum on conservative policies, and one seen by voters through the prism of September’s broader results, which may make some voters more willing to switch their vote.
Mr. Abbott’s popularity has slipped in recent months, eroded by economic woes and political headaches over education policy and a three-month foreign-policy tussle with Indonesia over border control and spying.
The end of a decade-long resource boom is buffeting Australia’s economy, with growth slowing to just 2.3% in the year through September from as high as 4% in 2012. Australia’s unemployment rate last month rose to the highest level in more than a decade as thousands of miners struggled to find work. The job losses have spread to sectors such as auto manufacturing and the airline industry, hurt by fierce competition and a strong Australian dollar.
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The opposition Labor Party has accused Mr. Abbott of not doing enough to keep Toyota and GM in the country and protect Qantas from overseas competition. The prime minister has said that, given the country’s tight budget, he won’t consider more taxpayer-backed assistance for companies.
Successive voter polls in recent months had placed the conservatives behind Labor, although a Nielson poll in Fairfax newspapers this week gave Mr. Abbott’s party a 52%-to-48% lead over Labor, its best result for two months and in line with the election outcome.
The new election could go several ways, delivering a possible protest vote weakening conservative strength in the Senate. It could also deliver more minor party Senators, making Mr. Palmer a kingmaker for Mr. Abbott, with whom he has clashed before.
“The most likely outcome is the two major parties share two seats, while one goes to the Greens and one goes to Palmer or some other party. But the government may rue losing the three seats they had,” said John Wanna, a political analyst at the Australian National University.
The new election in Western Australia comes on top of state campaigns in Tasmania and South Australia, as well as a poll due in Victoria state later this year, which if lost by conservatives may make it harder for Mr. Abbott to win backing for reforms requiring state approval, including the possible lifting of consumption taxes and infrastructure asset sales.
The timing of the new election in Western Australia will be decided by Mr. Abbott’s government. Most analysts expect it to be held in late April or early May, before the new Senate is supposed to sit for the first time and ahead of the first conservative fiscal year budget statement to be outlined on May 13.
Write to Rob Taylor at rob.taylor@wsj.com

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