The Senate Crossbench is proof positive of what I’ve always said: Politicians always make things worse, especially when they ‘fix’ things.

If there was ever a ‘problem’ which the government aught to be able to fix, it would be the voting laws by which it became the government in the first place. I mean, how hard can it be? When you have the guaranteed support of the other ‘big’ party and can ram through any voting reforms you damn well please, what could possibly go wrong? Surely this is going to be the perfect example of inter-party co-operation for a mutually beneficial goal, a smaller senate crossbench.

What goes wrong is that they’re politicians… and that makes them about as smart as a sack of potatoes, and as good at judging future ‘unintended consequences’ as a teenager with a lifetime supply of red bull and viagra. In other words, they’re convinced they can control their destiny and defy reality and somehow get away with it.

And reality slaps them down every time.

Judge for yourself. Is the ‘feral crossbench’ (as viewed from the point of view of the major parties) going to be better than it was before the election? Are there fewer of them? Are they more ‘mainstream’? More likely to ‘reach across the aisle’ and ‘work with the government’? Not likely.

Now to be clear, I like the crossbench. Not necessarily the specific people now occupying it, but I like that it exists, that it gives heartburn to the government of the day, and that it means politicians will spend more time fighting each other and less time ramming legislation through which makes my life that little bit worse every single time. So I’m not railing against the crossbench, not at all. I’m pointing out that if politicians can’t even fix something as contained and controllable as voting laws without screwing it up, how can they delude themselves into thinking they can ‘control’ complex real-world issues such as the economy, welfare, healthcare, education, trade, ‘jobs and growth’… without also making a complete balls of it?

Again, judge for yourself! Look around at the web of rules and regulations we live under, all supposedly for our own good and intended to make our lives better. How many of them succeed in their stated aim? How many of them actually achieve the exact opposite of their good intentions?

But I actually view this new-improved ‘feral crossbench’ as a gift. The Government have handed me the perfect illustration of how incapable they are at ‘fixing’ things. So next time anyone says the government should ‘fix’ anything, remind them of how well they ‘fixed’ the ‘feral crossbench’ and challenge them to think of something the government has actually done a good job of fixing… Be prepared to wait a while.

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