That agenda includes imposing a new 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal miners’ profits, which are burgeoning with the voracious demand for raw materials from Chinese and Indian manufacturers, and making Australia’s biggest polluters pay for carbon gas emissions.
Her newfound supporters have their own agendas. The Greens want gays to be allowed to marry and Australian troops withdrawn from Afghanistan while independent Andrew Wilkie wants federal action to protect problem gamblers from poker machines.
Gillard has rejected legal recognition of gay marriage, but has agreed to allow a parliamentary debate on the future of Australia’s deployment of 1,550 troops in Afghanistan. She has agreed to take legal advice on what federal powers the government has over the availability of poker machines, which are regulated by state legislation.
“No one should underestimate the problems Julia Gillard’s got,’’ said Australian National University political scientist Norman Abjorensen.
“She’s got to satisfy people on the left and right of Labor and it’s a very uneasy coalition of interests to keep in check on every available issue,’’ Abjorensen said.
The government will be unstable by the standards of modern Australia, where parties have governed with strictly disciplined majorities since 1943.
But some analysts believe that Gillard’s minority government would be more stable than one created by opposition leader Tony Abbott’s conservative coalition, which enlisted only 74 of the 76 seats it needed in the 150-seat House of Representatives.
Nick Economou, a Monash University political scientist, said Abbott, who rules out ever making polluters pay for their carbon emissions, could not deal with the Greens, who support charging polluters.
The Greens won 12 of the 76 seats in the Senate, where neither Gillard nor Abbott command a majority.
“If Tony had become prime minister, he would have quickly run into serious trouble with the Senate’’ which would have resulted in an early election, Economou said.
In return for the Greens’ support, Gillard has agreed to a range of their demands, including establishing a committee to investigate how Australia could introduce a price for carbon gas pollution.
Gillard has also agreed to give up some of a prime minister’s traditional tactical advantages for the independents’ support. While prime ministers have the freedom to call elections at times that suit their interests, Gillard has agreed to confer with allies before setting an election date.
