We're on the home straight for 2016. A few festivities and we're done. It's been an interesting year and next year will be as interesting, but definitely not more of the same. The great lesson of politics is that one ought not assume tomorrow will be like today. It won't be. Change is inevitable, unending and often startling. We forget this all too easily and at our peril.
We also look back at what has happened, including that which we didn't expect at the time, and offer ourselves a narrative that explains just about everything. Many people feel uncomfortable saying, "I've got no idea," so their brain sets about filling the vacuum with their version of events.
![Tony Abbott: As a former PM it is inevitable that he will attract attention and, let's face it, he loves it.](/web/20161220025926im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/s/7/l/n/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtd7yw.png/1482113913645.jpg)
Humans like to be able to explain things, to put a narrative around events even though we didn't understand them or predict them at the time. The election of Trump is a good example. A friend recently bemoaned the fact that Turnbull hadn't taken advantage of his enormous popularity on becoming leader by taking us to an election.
She went on to paint the picture she had envisaged, which I have to say was pretty attractive. A large majority giving him more authority over both Parliament and the far right in his own party. Australia was a very comfortable place under a government from the centre, where most of us are.
![Turnbull's report card? An end-of-year tick.](/web/20161220025926im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/9/3/3/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtd7yw.png/1482064980672.jpg)
When humans paint their narratives they do so on a white board, a great big blank space on which they paint their version of events. Like kids, we all put there what we want and leave out the stuff we don't like. In the real world we have to take it as is. Warts and all.
One scenario my friend hadn't considered was that the right wing within the Liberal Party and the Nationals may have increased their numbers in a big swing. With a bigger margin they may have felt even more entitled, if one can stretch imagination that far, to do as they please. In any event they aren't going away.
Unfortunately, there are some who think their task as a parliamentarian is to make the world fit their image of how it ought to be. While I am not religious, I respect those who are, unless they see their role as making me think like them. Those who think a great omnipotent God wants followers conscripted by legislation rather than converts are dangerous and if there is a god they insult his omnipotence by seeing themselves as his protector.
The idea of conscripting believers is rubbish, of course;Â religion means nothing if you don't really believe. Some people accept the team in order to get elected and then assume they got the numbers on their own merit. They use the team to promote themselves, drag a team down to get what they want. No early election would rid the government of this lot of ungrateful, self-centred, ego-driven people.
Going early to cash in on popularity didn't work for Julia Gillard. Australians don't warm to opportunistic politics and may have responded badly to such a move. If the election advice in an early election came from the same people and places as it did this year the result may not have been as my friend had expected.
An early election would not have allowed a double dissolution and thus the building watchdog and registered organisations bills would have fallen by the wayside. After the election result all too many commentators not so much predicted as asserted that these bills would never get through. Now they have made it through Parliament, Australia's workers, in particular, will be better off.Â
An early election would not have seen the departure of Tony Abbott from Parliament. He can say he isn't going to be an underminer like Kevin Rudd, but actions speak for themselves. As a former PM it is inevitable that he will attract attention and, let's face it, he loves it.
He might not like the attention he'd get if we could all see everything surrounding his apparent determination to give Australia's submarine contract to the Japanese. The Japanese must have been given good reason to be as confident as they were. Proper process wasn't Abbott's strong point, captain's picks were his preference. It's London to a brick that there are some notes, instructions, records of meeting or draft documents that if we could see them would reveal the truth.
No early election would have convinced Abbott of anything other than he is blessed and should stay around to give us all the benefits of his insights, touched as he is by his God.
Equally, an early election may have produced a Senate with fewer minor parties and independents . My first reaction to that is "yes, please". But fewer of them makes each one more important, more likely to hold the government to ransom for ridiculous deals. With more of them, they each know the government might get something through without them. They may all want to be seen as the key broker. Being in the tent, actually having a hand in shaping lasting outcomes may just turn some otherwise outliers on the edge into really useful parliamentarians.
Our system demands the government of the day deals with the parliament we give them. All in all, while the result isn't pretty , Malcolm has shown he can do just that. He has got important legislation through that Abbott didn't. That's a really big tick.
Amanda Vanstone is a Fairfax Media columnist.
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