A few people here advocate the Liberals call a Double Dissolution to get rid of the Greens once they gain power. That shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the undemocratic voting system in the Senate. Abbott would not trigger a DD for the very same reason Rudd did not do so over the ETS. That is because of the differing senate quotas.
Put simply, in a normal half Senate election, you need to get 14.3% of the vote to get one Senator elected. In a DD you need only 7.7% of the vote. A DD invariably means minor Parties and Independents find it easier to get elected, not harder. There is an explanation here http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2009/07/double-dissolution-versus-halfsenate-election-which-would-be-better-for-labor-in-the-senate.html
We would end up with more greens in all probability. The solution as I see it is for the ALP to recognise the Greens will eventually gut their once great Party, and to approach the Libs to "do a deal" on changing the voting system in the Senate. This can be done by legislation,circumventing any Constitutional issues. In fact for a long time, the Senate had first past the post voting until it was changed to Proportional Representation. Keating commissioned John Faulkner to look into it in the early 90's to lessen the influence of the democrats but nothing came of it. Howard toyed with the idea briefly. Briefly the idea is to increase the Senate quota. A quota of say 25 or 30% or even higher would mean we would not have to suffer fringe dwellers. Anyone who only has 14% support is not entitled to any power beyond choosing their carpark. The present situation where the tail wags the dog is undemocratic - in this, Keating was spot on. Unrepresentative swill indeed.
