When Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister he began to introduce a new culture into government relations with the Senate cross-bench but then quickly signalled his intention to reform the Senate voting system.
That immediately ruined the relationship and after that the government made no real effort to pass contentious legislation, including the double dissolution trigger bills, through the Senate.
Turnbull had hoped to bring about a new Senate with most of the so-called troublemakers gone. However, the new cross-bench seems certain to be not just larger, in fact a record size, but even more diverse.
There will be two micro parties, the Xenophon team and Hanson's One Nation, not just Palmer United, to deal with, one of which should be more centrist, but the other more unpredictably extreme. There will also be Jacqui Lambie, Derryn Hinch and possibly others from the old cross-bench.
Commentary since the election has concentrated primarily on how the numbers in the new Senate will inevitably make it extremely difficult for the Turnbull government. A better focus would be to look back at Senate-government interaction over the past two years for some positive lessons for Turnbull about what actually happened. It was not just a numbers game.
The Abbott government caused many of its own problems with the Senate. Prime among them were the broken promises and incoherent explanations contained in the ill-fated 2014 budget. However, while Abbott himself was part of the problem some of his errors he shared with previous prime ministers.
One common mistake made by governments formed in the House of Representatives is to believe the mantra that the winner takes all. A second is to believe their own publicity about having a mandate for their policies based on election victory. That carries no weight at all with the Senate.
A third is to accept that Senate negotiations should be left to the government leaders in the Senate. In the last Parliament the Abbott government was often weighed down by poor Senate leadership. Among Senate-based ministers Matthias Cormann was widely recognised for his success in building relationships and should now be the Prime Minister's closest adviser on such matters.
"This new cross-bench will contain some formidable media operators — Xenophon, Lambie, Hanson and Hinch — with much better exposure in the media than just about any of the government senators."
Any signs of over-confidence in his Senate dealings will hurt him just as it brought the Abbott government undone. Luckily for Turnbull because