Thanks for the accuracy. Yes that's what happened. The government was dead-locked & couldn't do anything due to the power of the senate who were preventing the government achieving anything, the government couldn't move.

I get the impression something vaguely similar is presently happening in the USA political arena.

For the USA at least, results sometimes being compromises which basically ruin the agenda. Or compromise to agree to one bill with changes (that weaken it), if the party in power agree to something else in exchange which was against their original ideas, such as other bills going the opposition way. This seems to be what I've been able to ascertain in discussions with USA persons over the past year. We need some USA persons on here to clarify this.