Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger

Disillusion with the major parties has thrown up one helluva weird cocktail in the Australian Parliament. For those looking for reason and the national interest to determine policy outcomes, emigration to the Nordic states might be your best option.

The Australian senate is the new hung parliament. From the AFR:

Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott must wait almost a year and then deal with a cumbersome new Senate before implementing his key promises, including scrapping the ­carbon and mining taxes, after Labor refused to budge despite Saturday’s big election loss.

The threat of a double dissolution election has diminished, however, because as many as eight independents and micro-parties could win Senate seats, giving Mr Abbott an alternative negotiating strategy.

Mr Abbott, who will need at least six of these votes to sideline Labor and the Greens in the Senate, can abolish the taxes but would likely have to wait for July 1, 2014, when the new Senate sits.

…“We are absolutely going to defend taking action on climate change,’’ said Mr Albanese who, along with Bill Shorten, is a front runner to succeed Kevin Rudd as Labor leader.

Mr Shorten said Labor was punished by voters for internal instability but “we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

Greens leader Christine Milne, emboldened by her party securing 10 senators and retaining the lower house seat of Melbourne, said her ­mandate to protect the carbon price was clear too.

“Everyone elected has an obligation to uphold the policies they were elected on,’’ she said.

Labor and the Greens will control the Senate until June 30, 2014. A Coalition source said Mr Abbott would rather wait for the new Senate and try to legislate retrospectively than call a ­double dissolution election to break any impasse.

But that’s not where the action is. It lies with the minor parties. Over the weekend the ABC reckoned:

The big surprise on election night could well be the Senate, with a record number of candidates standing around the country.

Many of them are from minor parties and have done complicated preference deals that could lead to unexpected results – and the Greens losing their grip on the balance of power.

“The balance of power is likely to fall to minor parties and independent senators,” the ABC’s election analyst Antony Green said.

“Senator Madigan, whose term continues, Nick Xenophon, who’ll be re-elected, possibly James Blundell from the Katter Australian Party.

“Those three would obtain the balance of power if the Coalition pick up two seats as expected.”

South Australian independent Nick Xenophon is confident of gaining the balance of power with the Democratic Labor Party’s (DLP) John Madigan and Katter Australian Party candidate James Blundell.

Senator Xenophon has already begun talks on how the combination might work.

“I’ve spoken with James Blundell, I know John Madigan well and where there is common ground I’ll work on it. I want to build consensus,” he said.

Senator Madigan is a country blacksmith by trade and in a surprise development, got into the Senate at the last election.

He says he will not be a pushover in any arrangement.

“I’m not going to cave in, so to speak, if I’m in that position of holding the balance of power,” he said.

“If I’m threatened, say we’re going to introduce another WorkChoices – if you don’t vote for it we’re going to go to a double dissolution – well go for your bloody life because I won’t vote for one.”

It is not quite so straightforward for the Queensland Senate candidate, Mr Blundell.

The country and western singer is a prize catch for the Katter’s Australian Party, but also a self-confessed political novice.

“[I’m] totally underprepared as regarding process of parliament, governance. Ideologically and life experience, I think [I’m] probably pretty well-equipped,” he said.

But this morning it looks like:

THE Katter Australia Party found itself run over by the Clive Palmer juggernaut around the country while Bob Katter’s 20-year iron grip on northern Queensland was shaken considerably and he will have to rely on ALP preferences to stay in parliament.

Mr Katter had boldly predicted his party would have the balance of power in the Senate and also win several seats in the lower house, but the Palmer United Party seems set to take the final Senate seat in Queensland ahead of the KAP’s lead candidate, country singer James Blundell, while the party made no gains at all in the House of Representatives.

Mr Katter spent most of yesterday travelling back to his electorate from Sydney, but his son Robbie Katter, a member of the Queensland parliament as well as the national president of the party, said the Katter Australia Party and the Palmer United Party were targeting much the same potential group of voters.

So, a State of Origin “brick with eyes” (as Roy and H&G christened Glenn Lazarus) representing perhaps Australia’s most eccentric mining billionaire is about to topple a QLD country singer, who confesses total ignorance, for the most important senate seat in the new Parliament.

Meanwhile, the billionaire himself is already giving the bird to any allegations of conflicts if interest. Also from the AFR:

Queensland mining magnate turned politician Clive Palmer said he had no intentions of giving up his business interests if, as expected, he wins a seat in federal parliament.

Mr Palmer, who has coal assets in Queensland and iron ore interests in Western Australia as well as owning the Yabulu nickel refinery in Townsville, has emerged as a true political force in Australian politics after Saturday’s likely election victory in the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax.

Originally considered a bit of a campaign sideshow, the Palmer United Party could now hold two Senate seats, including former Australian rugby league player Glenn Lazarus in Queensland as well as possible seat for Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania. It could well hold the balance of power in the Senate from next July with a swag of other minor parties.

The Palmer United Party, which only registered with the Australian Electoral Commission two months ago, won 5.6 per cent of the primary vote across the nation and surged to 11.3 per cent support in Queensland. By contrast, Katter’s Australian Party – which did not have the same financial clout as the Mr Palmer – received 1 per cent of the national primary vote and 3.6 per cent in Queensland.

…The colourful businessman said he was not surprised by the response from voters who were disillusioned with the major parties. He brushed aside suggestions he may have to give up his business interest when he becomes an MP which is a convention for in-coming parliamentarians.

“Of course I won’t be. I’m not going to be doing that and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to. The whole concept is totally wrong,” he said in an interview with The Australian Financial Review. “What I would expect is the same restrictions and controls on members of Cabinet as applies to company directors. If an issue comes up you leave the room.”

Given Palmer funds the entire Palmer Party effort, surely that means the “brick with eyes” must also recuse himself from any Senate debates that affect mining and Titanic replicas? That is, most of them: carbon tax, mining tax, PPL etc…And if that happens, what is the other new blood going to bring to the negotiations. From The Age:

They include Wayne Dropulich, a gridiron-playing engineer who is likely to win election as a senator from Western Australia. His Australian Sports Party has no policies other than advocating lots of sport, and won just 0.22 per cent of the vote. But with preferences from other small parties, he is likely to get a Senate quota ahead of the second Labor candidate, who had 12.33 per cent.

In Victoria, Ricky Muir is set to win the final seat. He stood for the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, which appears to have no policies apart from representing what it sees as motorists’ interests. He won 0.53 per cent, but with a swag of preferences, he appears set to unseat Liberal senator Helen Kroger, who had 10.52 per cent.

And then there is the Liberal Democrat:

Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm’s name appeared first on the extreme left of the NSW Senate ballot paper and he may go to Canberra as a consequence.

”Looks like I’m going to be the senator for the donkeys,” he said.

Certainty Tony? I think not!

Ah, democracy: whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you stranger.