Anna Bligh is expected to take Queensland back to the polls within weeks. In the third of a series of reports from Larvatus Prodeo, Mark Bahnisch looks at the impact of the independents and third parties.
Independents
Political snippets: A risky and short sighted Opposition policy
The decision by the Coalition to renege on its deal with the rural independents to provide the greatest possible stability to a federal government will rebound to its disadvantage.
The underdogs have the bark and the bite
The four independent MPs and the Greens MP hold more control than any other minor party or independents before them. But don’t forget the power of the major, writes Paul Williams.
Essential: voters reject another poll … and we don’t hate the media
The major parties are still locked up tight in voter support - but we’re losing our taste for another election, it seems. And most of us think the media did a good or average job of covering the election.
Labor could block Coalition law-making … but probably won’t
Constitutional law experts have told Crikey that the Gillard government has the power to block funding for legislation passed by the opposition, as the crossbench MPs flirt with supporting the Coalition on some policy issues.
Delving beneath the hat of Bob Katter
For decades Bob Katter has advocated greater rights for rural Australians. He has a lot to say, a long list of demands and an even longer memory. Paul Toohey investigates the mind underneath the hat.
Wilkie, the pokies and the need to Do Something
Not for Andrew Wilkie: this business of establishing the Government’s fiscal position and identifying the impact of election commitments on the Budget before entering substantive negotiations with the major parties.
Electorate send a message on climate change
The Australian electorate have chosen wisely by not choosing at all. The delivery of a hung parliament presents, for the first time in living memory, an opportunity to deal with the substantive policy issues that have been ignored in this campaign. This is something the three conservative independents, Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, […]
Crikey Clarifier: how does a minority government work?
By now I’m sure you’ve digested the news — the Australian federal parliament is pretty much as hung as it gets, with neither party set to govern in its own right. So how does a minority government work? Crikey investigates what happens when a nation chooses to endorse neither of the major parties.
Time to take back politics
Didn’t like the election campaign? Bad luck — you’re paying for it and you have no choice but to vote for the parties responsible for it. Unless we stop contracting out our politics and ramp up scrutiny of the media.
How will the various independents go?
Anti pulp mill candidate Dani Ecuyer has made a bigger media impact in Wentworth that most of the rest of us independents put together, moans Higgins independety Stephen Mayne.
Health the issue, says Morgan. Over to you Kevin
Green voters are most concerned about… No, not the environment. Nor water. But health. As are Coalition, Labor and supporters of independents and the minor parties, or so Roy Morgan Research polling shows, writes Christian Kerr.
