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Showing posts from August, 2005

Pesky Nationals a Welcome Distraction

Monday, 1st August 2005    - Richard Farmer   With the Senate about to meet for the first time with its new members, a little reminder about the piece we wrote back in December entitled  Blackmailers in the Ranks  where we described blackmailers outside the Coalition being replaced with blackmailers within it. What we will see in the coming years, we argued then, is not a Senate where the executive can ride roughshod over democracy but a Senate where the power has shifted from third forces like the Greens and the Democrats to backbench Government Senators. Prime Minister John Howard clearly understands what the "new" Senate regime will be like because his political memory goes back to those days of his boyhood when Senators Reg Wright and Ian Wood crossed the floor regularly on points of principle. That is why Mr Howard is taking the trouble to be extremely cooperative towards the new representative of the Family First Party even though that newcomer's vote should