Senators resigning to become independant

[stui magpie]

Just a thought with Jacqui Mutton resigning from the PUP to go independant. Should that be able to happen?

This is not about her as such, but a general concept. If you stand for a senate seat as a part of a party, there's a fair proportion of the vote that comes your way because of the party you were in. People vote for the person based on the advertised party values and policy position.

So, if I stand for election for Labor or the Greens and then after getting elected have a philosophical disagreement and decide to resign from the party, should I be basically kicked out of parliament and a by election held?

Using the Lambie example, it just seems somehow wrong that on whatever basis she got the election, she's now got a high paid gig for 6 years and is accountable to no one for what she does in that time. Seems shonky.

My thought would be if you stand for parliament for a party and get elected, you're tied to that party. If you have a falling out of principles, you leave and a new election gets held with all parties and candidates getting a fresh start.

Thoughts?

[Wokko]

She's a light weight!

"William Morris "Billy" Hughes, CH, KC, (25 September 1862 � 28 October 1952), Australian politician, was the seventh Prime Minister of Australia, from 1915 to 1923.

Over the course of his 51-year federal parliamentary career (and an additional seven years prior to that in a colonial parliament), Hughes changed parties five times: from Labor (1901�16) to National Labor (1916�17) to Nationalist (1917�30) to Australian (1930�31) to United Australia (1931�44) to Liberal (1944�52). He was expelled from three parties, and represented four different electorates in two states."

[John Wren]

mutton dressed up as lambie.

don't like her much but at least she is sticking to her principles.

[stui magpie]

[Wokko]

I believe in the Senate you are first meant to be a representative for your state and a member of a party second. Of course, it doesn't work like this in practice any more, but I would be more than happy for Senators to care more about representing their constituents rather than playing party politics.

PUP is a vanity project and a joke anyway, I'm happy to see this populist rubbish fall apart.

[1061]

I fear as we have seen in this thread she have a "Julia" like campaign waged against her.

I expected better from you Stui.

[Tannin]

[stui magpie]

[Tannin]

Senator Madigan (former DLP) is a very different example. So far as anyone can tell, Madigan has remained very true to the things he stood for, and the reason he left the DLP was that the party bosses wanted to control him and his vote in a way he couldn't accept or live with. The faceless party bosses, in other words, thought they were more important than the man the people of Victoria elected. I'd call this one a clear case of the party leaving the politician,. not the other way around. If there was a fresh election, I reckon Madigan would be re-elected comfortably. His honesty and genuine desire to do good has made him a lot of friends - even people like me who are strongly opposed to his views on many things respect him.

Ricky Muir hasn't left the MEP but his party has pretty much self-destructed. Meanwhile, this bumbling know-nothing accidental politician has put his head down and worked very hard to do his job as best he can, and made a pretty good fist of it. His flunkeys keep leaving or getting the arse, and the relationship between Muir and his miniscule party is tenuous at best, but Muir has let them know that he's not going to be pushed around by some jumped-up unelected party boss from Queensland and he'll make his own decisions.

Lambie claims - with more than a little justification - to be sticking to her contract with the people of Tasmania 'coz that's more important than her relationship with the man who bought her seat for her. Good on her for that.

Geoff Shaw. Need I say more?

Don Chip. The great Don Chip left his party and went on to found and lead one of the great Australian political parties in recent decades. the Democrats never made it into government, but they were a long-lasting influence for moderation and decency. Would you have thrown Chippie out?

Slippery Pete. Um ....

Arthur Sinodinos. Hasn't (officially) left the Liberal Party yet, but it seems very likely that he will never return to the fold, certainly not if he goes on trial before the expiration of his term. If he does go on trial for corruption - you'd think he probably will - the charges will be really serious: we are talking $20,000,000 out of the public purse here (which he didn't get in the end) plus untold nastiness related to failure to act properly and honestly as a director of a company. Obviously, he'd have to resign from the Liberal Party at that point - particularly as we are talking serious corruption charges here, way, way more serious than the (relatively) piddly little offences Geoff Shaw and Craig Thompson had to resign for. But my guess is that it will be a few years yet before the charges are laid - hell, they've only just got around to charging his crony Eddie Obied this week, and Obied's offences came to light four or five years ago. Most likely, Sinodinos will quietly resign for "family reasons" or similar some time before his term expires, and be an "ex-Liberal" when the shit really hits the fan. Like Thompson and unlike Shaw, he'll probably go quietly.

(Edited to add a bit more)

[Tannin]

Last point, and the crusher. So far as senators go (and MLCs in the state system), you cannot have a fresh election. It's impossible. Well, impossible short of throwing out every senator from the particular state and making the whole bloody lot of them stand for re-election. I'd have thought that would be obvious in light of the recent Western Australian Senate re-run.

[stui magpie]

I'm throwing out this keyboard, it obviously posts in Braille.

[Wokko]

[Tannin]

I agree, Wokko, except the bit about Tasmania getting the short end of the stick. Loyal Tasmanian though I am - 100% Tasmanian blood in these veins* - Tasmania actually gets massive favours from Canberra and a vastly bigger slice of the taxation pie than any other state. As always, Victoria pays the most and gets the least, NSW does a lot of heavy lifting, Queensland now finally pulls its weight, SA is a basket case living on hand-outs, Tasmania more so and worse, and Western Australia gets a much-better-than-fair go and whinges louder than anyone.

Why does Tasmania get so much more than a fair thing? Because, of course, Tasmania is by far the cheapest place to buy votes. With only a handful of people - it's tiny compared to NSW or Qld or Vic or even WA - but the same 12 senators that the big states have, it's pork-barrel paradise. But nobody minds: everybody likes Tasmania and Tasmanians. Whinging Western Australians, now that's a different thing.

* Not counting alcohol in my percentage calculation, of course, or tannin, or coffee, chocolate, headache pills, prescription meds or possibly drain cleaner.

[watt price tully]

I'm channeling Tannin of two years ago:

What is this thing called "Independant"

Pendant?

Independent.

Dunno about those schools in Toke-or-more

If only he'd completed a BA

[Tannin]

Eny fule kno that and independent charts his own course and belongs to no party, while and independant swings with the breeze. Or something.