Rod Culleton's political career was over before it even began, killed off by a $7.50 key.
A farmer just trying to protect his truck from being repossessed - that's how he tells it.
He took the key out of the tow truck driver's ignition. It got lost. The driver was still able to drive away. It was worth $7.50. Harmless.
But the law took a different view, and he was convicted of larceny in his absence.
Mr Culleton has already been disqualified as a senator, stripped of his West Australian Senate seat after the Federal Court declared him bankrupt in December.
But the High Court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns on Friday, ruled he was never eligible to have been elected in the first place.
And it was all because of that key.
Although his conviction was later annulled, it stood on July 2 when he was elected to the Senate.
Under the constitution, any person who has been convicted of an offence punishable by a jail sentence of a year or longer is incapable of being chosen as a senator.
The court ruled his vacancy be filled by a special count of the ballot papers.
The most likely replacement would be the second person on the One Nation ticket, Mr Culleton's brother-in-law Peter Georgiou.
Mr Culleton eventually pleaded guilty to larceny, although no conviction was recorded.
His lawyers had argued he was still eligible to be elected because he had not been sentenced and was not subject to a term of imprisonment, even once he pleaded guilty.
But the court held that Mr Culleton was convicted and subject to be sentenced for an offence punishable by imprisonment for one year or longer.
The subsequent annulment of the conviction had no effect on that.
The evidence established that 96.04 per cent of the votes received by Mr Culleton were votes for the One Nation party, the court said.
A special count would not distort the true legal intent of the voters.
Acting Senate Clerk Richard Pye told AAP the replacement could take his seat in parliament as early as next week.
"There's no reason it should take any amount of time at all - the votes are in the computer so it can be pretty quickly counted."
The former One Nation senator's short-lived career was marred by controversy, from his countless court battles to his very public stoush with Pauline Hanson before he went rogue and quit the party.
Mr Culleton believes he was the "anti-venom" of the system.
He came in to try and clean it up, but it rejected him.
He says he'll probably just go back on the farm.
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