A crossbench senator says it is possible that some of the newly elected senators may have voted in the opposite direction to what they intended, to due to a lack of experience.
In an interview on the ABC program Lateline last night, Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm said the new senators were struggling with the procedures of the upper house. He also said the Palmer United Party seems "happy to cause disruptions".
The Abbott government has struggled to pass legislation in the Senate, where eight crossbenchers hold the balance of power.
“We have all the difficulties of understanding the procedural stuff that goes on with amendments and committees and amendments to amendments and all that kind of stuff that's going,” Senator Leyonhjelm said.
“That's quite a lot of to take in and it really is quite complex. So it is very hard for us and there are times when I'm sure some of the eight of us might have voted the wrong way by mistake. It's a difficult situation.”
But when ABC host Tony Jones put to him the reason for delays on bills, such as the repeal of the carbon tax, was because the new crossbenchers were not from the “political class” and were “ordinary folk”, Senator Leyonhjelm rejected that characterisation.
He said the blame lies with the Palmer United Party’s lack of policy consistency and its populist platform.
“It's the negotiating style, if I can put it that way, of the Palmer United Party, particularly Clive Palmer,” he said.
“And he seems to be happy to cause the government [the] maximum amount of disruption. It's not a policy - it doesn't seem to be a policy-based position other than relatively populist.”
The senator said he believed PUP leader Clive Plamer, who holds a lower house seat, was behind the party's behavior in the upper house.
“I don't think the PUP senators themselves are leading the charge. I'm pretty sure it's Clive Palmer himself who's leading the charge,” he said.
"But there is this frustrating reluctance to engage and be consistent, be predictable, base their policies on - or base their votes, if you like- on a consistent position. Changing of their position. You saw this with the carbon tax. What the government thought was a negotiated position to allow their repeal bill to go through got changed at least twice more.”
The back and forth negotations between the Abbott government and PUP senators on legislation has seen debate dragged out with a procedural motion passed to extend the Senate's sitting hours through to the weekend to enable bills before the house to be dealt with.
“This week is going to be a serious ordeal,” said Senator Leyonhjelm.
“We are going to sit tomorrow, Thursday, from 9.30 to 11 pm, and then we're probably going to sit the same hours on Friday, and if necessary, Saturday, and if necessary, Sunday, until we deal with the Government's agenda.”
