Labor Wins By a Nose

The new government is having problems with Independent Tony Windsor already over the mining tax. He wants the mineral resource rent tax to be discussed at a Tax Summit next year but Treasurer Wayne Swan says the tax would not be on the summit's agenda. Naturally, the Opposition says Labor's minority government has failed at the first hurdle. "Labor is already sliding away from the deal they made with the country independents" said Christopher Pine.

Tony Abbott must be spitting chips, he offered big money for regional areas. What a shock it must have been when his offer of $1 million to Tasmanian Independent Wilkie to rebuild Hobart Hospital was knocked back because he thought the offer was "reckless" and went with Labor anyway. But in the end, they said broadband was the clincher - even though Labor's model was more expensive, they still wanted it to go ahead.

Yesterday Oakeshott delivered the most boring, drawn-out speech in history and really believed that we were actually interested in how he came to his conclusions. All we wanted was an answer as to which way he was going to go and when we learned later on that he was offered a cabinet position, we nearly threw up. Bob Katter, on the other hand, was the only Independent in my view who came out smelling like a rose with his integrity and credibility firmly in place.

It will be interesting to see what their constituents have to say about their decision to go with Labor. Oakeshott's mid-north coast electorate of Lyne was held by the Nationals and their predecessors from 1949 until he took it from his old party in a by-election two years ago.

Tony Windsor's seat of New England had an even stronger Nationals pedigree: it has only been in Labor hands for 7 of its 109 years. When Windsor took the seat from the Nationals in 2001, he ended the party's 79 year hold on the seat.

The Independents have shown they are quite content in the limelight and wish to continue in it, as displayed by Windsor's comments this morning. This new parliament will be quite different with the independents throwing their weight around and it's been said that the Labor/Green alliance will produce the most left-wing government since Federation. It should be anything but boring.