Aussie battlers get two surprise new friends

Barnaby Joyce and Steven Fielding are unlikely working-class heroes. But although they may sit uneasily with Labor, unions and the Left, the one-time pub bouncer from Queensland and the Victorian evangelical Christian are the two men who could thwart Prime Minister John Howard's plans to crush unions and decades of collective bargaining and award conditions.

Last year's election opened the political road to Howard's industrial steamroller. A one-vote majority in the Senate was all he needed - or it should have been. But he reckoned without the pugnacious Joyce, a Queensland National. Joyce's determination to use his vote how he sees best has made Howard's Senate majority a fragile advantage.

Howard should have been able to turn to Fielding, the first and sole representative of the Family First Party in Canberra. The party, at first seen as a clone of American-style far-Right religious activism, had forged an alliance of kinds with Howard during the election. But Fielding has proven himself a man with a strong, independent agenda.

Both opposed the full privatisation of the telecommunications giant Telstra, and would have killed it were it not for the considerable concessions forced from Howard by Joyce.

This week Joyce crossed the floor to kill the Government's bid to ease the restrictions on mergers by big business. He had previously frustrated a proposed ban on compulsory student unionism.

Now the two men are all that stand between Howard and one of the key goals of his career in politics: an almost union-free workplace. But it is a coincidence of divergent agendas.

Joyce, a 38-year-old father of three, came to Canberra with plans to make his presence felt for a fairly short, hard-hitting, time in the Senate. He is self-made, a one-time farm worker and bouncer, now a self-employed accountant.

His party has been on the ropes for years, shrinking in support and significance as demographics and history whittle away its rural base.

Joyce has made it clear his loyalties lie first with Queensland and his party.

He has also made it clear he is unhappy with elements of Howard's package, most notably the plan to replace state-based awards with single national agreements - anathema to the fiercely partisan Queenslander who abhors any attempt to toy with the constitutional rights of the states to govern themselves.

Joyce has yet to declare whether he will again cross the floor to defeat the package. But Howard has made it clear that he is not open to negotiation - "This is not an ambit claim" - and Joyce will face the choice of caving in or killing the whole beast.

If he does stand his ground, Fielding would have been the man most likely to be courted to make up the Government numbers. But although Family First shared sufficient values and had sufficient political nous to extract concessions from Howard during the election - including a commitment to test all new laws for their effect on the welfare of families - the Prime Minister has little chance of shifting Fielding on industrial relations.

Family First has a broad and often surprisingly liberal platform, championing issues ranging from improved Aboriginal health and education to increased foreign aid.

Fielding passionately shares these beliefs and values.

He is from a Melbourne family of 16 children and came to Canberra after a career that spanned finance, telecommunications - including a spell in New Zealand with Telecom - media and IT.

Like Joyce, but with different motivations, he intends walking his own path.