Country cabal calls the shots in Canberra

Opinion

During the Australian election campaign, Prime Minister Julia Gillard spoke about when the nation might become a republic.

That would occur when the Queen's reign ended, she said. Her opponent, Tony Abbott, was happy with the status quo.

Strangely, no one mentioned the likelihood of Australia becoming an Independent State ... or who its representatives might be ... or how soon it might happen.

The country cabal which assumed control in Canberra this week could have saved Australia the trouble of holding an election campaign at all.

There wasn't a great deal of policy debate to be heard, but little did we know it was irrelevant anyway.

The country thought it was choosing between two main parties and a few small ones.

The electorate had a reasonable expectation that the next person in charge and calling the shots would be either Gillard or Abbott.

Neither had faced the voters as party leaders before and both reached their pinnacle when their predecessors were sliced and diced.

But they headed the most popular parties and they put themselves to the democratic test. People thought they knew what they were voting for.

It turns out the electorate was actually electing Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter to introduce political reforms and follow an agenda the three Independent MPs decided (among themselves) were needed.

The three were chosen for this self-appointed role by about 117,000 of Australia's 14 million voters.

They have managed to hijack the political system by virtue of operating outside the main parties and now forming a de facto party of their own to maximise their clout.

They have denied acting as a bloc despite holding conference calls, joint meetings with the main party leaders, a joint appearance before the national press and issuing a joint wish-list of demands. The lone Green MP Adam Bandt has pledged basic support for Labor. Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie has criticised his rural counterparts as just another faction.

The key three have used general disillusionment with politicians as justification for their approach - it's all apparently for the general good. And they may in fact be well meaning in pushing for changes.

A charitable view of all this extracurricular activity by a tiny gang of constituent MPs is that they are at least shaking it up, stirring the complacent big two parties.

Our own MMP has thrown up some interesting bedfellows but at least we knew the basic rules and could eye the horseflesh before the trading began. These MPs are making up the rules for everyone as they go along.

"There's an expectation ... that it will be the two dogs barking ... We're trying to establish a pathway that's slightly different to that," Windsor said.

It's a big tail that manages to wag "two dogs" backed by 82.2 per cent of primary voters and by nearly 100 per cent once preferences are added.

The Three Wise Men want access to Treasury costings of both main parties' policies, commitment to a set three-year parliamentary term, reform of the parliamentary processes and campaign finances.

All worthy, perhaps, but it involves the - hugely undemocratic - flourish of power by three largely unscrutinised men who were not meant to do so. The public has been cut out of any connection to Canberra like never before.

When Abbott rejected the costings demand Katter declared: "It makes it much more difficult for us to give him the gong to become prime minister".

A Galaxy poll on Thursday suggested that the three Independents aren't even following the wishes of their backers - 55 per cent of voters in the electorates of Kennedy, Lyne and New England want their MPs to simply back the Coalition.

This is hardly the result voters across the country expected when they studied their ballots.

Perhaps many would like to have their vote back again. In all fairness they should get a second chance.