If you’ve ever been to an awkward dinner party where your ageing Christian aunt ends up wedged next to the swinging proponent of polyamory who you know from university, then you’ve got a sense of what the NSW Legislative Council is going to feel like for the next eight years.
Today’s results leave Mark Pearson, the newly elected representative of the Animal Justice Party (AJP), sitting on the cross-benches next to the two Shooters and Fishers Partymembers. It’s a match-up that should make Nationals member Duncan Gay’s asides to Greens MLC John Kaye look like Shakespearean sonnets.
The strong showing by the Coalition parties, with 20 of the 42 seats in the upper house, means they need only negotiate with one minor party to get their legislation adopted. While much speculation about this has focused on the Reverend Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats, who have two seats, the Shooters and Fishers' animosity to the previous government may have been expunged by the exit of the premier, Barry O’Farrell, from state politics.
NSW Legislative Council