That’s the advice from the ACT for the newbies, some of whom represent micro-parties and, subsequently, will not have the support, corporate knowledge or camaraderie of the larger, established parties.

The territory’s representatives in the Senate – Labor’s Kate Lundy and Liberal Zed Seselja – along with former ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries, have decades of collective experience in federal and territory politics. Their primary advice is for incoming senators to take their role seriously, acknowledge the honour of representing their voters in Parliament and realise what a steep learning curve awaits – and so expect to be very busy.

Lundy: “The first thing I'd say is leave your ego at the door and just be open to learning.”

Seselja: “Get to know the business of the Senate because it is a complex place.”

Humphries: “You've got to think about your legacy – these new senators will find, as most senators do, their time is up sooner than they think.”

From next week, when the newly-elected Senate comes into play, eight senators will determine the fate of much of the federal government’s program, up to the next election at least.

The Coalition will have 33 senators; Labor and the Greens between them will have 35. In the 76-seat chamber, the government will need 39 votes to have legislation to overcome the ALP-Green bloc. That means gaining the support of six of the eight minor party and micro-party senators.

Six will be new to the Parliament. Three are the Palmer United Party senators, Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania), Glenn Lazarus (Queensland) and Dio Wang (WA) who are grouped in a loose alliance with Ricky Muir, the Victorian from the Motoring Enthusiast Party.

Two other new senators are David Leyonhjelm, the NSW senator representing the ultra-dry Liberal Democratic Party, and Bob Day, a South Australian representing Family First, who have formed an alliance on economic issues. The last two are incumbents Nick Xenophon and John Madigan, a Victorian representing the Democratic Labor Party.

Clive Palmer is now flexing his considerable political muscle. The fabulously wealthy coal and nickel miner had previously given an ironclad guarantee to use his trio of senators to help Tony Abbott scrap the carbon tax.

He is keeping to that promise but insisting on conditions to ensure energy savings flow to consumers. He would keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, protect the Renewable Energy Target and insist on an emissions trading scheme but with a price of zero.

But doesn’t Abbott have a mandate from voters to pursue his direct action plan on climate change?

Governments customarily insist their mandate from voters is sacrosanct. Oppositions and minor parties are equally insistent they have a mandate from their smaller proportion of supporters to pick and choose when legislation is presented.

Seselja, as a member of the government, is unsurprisingly in favour of government legislation receiving Senate approval.

“The mandate does need to be respected,” he says. “I think they [new senators] also want to be true to the people who elected them, so if you were talking about PUP [Palmer United Party] and Motorists for instance, they were elected on some similar policies to what we were elected on, they had a mandate to abolish the carbon tax.

“People who voted for the Palmer Party would certainly have voted to abolish the carbon tax, there wouldn’t be many who voted hoping it would stay, and likewise the mining tax.

“I think that also there was a mandate to fix the budget. I think people who voted for Liberal Democrats and Family First and Palmer Party would have been voting for responsible budgetary management because that was one of the real failings of the previous government.”

The cuts to spending are creating a problem close to home for Seselja, with 16.500 public servants to lose their jobs over the next three years.

Humphries agrees the new senators should allow the budget repair work to proceed.

“If they want to help make Australia more affordable for their children and grandchildren, they should think about supporting some of the measures which are designed to reduce the cost of government,” he says.

“Opposing some of those measures today will make them short-term heroes but if Australia has to make very difficult decisions in the future, much more dramatic and unpleasant decisions because they have passed over the chance to do more easily achieved things now, then their legacy won’t be as great as it could have been.

“My view is always that making our country a sustainable place to live, in every sense of the word – economically, environmentally, socially – is the highest order of duty of any member of parliament. The challenge right now is, how do we make Australia economically sustainable in budget terms when there are such huge downstream costs coming by virtue of the ageing of the population.

“Your toes curl at some of the things you read in the commission of audit report about that, for example. We can't put that off too much longer as I said in one of my recent columns [for The Canberra Times], we have to bite the bullet on some of these things.”

Not so fast, Lundy says, who takes issue with the credibility of the federal government’s mandate.

“I think a government going to an election with a clear set of policies is quite right to present a case for that mandate and, equally, an opposition has the right to mount a case as to why a measure, mandated or otherwise, is not worthy of support,” she says.

“So I don't think it's one or the other, I think it becomes part of the nature of political debate. That said, it's a bit rich to use the mandate argument when so many of the budget measures we’re confronted with and being asked to deliberate on in the associated legislation were not, in fact, mandated at the election.

“They were not mandated through an election process and that removes the ability of this government to claim anything like a mandate when asking us to consider their budget legislation and budget-related legislation. That is something that, when I get the opportunity, I'll be drawing to their [new senators’] attention, that in this budget there is much that no one knew of.

“We’ve had a spurious exercise of the commission of audit that we now know was based on so little evidence, there were so few costings done, that it really was used as a loose cover for an ideological objective leading up to the budget, and it’s impossible to respect the process and the outcome of the process.”

The Labor senator talks enthusiastically about the role of being a parliamentarian, but says it’s busy.

“Based on my experience coming into the Senate, you almost don't have enough time to get the advice that you need to do your job, so it really does become an environment where people need to support each other,” she says.

“It's a very, very fast learning curve; an incredibly enjoyable one, but one that is accompanied by that overwhelming sense of privilege of being in the Australian Senate and representing the people who elected you.

“I know that's how I felt so maybe some of these new senators will have that same feeling, of wishing that we knew more at the get-go and being open to learning at every opportunity about, not only process, but the issues that we’re being asked to deliberate on, on a daily basis.”

Humphries believes incoming senators should think very carefully about what they can achieve in the privileged position.

“It's very easy to be caught in the froth and bubble of the day to day theatre of politics but, long after you leave Parliament, that's completely forgotten. What you need is to think about is a legacy,” he says.

“To be frank, many people pass through the Parliament leaving scarcely a mark, and I think the opportunity to serve in the national Parliament is so significant that you owe it to yourself not to be in that position.

“I don't think it means necessarily making a name for yourself as a maverick or a highly opinionated person or a person who is constantly in the pages for outrageous things. It's about being able to say something important was done because I decided to make it happen.”

Fair enough, so how does his legacy look?

“I can look back to what I did in the legislative assembly [as ACT chief minister] and compile a long list of things that were very significant. I feel in that regard it was a very significant legacy but, in the Federal Parliament, it was so much harder because half of the time was spent in opposition and the other half was as a backbencher in government.

“I measure my legacy as contributing to some major policy processes that ended up bearing important fruit.

“For example I was the leading Liberal in the mental health inquiry in 2006, and that led directly to the extra attention paid to mental health issues in early 2007. I was also the leading Liberal in the inquiry into children in institutional care which led to that apology in 2008 in Parliament.

“That was a dark chapter of Australia’s past which the committee, essentially, opened up for public scrutiny and led to changes in policy and a sense of catharsis for those who’d been through that experience. It will have a generational impact so that's an example of committee work that really is very important and makes a big difference.

“In the national capital context, there was fighting to keep functions and roles in Canberra and to ensure Canberra’s vitality as the national capital was preserved. I pushed for some of the extensions to national institutions such as the Portrait Gallery. I think that made a bit of a difference as well."

Committees are where the detailed work of addressing major national issues or problems happens.

"It can be tedious, it can be invisible, but it can also be very directly related to legacy issues,” Humphries says.

As a backbench member of the government, Seselja has to sit on nine committees. Ministers and parliamentary secretaries are exempt, so the Coalition backbench has to work overtime to ensure every committee has enough government members. There’s less pressure on Labor and Greens’ senators, and virtually none on those from micro-parties, who can pick and choose committees and inquiries.

Seselja says: “What new senators will find is that you can learn a lot through the committee process, so I would say to a new senator, 'choose an area of interest and spend some time in the committee that deals with that subject matter' because that's where you will get the in-depth knowledge.

“You hear from the community, you hear from experts, you get a lot of material to read and if you take the time to do that, your subject matter knowledge will grow significantly over time.”

So it’s hard and absorbing work, but is there any time for fun in the long corridors of power?

Lundy: “There's not a lot of time for fun but what becomes incredibly exciting work is when you have a committee where everyone is focused on getting a strong outcome, not necessarily universal agreement, but there is an equal commitment to achieving something through the committee process.

“What happens in those committees is an enormous rapport is built across party lines in a way that just doesn't happen in the chamber. You do get to know people really well whether they are independents or National Party or Liberal or Green and friendships build and collaboration occurs.

“A lot of new work and new thought is created to solve some of our most challenging problems and, whereas I would never describe that as fun, it can be incredibly satisfying and fulfilling work.”

Seselja agrees about the intensity of the workload and building friendships on committees.

“It's a very busy environment but much of it is very enjoyable,” he says. “It depends on what you like – I enjoy debating so I can have fun in the chamber or in other places, but I might be bit of a political nerd.

“When you get together with your colleagues, and sometimes that’s across parties, there’s some great opportunities to enjoy each other's company and have a couple drinks and I think that is an important part … you can at least momentarily put down some of the partisan battle lines.”

For Humphries, some fun occurred away from the chamber, when he put on a uniform in the Defence Force parliamentary program. It’s a unique opportunity to leave the desk behind and, briefly, experience life in the ranks.

“MPs can come in with very little knowledge of what goes on in the Defence Force," Humphries says

“This program allows you to put on a uniform and spend time with men and women in uniform. They integrate you, it’s a marvellous program. I went on Australian warships where you sleep down with the ordinary sailors in their bunks, you eat in their mess, you do the drills, you get to feel and experience what it's like to serve.

“The insights are extraordinary and I just think it's one of those things that every member of parliament needs to do because, sooner or later, you’re going to have to vote on things to do with the Defence Force and you need to understand how it works.

“It’s an absolutely brilliant program. I loved it.”

Facebook.com/RossPeake