What do the major political parties hope to gain by negotiating grubby preference deals with minor, often one-issue, players whose views, or conduct, or both, have made them persona non grata with the majority of voters each election?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Take the Liberals for example. Despite the excellent example set by John Howard two decades ago, it wasn't until Hanson's staff were outed trying to solicit dollars and expertise from the National Rifle Association, that Scott Morrison finally ruled any chance of a preference deal with One Nation.
Up until Hanson was caught on video apparently buying into bizarre Port Arthur massacre conspiracy theories he was adopting a hands off approach, saying preference allocations were matters for branches and local electoral councils.
And, until Friday morning when the Liberals finally pledged to place Fraser Anning and his tribe of acolytes last on every ballot paper unless there was somebody even worse in the running, the Coalition was notably reluctant to sever all ties with the controversial senator.
Then, of course, there is Clive Palmer.
Thanks to some recent opinion polls which have been over-egged by himself and his media backers, he has been being touted as some sort of potential king maker with delusions of holding the balance of power in the Senate.
Veteran journalist and Canberra insider, Barry Cassidy, did his best to expose the old emperor's new frock on Friday morning.
He said Palmer does not have a snowball's chance in a very hot climate of winning any lower house seats across the country.
The absolute best he could hope for from the up to $60 million he is apparently prepared to spend is a Queensland Senate seat.
Palmer, despite his generous support of both traditional media and online platforms in recent months, is still generally held in low regard by the vast majority of Australian voters.
That gig got a lot tougher on Friday when Palmer said he had been approached over preferences by ALP Senator Anthony Chisholm.
The United Australia Party is not expected to score more than two per cent of the vote nationwide.
Palmer's treatment of the workers he left in the lurch following the closure of his Queensland nickel refinery left a bitter taste in many people's mouths.
His abysmal attendance record the last time a group of Queensland voters were induced to send him to Canberra is also well known.
Despite this he has been being wooed for months by both the Coalition and the Labor Party who were hoping he might be able to swing them the votes they need to topple each other in Queensland.
Labor, not necessarily to its credit, is sufficiently embarrassed to task Anthony Albanese with the thankless job of trying to convince the public it never happened.
That gig got a lot tougher on Friday when Palmer said he had been approached over preferences by ALP Senator Anthony Chisholm.
Palmer is, by all accounts, a self-serving individual who is trying to buy himself a seat at the big table with a bizarre mix of naive and populist policies that will never be tested on the floor of the Parliament.
He is, as Barry Cassidy pointed out, essentially a non-entity; a party of one and a figure of fun.
Why is it then that either the ALP or the Coalition would be so foolhardy as to even thinking about putting some wind beneath his wings by given him the implicit endorsement that comes with a preference swap?
