Agmates

Northern NSW Farmer and Australian Beef Association, Chairman, Brad Bellinger writes:

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Our members are yet again disgusted with the National Farmers Federation (NFF) and Cattle Council of Australia (CCA). This time it is their support for the Rudd Government’s insane Emissions Trading Scheme.

NFF & CCA addressing a conference of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) in Denmark this week, illustrates their compliance.

They are once again “selling out” Australia’s producers to the hand that feeds their personal agro-political ambitions. They should be saying “No’, ‘No’, ‘No’, to a Trading Scheme instead of having their hands out to funding from the Government to peddle this flawed nonsense.

The Copenhagen Talkfest is the regurgitating of seriously defective concerns addressed by equally flawed and questionable motions.

Senators Joyce, Boswell, Williams and Nash are the only Federal politicians showing any commonsense. An Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) or as Barnaby Joyce calls it (Employment Termination Scheme) is a means of transferring money from the public to the Corporate end of town. If the ETS is brought in, it will be the final nail in the coffin for Australia’s struggling rural sector.

It was appropriate that the talkfest was held in Copenhagen – home of Hans Christian Andersen and his classic story “The Emperor’s New Clothes‘.

Thinking Australians would like to have insisted that Professor Ian Plimer have been invited to have addressed the gathering and explain why their deliberations are naked on historic and scientific facts that record the World’s ever changing climate.

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END

Have Your Say!

"I bet you wonder how I knew.."

Hardly a week ever goes past that I don’t get a phone call or an email tip off about something that has happened, is happening or is about to happen. Most of it never makes it into the mainstream media and some of it is just rumours.

If you’ve got something for the grapevine either email me at steve(at)agmates.com (the at is a @) or if you want to post it anonymously just do it through the comments section below.

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Are the four National Party Senators in a separate party? National Party Senators Barnaby Joyce, Fiona Nash, John Williams and Ron Boswell were left scratching their heads when they saw Federal National Party Leader Warren Truss standing next to Coalition leader Malcolm Turnbull at a press conference earlier this week announcing that the Liberal & National party’s were offering bipartisan support to Kevin Rudd’s Emission trading target cuts of 5-25%.

The National Senators have been very clear that they would not support any such targets as they will cripple the economies of rural & regional people they represent. The National Senators were left bewildered that they had been completely left out in the dark on on the Truss and Turnbull decision. They found out about it at the same time as the rest of Australia, when they saw it on Sky news. Now the question remains, are there actually two National Partys or maybe three if you count the LNP in Queensland. What a mess the party is in.

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Beef 2009 Executives try to muzzle Barnaby Joyce. Did you happen to notice that Senator Barnaby Joyce was not one of the keynote speakers at this years Beef 2009 event? The organizers of Beef 2009 did send Senator  Joyce an invitation which was duly accepted. However just weeks before the event the organizers asked the good Senator what he planned to speak on. Senator Joyce informed them that he’d speak on the negative impact on Rural Australia of the Federal Governments Emissions Trading Scheme the QLD Bligh governments Moritorium on regrowth clearing.

The organizers told Senator Joyce that they would appreciate it if he did not speak on either of those issues. Not wanting to be gagged Senator Joyce withdrew. The organizers were desperate not to upset the events major sponsors, The Federal and QLD Labor governments.

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Our Bad tempered Prime Minister. It has been well documented how a dinner served with meat on a government plane  or the absence of a a hair dryer on the battle field can send our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd off in a hissy fit. Journalist around Canberra are digging about frantically trying to find a PM female staffer who was reportedly on the wrong end of a book pegged at her in a fit of rage by our PM. The story goes that the book struck the female staffer in the head drawing blood. Apparently after wanting to report it to police the lady in question was placated and the whole incident smoothed over. You have not seen the story in the media because the jouno’s can’t get anyone in the PM’s department to talk. The only thing we can confirm is that the media is frantically chasing the story.

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AWB Landmark pressuring farmers on the South Australian Eyre Peninsular – Its been a few tough years over in the cropping country of South Australia’s West Coast. AWB Landmark has a huge presence on the Eyre Peninsular through it’s network of Branches and franchises. We are told that AWB Landmark is turning the screws on farmers in what is usually considered very safe winter cropping country.

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Ruralco Managing Director and CEO John Maher buying up shares. Ruralco CEO John Maher must think that the companies shares have hit rock bottom. Its not been a great 12 months for Ruralco’s share holders, if you’d invested $1,000 in Ruralco shares last year they would be now worth about half. John bought 10,350 shares for $19,665 on Wednesday. He holds 19,150 shares. Ruralco owned companies include some of Australia’s most iconic private agencies and rural businesses:

Combined Rural Traders (CRT), Grant Daniel & Long (GDL), Brady & Runciman, Davidson Cameron & Co, Grow Force, Queensland Rural, Savage Barker & Backhouse (SBB), Rawlinson & Brown, Roberts limited (TAS), Rodwells & Co, South Australian Livestock, Territory Rural, Town & Country, Water Net ….

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Correction –

From Geoff Magoffin Head of Suncorp Agribusiness – Queensland

Suncorp Agribusiness is growing

I refer to your column ‘Heard it through the Grapevine’ which appeared yesterday, where you said there was a rumour Suncorp was ‘paying their loans staff to offload rural borrowers’.

There is no truth to this rumour. Agribusiness remains a core business for Suncorp and we are committed to supporting and aiding the growth of this sector.

Certainly no staff member has been offered a financial incentive to move our agribusiness clients to another lender.

Regards,

Geoff Magoffin

Head of Agribusiness – Queensland

Suncorp Agribusiness

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“Good to hear Geoff. In fact the farmers who contacted us to report Suncorps activity are very pleased to hear it and have reported that Suncorp is now being very reasonable in their dealings with them.

We’d still like to hear from you in regards to our invitation to become an Agmates Community Business supporter.”

Agmates Editor and Founder – Steve Truman.

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END

If you have a tip off for us please email us at steve(at)agmates.com or post it anonymously in the comments section below. Remember you heard it through the grapevine.

Have Your Say!

The Federal National party and the Liberals are doing their best to make life as difficult as possible for National Senate leader Barnaby Joyce [pictured].

In today’s Australian page 4 there is a huge headline and article Joyce eyeing a return home.

QUEENSLAND Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce is prepared to challenge popular independent federal MP Tony Windsor in the western NSW seat of New England

The suggestion that Joyce should run against Independent MP Tony Windsor is madness. Tony Windsor is very popular and a great bloke who works hard not only for his electorate, but rural & regional people in general.  If Joyce does pull Windsor on he will lose.

No doubt that is what his fellow National Party and Liberal colleges are hoping will happen. Joyce gone, problem solved, back to business as usual.

Barnaby wouldn’t stand a chance against Tony Windsor – Jesus Christ himself would be forced to preferences if he stood against Windsor in New England.

A terrific article by respected political commentator Scott Steel gives us an informed urban view of the goings on within the National party. Read the whole article here. Some of the juicier extracts from the article on Crikey – pollytics:

In one of the funnier stories of political aspiration filling the silly season vacuum, Barnyard wants a Reps seat, no Nat wants to give him one – but most Libs seem to be pretty keen on getting him out of the Senate.

Barnaby represents what is probably the final chance for the Nats to avoid oblivion by taking over the leadership, positioning the party toward a much more independent line and doing something profound in Nats circles – actually representing the interests of their constituents.

With such a widespread view in the electorate of the National Party being little more than convenient fools for the Libs (witness the way strong rural independents have been slicing their way through National Party heartland), there is no other National Party member in Parliament that could credibly change that perception or get away with such a huge repositioning .

He then goes onto which rep seat Barnaby should be looking at. As I’ve said previously, it has to be Maranoa. I’m still of that opinion expressed here , here and here.

After those 3 articles I had a call from Maranoa MP Bruce Scott’s office to advice that he already had the party endorsement for the next federal election and would be standing as the National Party candidate for the seat.

Maranoa is the obvious choice – it takes in his base town of St George and he has a strong local following – but sitting member, tired has been and the epitome of everything that is wrong with the National Party, Bruce Scott [pictured], is channeling Charlton Heston’s greatest NRA convention moments and giving Barnyard the “from my cold, dead hands” spiel.

I suppose that’s to be expected, old Nats like Bruce Scott think Lower House seats come with life membership options.

So, rather than the 65 year old Bruce Scott actually doing the most constructive thing he’s ever done in his political career – retire and give the younger Barnyard a chance to save the Nats from oblivion and themselves – he appears to be hell bent on keeping a rare, super strong National Party seat that should be used for developing the party leadership, all to himself.

Steel then cuts lose on senator Ron Boswell who is the one that suggested that Barnaby should take on Tony Windsor in New England:

Ron Boswell [pictured]- another National Party anachronism and traitor to the living standards of rural people everywhere –

either had an acute bout of arsehattery or flicked the bird to Barnaby by suggesting that if Joyce wants a Reps seat, he should take on the electoral powerhouse and Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor.

Windsor and Boswell don’t much like each other; Boswell represents to Windsor everything that is wrong with the Nats – a coalitionist lickspittle that is too eager to sell out the interests of rural people for a façade of government influence and personal gain via promotion to the front bench in a Coalition administration.

Then Steel gives some advice of his own to Barnaby:

His best hope is to start stacking branches in Maranoa and boot out that useless has been Bruce Scott – which also wouldn’t harm the wider electoral perception of the Nats in the process.

If Barnyard culled some dead wood in his own party first, it could only help him in his pursuit to change the face of the Nats to make them appear more independent.

Well done Scott Steel, I could not have summed the situation up better myself. I have nothing personal against Bruce Scott. but as I printed in a previous article:

As one staunch National party member said to me just recently when discussing the issue,

‘Bruce is a really nice man, but he’s had his go, time to move over and let someone else have a shot – especially if it’s Barnaby‘.

If Bruce won’t stand aside, someone in the Party needs to ‘tap him on the shoulder.’

So that’s what Senator Joyce is up against. He has more to fear from those in his own party and the Liberal party than he does from anybody in Labor. Don’t get me wrong, my sources within the Labor party tell me that they ‘fear’ Barnaby more than anybody on the conservative side of politics. They’d love to see him gone, but perhaps not as much some of those from his own side of the benches.

It’s time for the National Party branch in Maranoa to take matters into their own hands, – for the good of the party and rural & regional Australia.

Have Your say!

Queensland farmer and Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition Viv Forbes  writes.

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Viv Forbes

The Carbon Sense Coalition today congratulates  Senator Barnaby Joyce, Senator Ron Boswell, Senator Cory Bernardi and Dr Dennis Jensen MP for their principled stand against the Emissions Trading Scheme.

A new paper entitled ‘Climate Change in Perspective‘ reveals that changing climate was a permanent feature of Earth’s history. Man did not cause it and cannot change it.

All over the world, politicians, scientists, taxpayers and shareholders are waking up to the fact that they have been conned by the global warming story. All we need to do is read a bit of climate history to get things into perspective and realize how lucky we are today.

Within just the last 20,000 years, vast ice sheets melted from the earth’s surface, seas rose about 130 m, temperatures rose well above present levels several times, and as the seas warmed, they expelled their dissolved carbon dioxide.

Then just 300 years ago, the earth suffered from the bitter cold and famines caused by the Little Ice Age. Since about 1700 AD, warmth created by increasing solar activity has been driving back the deadly frosts, snow and ice. Carbon dioxide is naturally expelled from the warming oceans to the atmosphere. Humans have very little to do with it all.

All of these events were caused by and controlled by natural processes, and all life on earth was forced to adapt or die.

Despite continual increases in man’s emissions of carbon dioxide, the earth has not warmed since 1998. With unseasonal snow, bitter frosts, power failures and lost crops being reported every week, to send 10,000 pampered politicians and bureaucrats on a junket to Poland to discuss  ‘Global warming’  is surely a sick joke.

A growing number of politicians are now bravely stating what a large and increasing number of scientists have been saying:  ‘There is no global warming crisis, carbon dioxide is a benefit not a danger in the atmosphere, and the whole Emissions Trading industry is shaping up to be a bigger financial disaster than the sub-prime mess.

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END

Have Your Say!

Is former Treasurer Peter Costello waiting in the wings for Malcolm Turnbull impending demise?

As the issue of Turnbull’s leadership unfolds remember what Senator Ron Boswell said in his article on Agmates when he was expressing his disgust at Malcolm Turnbulls back flip on the telecommunication fund that saw the 4 National Senators and 2 Liberals defy Turnbull and cross the floor. Boswell said -

“Those who ignore the interests of the bush will pay a political price.”

Boswell wrote that 9 days ago and it seems as if the wheels within the Liberal party are starting to whirl…

Supporters of Mr Costello are urging him to fight for his seat at the next federal election, saying the Liberal Party needs him more than ever as Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull fails to make headway in the opinion polls….

Of course in true Costello style the he will only take the leadership if it foystered upon him.

On Wednesday night Mr Costello’s electorate fund-raising body, the Higgins 200 Club, hosted by its chairman, former Foster’s chief executive Peter Bartels, held a cocktail party at a mansion in Toorak to raise funds and offer support to the MP for Higgins.

One guest among the 200 business leaders and members of the Melbourne establishment present said there was a strong view that the former treasurer must stay because Mr Turnbull’s leadership was flailing.

The Liberals must be in dire straits if Costello is their only alternative to Turnbull as leader. Costello did rural & regional Australia no favours in his 11 years as treasurer. Under his leadership as treasurer infastructure and services to rural & regional Australia declined badly.

Have Your Say!

Since the National Party drew a line in the sand last week, they have got more mainstream media coverage than anytime in the last few years.

Michelle Gratton speculates in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Senate Nationals have become much tougher recently, largely because Barnaby Joyce [pictured] has taken over as their leader.

Also John “Wacka” Williams (NSW) is part of the new team, another who believes if you have muscle you flex it.

This has meant that Fiona Nash (NSW) and Ron Boswell (Qld) have also become more militant.

Gratton see Joyce leading a revived National Party of old,

Some federal Liberals have a lot of trouble coping with Joyce. He’s a hardball player in the mould of the likes of Nationals of another day – Doug Anthony, Ian Sinclair or Peter Nixon.

But the Liberals need to make greater use of his talent – not try to suppress it or drive him out.

Gratton goes onto suggest that the way forward for the National party  from here:

A quick look at the Nationals in the House of Representatives shows a dearth of talent and no obvious successor to Warren Truss, 60, who does his best but has no ability to cut through.

Even the Nats these days admit their inexorable decline but if they want to bat on for a while, they need to throw their best leadership prospect at the task. And more and more of them think that is Joyce, who at 41 has his political life ahead of him.

Gratton goes on to suggest how that could happen, although MP Bruce Scott may have other idea’s.

There is an obvious way into the lower house, and the leadership, for Joyce, the seat of Maranoa, held by 65-year-old Bruce Scott [pictured]. Joyce, from the town of St George, lives in the electorate.

The hitch is that Scott wants to run again. For the good of his party, Scott, a former minister but not a future one, should think again – or the party should think for him. Joyce could transfer at the election.

Should Bruce Scott stand aside for Barnaby Joyce at the next Federal election?  What do you think?

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I spoke with Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce [pictured] by phone Saturday morning. Barnaby asked me to pass onto the Agmates community his thanks for our support over the past week.

At the end of a tumultuous week that could be the beginning of the end of the Federal Coalition Senator Joyce had just met with Liberal Party Leader Malcolm Turnbull over coffee at an Eastern suburbs upmarket coffee shop.

The two were meeting to discuss Senator Joyce and his fellow National party members crossing the Senate floor twice this week in defiance of Turnbulls instructions.

RATHER than being reprimanded for leading his party across the Senate floor in defiance of the Coalition last week, Nationals upper house leader Barnaby Joyce has been offered a promotion.

The Coalition is in trouble after four Nationals senators and two Liberal senators crossed the floor in the Senate early on Friday morning.

Barnaby Joyce knocked back a similar offer when he became Nationals leader in the Senate back in September. At the time he said he could not accept the position as he could not guarantee that he would ‘tow the party line.’ Nothing has changed.

This week saw some heroic stands made by these Politicians:

From the Agmates community’s perspective the National Party in the Senate lead by Senator Joyce were just outstanding this week. Personally I don’t recall ever having said this before about a Politician, but I am enormously proud of the four National Party Senators for their performance on our behalf in the Senate this week.

National Party Senators Barnaby Joyce, Ron Boswell, Fiona Nash & John Williams actions in crossing the floor twice this week in support of rural & regional Australiain’s showed  tremendous integrity, courage and loyalty to the people who elected them. Four Hero politicians.

A situation where Politicians put their constituents well being before Party Politics is about as rare as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd knocking back an overseas trip to a United Nations Conference.

I must also make mention of two more Hero politicians:

Family First Senator Steve Fielding & Independent Senator Nick Xenophon who both spent the week ‘in the trenches‘ alongside the Nationals fighting to save rural & regional Australia from the ‘carbon sink’ legislation and the removal of the $2 billion rural telecommunications fund by the Rudd government with the treacherous support of Liberal Party Leader Malcom Turnbull.

Almost Hero’s:

We should also offer our congratulations to Liberal party Senators Alan Eggleston & Alan Ferguson who made a stand and crossed with the Nationals. They are only half hero’s as they voted with the Liberals and Labor on the ‘Carbon Sink’ Bill earlier in the week.

The Five Senators from the Australian Greens, Bob Brown Christine Milne, Rachel Siewart, Sarah Hanson-Young & Scott Ludlam also score a Half a Hero award as they fought for rural & regional communities on the ‘carbon sink’ legislation but voted with Labor to steal the bush’s $2 billion telecommunications fund.

Political Villain of the Week: Malcolm Turnbull.

If a coalition is to survive and if Malcolm Turnbull [pictured] is to remain the Leader of the coalition he and his fellow Liberal front benchers will have to learn to listen to and heed the concerns and policies of the National Party before making policy decisions.

If Malcolm Turnbull & his Liberal Front Bench are not capable of doing that as this weeks events have shown, then either the coalition is finished our they need to find another leader who understands that there is more to life in Australia than the Latte drinking, metrosexual Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.

After having the numbers to block the ‘carbon sink’ legislation and the appropiation of the $2 billion dollar bush telecommunicatiosn fund and chosing not to, the conservative voters of rural and regional Australia can never again trust Malcolm Turnbull as a coalition leader.

Have your say!

Incredible and unprecedented scenes in the Senate last night. No fewer than 27 Liberal Senators revolted against a last minute backflip by their leader Malcolm Turnbull that was a blatant sellout of rural & regional Australia.

The Federal Government’s billion dollar infrastructure package has passed the Senate but only after an Opposition back flip and extraordinary scenes that saw the Coalition split.

The National Party is outraged by Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to support the bill because the new legislation axes a Howard Government $2-billion rural and regional telecommunications fund.

Well it’s clear that some members of the Liberal Party felt the same way. They crossed the floor to vote with the Nationals and many more abstained.

You will recall yesterday that Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce wrote to us saying:

An attempt by the Rudd Labor Government to rob rural and regional communities of future telecommunications funding has been stopped in the Senate by Coalition senators, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon and Family First Senator Steve Fielding.

That was the way it stood at lunch time until Coalition leader Malcolm Turnbull pulled the rug out from under rural & regional Australia. This mornings Tony Eastley ABC AM program reported:

Just before lunch yesterday the Coalition, combining with the minor parties and independents, began amending the infrastructure funds bills in a way, it said, that made the process more accountable.

Then at 10 last night the bill was returned to the House of Representatives where the Government knocked out the amendments. The Coalition opposed that move.

In between that vote and the bill returning to the Senate just before midnight there was a last minute decision to let the legislation pass.

The Nationals are furious at Turnbull’s treacherous betrayal, from The Australian Online.

The Nationals were furious over the backflip.

Before crossing the floor, Nationals Senator Fiona Nash said the Coalition should have insisted on the change.

“Those people out in regional Australian need our support, they trust us,” she said.

“We won’t be walking away from the people of rural Australia.”

Nationals senator Ron Boswell said he would not betray regional Australia’s trust.

“I’ll walk across the floor before I walk away from that trust,” Senator Boswell said.

Senator Boswell has written to us explaining the situation. You can see that here.

Here is the incredible part, which shows that there are plenty of Liberal members with a conscience, even if they don’t have the courage of their convictions. Here is how the Liberals handled the vote in the Senate.

32 Liberal Senators

2 voted with the Nationals

5 voted with Labor

25 either abstained or did not vote

The two liberal Senators who have won the admiration and respect of rural & regional Australia for having the integrity and courage to cross the floor with the Nationals were:

Liberal Senator for WA Alan Eggleston

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Liberal Senator for South Australia Alan Ferguson

It is particularly pleasing to see Senator Ferguson standing up for rural & regional Australia with his farming background after Agmates name him in our Shame file earlier in the week. He has redeemed himself.

Here is how the ABC AM program reported what happened at the vote.

Then it came time to vote to allow the Coalition’s communications fund to be subsumed into the Labor funds and that’s when the situation became extraordinary.

Liberals melted away out of the Chamber. Some came in as the division bells rang only to walk out again. One Liberal senator did a lap of the Chamber before running to get out as the doors closed.

I am still trying to find out who the 5 Liberals that voted with the government were. I’ll update this when I do.

Now here is the Liberal Party Shame file.

(more…)

Nationals Senator Ron Boswell [pictured] writes from Canberra:

(the background to this article can be seen here – Malcolm Turnbull Dumps Rural & Regional Australia and His Party Revolts)

Last night’s Senate vote shows that rural Australia remains a force to be reckoned with on the national political stage.

Those who ignore the interests of the bush will pay a political price.

The Coalition set up the $2bn Communications Fund to ensure the needs of rural Australia would be looked after in the years to come.

Labor promised to abolish this and last night they did just that.

The Nationals could not go along with that because the Communications Fund was the deal breaker in winning bush support for the final sale of Telstra.

It was obvious last night that the sentiments of the Senate chamber majority were in accord with keeping faith with rural Australia.

The Senate vote reflected in the end the concern of the Opposition as a whole and some Senators in particular from both the National and Liberal parties who could not see this fund go down without a fight.

There is an important lesson to be learned from last night and that is to never, ever ignore rural Australia. Their voice will be heard in our Parliaments.

Rural Australia continues to have influence on the political agenda. Their voice was heard loud and clear last night in the extraordinary vote.

The bush knows it can’t win on everything because Labor simply doesn’t need them to win government. But they do expect us to hold the line on issues that are of utmost importance to them where agreements have been sealed.

No party can afford to ignore the bush. That would be a recipe for political meltdown.

ENDS

Have Your say

NSW Nationals Senator Fiona Nash [pictured] may have been sacked by opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull for crossing the Senate floor but she has shown the people of NSW and Australia that there are politicians who care more about their constituents than their personal ambitions.

Of the four Nationals Senators who crossed the floor, Fiona Nash, Barnaby Joyce, Ron Boswell, John Williams , Nash had more at stake than the rest. Her job as a parliamentary secretary in the opposition cabinet.

Here Fiona Nash (FN) speaks with Business Spectator journalist Isabelle Oderberg (IO) :

IO: Now, as I understand it, Malcolm called you and asked for your resignation. Is that how it happened and were you surprised?

FN: Oh, look, I wasn’t surprised. I’m certainly aware in the past that there has been a requirement either in government or in opposition that shadow front benchers would give up their shadow position if they were to cross the floor against Coalition positions. I was well aware of that, so I wasn’t at all surprised. I was still disappointed of course, but absolutely believe that I did the right thing.

IO: The thing I’m a bit confused about is that Mr Turnbull has been quoted as saying “We’re not like the Labor Party. We’re a broad church and people are entitled to take a particular position on a matter of conscience”. So how does that fit in with what he then did? I’m a little bit confused. Are you able to shed any light?

FN: Isabelle, yeah, so was I! [Laughs] Well, obviously we’re not quite as big a broad a church as I thought. No, but I think what he was referring to was the general principle of those within the Coalition to be able to cross the floor without being perhaps tossed out of the party like they may well be in Labor. That does not apply to that next level, though, of holders of shadow positions.

IO: Did anyone try and talk you out of taking the position that you took?

FN: Yes they certainly did! But my family was saying “Go, girl. You’re doing absolutely the right thing”.

IO: So who tried to talk you out of it then?

FN: There were a number of people. Actually, there were a number of Liberals that thought that I should be perhaps paying a bit more attention to my ministerial future and their view was, as I understood, they said ‘Look, the vote’s not going to make any difference, you’re going to lose while you’re doing it’.

But to me, it was a matter of principle. I believed that the legislation was wrong and my role as a National senator is to make sure I try and make the right decisions by regional communities. I thought the legislation was fundamentally flawed, that shouldn’t be going ahead and that’s why I made my decision.

I saw elsewhere in the media (can’t find the link) that Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan used exactly that excuse for not crossing the floor even though he had campaigned strongly against the legislation.

From memory he said, I’m not doing it as it does not make any difference anyway.

Well guess what Senator Heffernan, it makes a lot of difference to us, your constituents.

Country Liberal Party Nigel Scullion abstained from voting to save his Human Services portfolio.

Both Heffernan and Scullion could both learn a lot from Fiona Nash about principle and integrity.

Have Your Say!