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Posts tagged as “Malcolm Roberts”

Fiona Patten Not Happy Malcolm Roberts Has Been Re-Elected

June 19, 2019

The Victorian Reason Party MP Fiona Patten has reacted badly to the re-election of Malcolm Roberts as a One Nation senator from Queensland.

Patten, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, described Roberts as a “climate-change denying, weirdo, conspiracy theorist”.

“You’re f***ing kidding me right?” Patten wrote.

Malcolm Roberts’ election to the Senate was confirmed this week. First elected at the double dissolution in 2016, Roberts was ruled ineligible to nominate by the High Court on October 27, 2017. Roberts held dual citizenship with the United Kingdom, a breach of Section 44 of the Constitution.

Patten was elected to the Victorian parliament as a representative of the Sex Party in 2014. The party was renamed the Reason Party and she was re-elected in 2018.

Media release from Fiona Patten.

Fiona Patten

READ MOREFiona Patten Not Happy Malcolm Roberts Has Been Re-Elected

The New Senate: The Defeated, The Retired, The New And The Returning

August 21, 2016

There will be 14 new faces in the new Senate when it meets for the first time on August 30.

This represents 18.42% of the Senate’s 76 members. Each state has 12 senators, whilst the territories have 2 each, who serve terms concurrent with the House of Representatives. The double dissolution meant that all 76 positions were up for election on July 2.

The fourteen new senators include two (Louise Pratt and Don Farrell) who were Labor senators defeated in 2013.

Ten of the fourteen departed senators were defeated in the election, whilst four retired.

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Getting Things Done In The New Senate

August 4, 2016

The Senate has 76 members. Unlike the House of Representatives, where the Speaker only votes in the event of a tie, all members vote on all matters. Therefore, the magic number to get anything done is 39.

A tied vote (38-38) is lost, so the government must have 39. Once it gets to 39 votes, everyone else has only 37.

On appearances, the new Senate is arithmetically more difficult for the Turnbull government than the one it had to deal with in the 44th Parliament.

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Malcolm Farnsworth
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