Caleb Bond: Voters didn’t swallow ‘pick me or else’ line, electing instead colourful minor party characters

IF there’s one thing people don’t like, it’s being told what to do.

Australia still waits for the federal election result.

• Relive the day’s national counting

IF there’s one thing people don’t like, it’s being told what to do.

“If your local vote is for Labor, Greens or an Independent … it is a vote for the chaos of a hung Parliament, a budget black hole, big Labor taxes, less jobs and more boats,” Malcolm Turnbull warned the country at the Coalition campaign launch a fortnight ago.

“Only a Liberal or National vote ensures stable government, a clear economic plan, real funding for the aged, Medicare and education; more jobs and strong borders.”

So imagine my total astonishment when Australia didn’t swallow the “pick me or else” line and decided to elect a colourful bouquet of minor party characters on Saturday. I’ll let you decide whether they smell sweet or foul.

Before the election, I wrote in these pages that the proliferation of minor parties was mostly because the major parties, or the “Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics” as Richard Di Natale likes to call them, weren’t delivering what the public wanted.

Rather than adapt, they chose to attack.

It all stems from the feeling people get that entrenched politicians think they’re a superior class. They know more than you so they talk down to you.

Never has this attitude been clearer than after the recent Brexit vote in the UK. Despite umpteen warnings of global disaster and the downfall of the UK from lefty elites, Britons decided they wanted to take back control of their sovereignty and leave the EU.

The Bremainers were positively fuming at the fact those ghastly commoners didn’t heed their better judgment. Consequently, they resorted to calling them all fools or racists and generally insulting their intelligence.

Some even suggested that because older people were disproportionately in favour of leaving the EU, they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Because when public opinion doesn’t go your way, chuck a tantrum and threaten to do away with democracy.

There were shades of that when Mr Turnbull took aim at Pauline Hanson before the election. “Pauline Hanson is, as far as we are concerned, not a welcome presence in the Austrian political scene.

“You’ve got to remember she was chucked out of the Liberal Party,” he said, seemingly forgetting he was once booted from his party’s leadership only to take it back. Comments like that only bolster the support of people like Hanson. They see themselves as rebels, taking the fight to those who’d rather only sanitised opinions be allowed in the Parliament.

We’ve seen it in the US with the Donald Trump phenomenon. His schtick is being anti-establishment. He’s the anti-politician, prepared to say what others would only dare think. When leaders start railing against these characters, it shows they feel threatened.

That makes their supporter base more steadfast in their support because they must be having some effect.

“Australians didn’t like her views then, they won’t tolerate them now,” Bill Shorten said.

Well Bill, it would appear you were wrong because there’s Pauline Hanson and possibly a couple of her mates coming to a Senate near you.

Minor parties are undoubtedly the real winners of this election. SA was at the centre of that win with Nick Xenophon poised to take three Senate seats and claiming a victory few minor parties have ever achieved, snatching a Lower House seat.

One minor party candidate whose presence I’m looking forward to is Derryn Hinch. A man of uncompromising principles, he is set to take Ricky Muir’s Senate spot. He is one of the few candidates who support the repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act and anyone familiar with his former life as a media personality knows that he won’t take crap from anyone.

Originally published as Caleb Bond: Voters didn’t swallow ‘pick me or else’ line, electing instead colourful minor party characters