Clive Palmer hosts Brisbane bloc party for balance-of-power senators

THE six new senators who will hold the balance of power after July have been discussing operating as a bloc.

THE six new senators who will hold the balance of power after July have been discussing operating as a bloc and sharing resources, increasing their leverage in negotiations with the government.

It is understood that Clive Palmer has hosted a meeting of the new independent senators in Brisbane and will today announce an alliance between his Palmer United Party's three senators and the Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party's Ricky Muir.

Mr Palmer, who is waiting on a recount to confirm he has won the Queensland seat of Fairfax, last night denied he had approached newly elected senators from the minor parties to join his party or form a coalition.

"False," he said when asked.

Mr Palmer said he would today sign a formal agreement with one of the new senators committing them to vote together in parliament. He refused to reveal the senator's identity.

Mr Palmer told ABC's Lateline he would also seek the same amount of resources provided to the Greens, despite the fact they had nine senators and one member of the House of Representatives. He said that if the resources weren't provided, his party would need longer to consider legislation and it was possible the parliament might only pass one bill a year.

"We won't vote for legislation until we fully understand it," Mr Palmer said. "Well be seeking from the Prime Minister the same level of resources that the Greens had. It's not about the number of senators; it's the volume of work."

Liberal Democratic Party senator-elect David Leyonhjelm told The Australian last month he would try to establish a forum with the other senators.

With 33 senators, the Abbott government will need six of the eight crossbench senators to pass any legislation opposed by the Greens and Labor. An alliance of the six new senators would make it more difficult for the government to split off individual senators in order to pass legislation.

The Australian has confirmed that a group of the newly elected senators met in Brisbane to discuss how they would work together in the new parliament. Bob Day, the new Family First senator from South Australia, confirmed he had flown to Brisbane and met his fellow senators-elect. Mr Palmer had hosted the meeting, but the initiative had been a mutual idea. "It wasn't the Clive Palmer show."

He said the six - himself, three PUP members, Mr Leyonhjelm and Mr Muir - had been speaking to each other since the election.

He predicted the new senators would have a high level of co-operation. "We all get on well together," he said. "We are fairly like-minded." Although it was impossible to predict how often they would vote together, "we certainly expect to vote together more often than we don't".

Mr Day denied any formal coalition or alliance had been discussed, or that there had been any suggestion of joining Mr Palmer's party.

"It's not on his agenda, or ours," he said. "The three new non-Palmer senators fiercely want to protect their independence. The three Palmer senators have minds of their own."

Additional reporting: Michael McKenna, Mitchell Nadin