Federal election 2016: Opinion - Oddball Senate still on the cards

DENNIS ATKINS: This federal election could well result in one slightly oddball and unpredictable Senate being replaced with another.

• Federal election 2016: Pauline Hanson set for return

THIS election was supposed to be about putting a cop or two back on the construction industry beat and fixing up what was a system of electing Senators that could be games and produced a dysfunctional, unrepresentative mob of politicians.

We haven’t heard much about the first - but we surely will - and the second is working in mysterious ways.

We look like we might be replacing one slightly oddball and unpredictable Senate with another.

The news Clive Palmer was not putting his name forward to himself to run in the Senate cleared one fruit loop from the bowl but the low bar for entry - just 7.7 per cent of the vote - means others at the exotic end of political gene pool are in the running.

Step up Queensland’s most infamous political complainant, Pauline Hanson, founder of One Nation and serial candidate in two states.

She is now regarded as a good thing to win one of the two last spots in the Queensland senate race, fighting things out with the Greens and perhaps a sixth conservative candidate.

Of course, it’s not just Hanson who looks likely to settle onto a comfy red leather banquette.

Jackie Lambie from Tasmania is almost a shoo-in and self-styled human headline Derryn Hinch has a better than even chance in Victoria.

These people might have more people voting for them but that doesn’t meant they’ll be any easier to deal with.

Originally published as Federal election 2016: Opinion - Oddball Senate still on the cards