Labor, Greens, rugby union great David Pocock set to hold the cards in the Senate | LisaVisentin
Labor and the Greens will hold a dominant progressive voting block in the new Senate as part of a major realignment of the upper house that could see former Wallaby and climate change activist David Pocock occupy a powerful position.
But the final Senate makeup will take weeks to be formally declared with messy preference flows to determine a number of seats in several states. Pocock, who is poised to pull off an historic upset and end the major party duopoly in the ACT by ousting Liberal Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja, refrained from claiming victory on Sunday.“We’ll just have to wait and see, there’s a fair bit of counting to go,” Pocock said. “This campaign has shaken up politics in the ACT…We don’t want to be taken for granted.”
On current results, Labor will retain 26 seats in the upper house, which when combined with the Greens will give them a blocking majority of 38 in the 76-seat Senate. Greens leader Adam Bandt was triumphant on Sunday, declaring the party would be the “biggest third party in the Senate”, with former NSW MLC David Shoebridge set to be vaulted into the upper house alongside newcomers Barbara Pocock in South Australia, and Penny Allman-Payne in Queensland.
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