He wouldn’t relish the comparison, but at the start of the Albanese government Senate crossbencher David Pocock finds himself with the sort of pivotal power independent Brian Harradine enjoyed during the early Howard years.
Harradine, together with another crossbencher, enabled the passage of key measures including the partial sale of Telstra. But he also could say “no” – most notably to the GST, forcing the government into negotiations with the Australian Democrats and a fairly messy compromise.
A highly polarising figure, the Tasmanian senator was a former Labor man, for whom Gough Whitlam once spectacularly put his leadership on the line in a bitter party brawl. He was eventually expelled by the ALP, before he ran for the Senate in 1975.
