The split in the Palmer United Party is bad new for Tony Abbott especially as Jacqui Lambie is likely to be proper contrarian and vote the opposite of Clive Palmers wishes. In effect from having the weight of three Senators it has gone down to one. A nice development for the end of the year. From Crikey.au Crikey says: thank Lambie for killing FOFA repeal The governments hard-won repeal of the Future of Financial Advice package, by which it restored conflicted remuneration to the heart of financial advice and removed other pro-consumer reforms, looks set to be the first victim of PUP Senator Jacqui Lambies split from her party. The Senate will this afternoon likely vote yet again on a disallowance motion for the regulation, but this time the disallowance is expected to succeed with the backing of both Lambie and Victorian Senator Ricky Muir. If successful, the repeal will be a win for good policy and common sense. The governments gutting of FOFA, at the behest of the big banks, AMP and a rump of financial planners clinging to outdated business models based on gouging consumers, posed a direct threat not merely to consumers and their retirement incomes, but future generations of taxpayers through higher taxes to support an ageing population. However, it will also signal that the Senate is now an even more difficult environment for the government to work with. Lambie is now a PUP Senator only in name, with Clive Palmer today demoting her and excluding her from his party room. Given Lambies personality, this was always a likely outcome, although it has happened in less than six months since Lambie took her place in the Senate. The government is now visibly struggling. Its fiscal policy is a political disaster, and the much-vaunted switch to national security and foreign policy has failed to salvage its fortunes. If one of its few achievements of 2014 -- however dubious -- is overturned, it will face concluding the year in an even bigger mess than it started it.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 08:24:28 +0000
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