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The great Tasmanian Catholic warrior Brian Harradine did wonderful work in the Senate, the chamber Paul Keating described as 'unrepresentative swill'. He successfully negotiated significant improvements to the lamentable Howard Aboriginal land rights package. Seven years after the Wik debate, Democrats deputy leader Andrew Bartlett said: 'The agreement he reached on the Wik legislation was one of the few cases I would point to where John Howard was bested in negotiations'.
I will happily commend Labor and the Greens should they follow Keating's challenge to further improve the native title package passed by the Howard Government. I don't claim any divine guidance for this. It's called politics.
Independents were once seen as utterly unsuited to parliaments dominated by big parties. The apparent weakness of Independents in being outside the mainstream is their strength: they represent an alternative way of thinking about politics.