Rise of rural independents could pressure banks
Australia's banks may face increased pressure to finance rural businesses if, as widely expected, three conservative independents become the pivotal force in the next federal government.
The conservative independents - Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and Rob Oakeshott - are all former National Party members who fell out with the party. Katter has described the three as "very good friends" who will work together.
Bob Katter made clear in an ABC interview last week that he will want to use his new power to extract maximum gains for his constituents. In a hung Parliament, he said, "I'll be giving the gong to that person that allows rural Australia to survive."
Katter is broadly critical of the major banks. He has explicitly favoured the revival of government-owned development banks to finance agriculture, and has criticised the demise of specialist rural credit providers (such as Commonwealth Development Bank and Queensland Industry Development Corp) over the past 20 years.
Katter comes from a Queensland populist political tradition that mixes elements of left and right, frequently opposes big business and favours expanding bank credit to farmers and small businesses. His causes include rural population growth, protection of farm industries, better rural health services, defeat of the mining tax, and removal of environmental constraints on agriculture and industry.
Oakeshott and Windsor are more moderate.
Oakeshott backed a republic and is regarded as more centrist than most National Party members. His background in state politics shows through in his current interests. He wants better rural health services, and slower population growth to take pressure off infrastructure. He also supports a carbon trading scheme, and yesterday called for progress on this issue by using the 2008 review led by Ross Garnaut as the basis for policy choice.
Oakeshott's most obvious note of scepticism towards the banking industry came during debate over the Australian Business Investment Partnership - the $4 billion federal government emergency property financing body proposed during the GFC but defeated in the Senate. During parliamentary debate, Oakeshott asked whether the government had extracted promises on executive remuneration from bank chiefs. He has also publicly defended the independence of the Reserve Bank
Signature issues for Tony Windsor include better rural health services, better management of the Murray-Darling system, and rural access to broadband Internet. He has explicitly backed Labor's emissions trading scheme and national broadband plans.
Unlike Katter, he has favoured greater compassion towards asylum-seekers as well as a shift to resource rent taxation (the so-called "super profits tax") for miners.
Windsor has also spoken of the need to preserve regional businesses and communities.
In the NSW Parliament, for instance, he worked to establish debt mediation processes between farmers and their financiers.
Windsor has experience with hung parliaments: he supported the Greiner government after the 1991 NSW state election to allow it to remain in government. Unlike Katter, he says he does not see a hung parliament as an opportunity for a "bidding war".
Tony Windsor has held the federal seat of New England in NSW since 2001. The seat takes in an area of north-east NSW, including Armidale, Glen Innes and Tenterfield. He was previously the NSW independent MP for Tamworth.
Bob Katter is a former National Party minister who turned independent in 2001. He's been the Member for Kennedy since 1993. His seat covers a large area of north Queensland, including Mt Isa, Charters Towers and Innisfail.
Rob Oakeshott is a former state MP who left the National Party in 2002, reportedly because of the influence of property developers in the local party branches of his electorate. He won the NSW north coast seat of Lyne in 2007. The seat takes in Port Macquarie, Taree and parts of Kempsey.