Tony Abbott concedes passing legislation won't be easy with new-look Senate

Updated

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has acknowledged it will not be easy to get legislation through the Senate, saying he will have to treat all Senators with respect.

When the Senate changes over in July, Mr Abbott looks set to have to win the support of six crossbenchers to pass legislation if Labor and the Greens vote against government bills.

"Managing the Senate has been a challenge for a lot of prime ministers over the years and I don't think it's going to be easy to assemble a majority in the Senate," Mr Abbott told Macquarie Radio.

"I'm going to have to treat every member of Parliament, including every member of the Senate, with respect and courtesy," he said.

But he says he thinks the Coalition "will be able to form an effective government in the Senate as well as in the House of Representatives".

On current numbers, three members of the Senate crossbench will be from the Palmer United Party.

Mr Abbott is hoping Mr Palmer's conservative background will influence his decisions.

"I think there's no doubt that there'll be a few management issues all round," he said.

"But ... he was a member of the National Party then the LNP for many, many years and he is a conservative, so you'd think that it would be in his interests to have a strong and successful conservative government."

The Senate results are not yet final though because of calls for a recount in Western Australia from Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and the Australian Sports Party's Wayne Dropulich.

They were vying for the final two seats in Western Australia which went to Labor's Louise Pratt and the Palmer United Party's Dio Wang.

The Australian Electoral Commission yesterday decided against a recount, but has given the Greens and the Sports Party until 11.30am WST to lodge appeals against the decision.

Senator Ludlam has done so but Mr Dropulich has told the ABC he is yet to decide whether he will.

The Greens argue a partial recount is justified because at a crucial juncture when preferences were distributed the margin had come down to just 14 votes.

"You're looking for 14 needles in a haystack of 1.3 million votes. I don't know if those 14 needles are there but it's difficult to tell unless they're recounted," Senator Ludlam said.

Senator Ludlam says his appeal application does not include any new concerns.

"I basically think we got it right the first time," he said.

"We have expanded, provided a bit of context and rebutted some of the WA electoral officer's arguments."

If the AEC will not hear Senator Ludlam's appeal a further one could be taken to the Court of Disputed Returns, but he says that is not on the cards yet.

As it stands the new Senate will be made up of 33 Coalition Senators, 26 from the ALP, nine Greens, three Palmer United Party MPs and five independents or sole representatives of minor parties.

Topics: federal-parliament, parliament, government-and-politics, abbott-tony, australia, wa

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