New Australian senator is proving a thorn in the side for John Howard
Forget the prime minister or the leader of the opposition. Suddenly, the most important person in Australian politics is a former nightclub bouncer, farm worker and self-employed accountant who was recently elected a senator representing the Queensland National Party.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Barnaby Joyce, who just happens to hold the balance of power in parliament's upper house.
When Australia's politicians filed back to work this week after their six-week winter break, the Liberal-National Party coalition government anticipated having control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, or upper house, for the first time in nearly 25 years.
Certainly the figures suggested they enjoyed a one-seat majority in the upper house, enough to press through a raft of controversial legislation ranging from workplace relations to the full privatisation of Telstra, the national telecommunications giant, which is half owned by the government.
But this assumed that they had the support of Mr Joyce, who in theory is part of the coalition but in reality is a one-man political incendiary device.
