Given the Turnbull government only has a one-seat majority in the lower house, the immediate stakes of the challenge to David Gillespie’s eligibility are as high as they could possibly be.
Questions have surrounded Rod Culleton’s eligibility to sit in the Senate since before he was even elected.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
After all of the legal controversies of the past year we have ended up in essentially the same position – the Senate will include a One Nation senator from Western Australia, but not Rod Culleton.
Rod Culleton’s Senate seat has been declared vacant following formal notification of his bankruptcy.
AAP/Lukas Coch
Biting insults have been exchanged as Western Australian senator Rod Culleton splits from Pauline Hanson, ahead of the High Court determining whether he will be turfed from parliament.
Pauline Hanson was furious last week after Rod Culleton broke ranks with One Nation over the backpacker tax.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Tensions between Pauline Hanson and her beleaguered One Nation senator Rod Culleton have been on open display this week, raising the question of whether the party will be able to hold it all together.
Pauline Hanson’s immediate issue with the free-wheeling Rod Culleton was his writing to a Queensland magistrate seeking to have a court case adjourned.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Pauline Hanson has backed the referral of her Western Australian senator Rod Culleton to the High Court to determine his eligibility to sit in parliament, declaring it a matter of integrity.
The departure of up to two crossbench senators and the uncertainty over who might replace them is giving the government fresh obstacles in their efforts to pass legislation.
Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday left up in the air whether the industrial bills would come to a vote before the parliament gets up for the summer recess.
David Moir/AAP
Malcolm Turnbull laughs off the suggestion that this week’s extraordinary developments mean the Senate is in chaos. Okay, let’s humour the Prime Minister.
Rod Culleton said in a statement that the Solicitor-General’s opinion had concluded he was “not duly elected as a senator”.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
Further uncertainty has been thrown over the Senate crossbench, with the government now moving to have the High Court determine whether One Nation’s Rod Culleton was ineligible for election.