[jacques_chester]

I ran as a small party candidate.

Based on coverage, there are three major parties. The only microparty that gets any coverage is the Australian Sex Party and that's only because of the undergraduate boorishness of their name.

Katter and Palmer will get coverage this time in the "lighter side" columns and then we'll go back to having the majors take turns at the Treasury benches while the Greens get to pretend they are a genuine alternative because nobody actually reads their policies.

I miss the Democrats. They were boring centrists and it was wonderful.

[vacri]

The DLP had more success than the Sex Party at the last election, and there's no boorishness in their name... only their policies :)

In terms of coverage, Family First gets more than the Sex party, as does One Nation.

[jacques_chester]

The DLP had the benefit of a number of favourable preference deals, but nobody noticed or cared until a DLP Senator was elected. But the ASP got widespread coverage.

Family First gets coverage because they are very good at faking noise and movement. They learnt well from previous generations of protest movement. The body of media hadn't yet innoculated themselves against it in the way they have against weekly the National Days of Action and Marches Against Whatever that take place in Sydney and Melbourne CBDs every 20 minutes.