Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Most voters want another election - billionaire

Updated at 10:42 am on 8 September 2010

Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer says the majority of Australians want another federal election and resent being "held hostage" by the independent trio.

Mr Palmer says Queensland independent MP Bob Katter has respected his electorate's wishes, but the other independents, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, have betrayed theirs.

Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor on Tesday revealed their intention to give Labor their votes, meaning it secured the 76 seats needed to stay in power.

The ABC reports Mr Katter, the Member for Kennedy and the third independent, decided to support the Coalition but it was not enough to install the Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott as prime minister.

Mr Palmer says he is not happy with the independents decision.

"The majority of Australians want another election because they want to be the people that wield the power in the country, not a couple of independents," he said.

"All Australians and all political parties have resented the fact that they should be held hostage by one or two or three members of the parliament.

He says it should be the right of the Australian people to decide who will be the government, "not two or three independent members".

"They come from overwhelmingly conservative rural electorates that have nothing in common with people living in inner-city Melbourne for example," he said.

"Yet they have decided to abandon the people who have elected them, to vote the way they wanted to as individuals.

"That is luxury you shouldn't have in Parliament, you really should represent the people who elected you."

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