Anyone trying to understand why regional Australians are turning their backs on the major parties need only look at what happened when a motion to disallow the Government’s problematic cash mandate regulations came up for vote in the Senate this week.

Video: Who is Senator Cash interacting with on the Government side after the Coalition backflip?

Lodged by One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts, the motion had the numbers to pass on March 24.

The Greens and independent senator David Pocock were on side and Liberal Senator Slade Brockman joined the debate stating the Coalition would support the motion on the grounds that Labor’s regulations had been hatched in secrecy, fell short of international standards and did not respond to critical issues highlighted in the Senate inquiry into regional bank closures.

He called out the Labor party for not taking the issue seriously, but the filibustering engaged in by Senators Ellie Whiteaker and Corinne Mulholland that he was referring to successfully ran the session to time and stalled the vote.

It would be another week before the debate could be resumed on March 31 but instead of standing by the Coalition’s word, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Michaelia Cash – with no explanation for the backflip – picked up where senators Whiteaker and Mulholland left off, irrationally accusing One Nation of wanting to “ban cash”.

It was clear from the outset the Coalition had sold its vote.

When Senator Cash resumed her seat, instead of turning to her colleagues, she looked straight to someone on the Government side of the house, gave a namaste gesture of thanks, mouthed a few words and began to giggle.

The person involved in the exchange was out of shot of the parliamentary video and has not yet been identified, but senators Tony Sheldon, who is the chief Government whip, Anthony Chisholm, Katy Gallagher and Don Farrell can be seen in that area earlier in the sitting.

Senator Cash has been asked who she was interacting with and what she was thanking them for but has not yet provided a response.

It doesn’t really matter what she says, however, as there is no escaping that she had been enjoying a team win with a Labor collaborator.

It is for exactly this reason Labor, Liberals and the Nationals have been dubbed the “uniparty”.

Greens Senator Nick McKim, who was the next to speak, asked the obvious question.

“I don’t know who wrote that rubbish for Senator Cash but let me be very clear: everyone in this chamber knew the Liberals were supporting this disallowance last week,” he said.

“My first question is how did you get bought off? What did the government buy you off with to make you change your position from last week?”*

Above: Senator McKim says what everyone is thinking as he supports the disallowance motion.

The cash mandate disallowance motion was important. Too important to be used to score points against a political party because it has overtaken the Coalition in the polls, but the Liberals and the Nationals have shown very clearly that despite a change of leaders, there has been no change in the sort of behaviour that has distanced voters.

The disallowance motion may have been lost but we can thank One Nation, the Greens, Senator Pocock, United Australia Party’s Ralph Babet and Liberal senator Alex Antic, who crossed the floor to vote for the motion, for taking the time to understand the details of the issue properly and put politics aside on such an important welfare and economic issue.

We can also thank Senator Cash for providing those six seconds of video footage that will forever provide irrefutable proof the Coalition’s word cannot be trusted and Australians’ votes would be better placed with a party or individual with more integrity.

Namaste Senator Cash.

This article appeared on The Regional on 2 April 2026.

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