Clive Palmer has stepped away from a threat to abstain from voting for government bills in the Senate, overturning his own decree.
The Palmer United party has two crucial seats on the Senate crossbench.
On Monday, Palmer said speculation over prime minister Tony Abbott’s leadership had led to the decision.
“The policies are not consistent, party in-fighting and conflict is ongoing and as a result our party has decided as a bloc in the Senate to abstain from voting on any legislation proposals,” Palmer said.
By Tuesday, Palmer had changed his mind.
He told Guardian Australia that the party would vote against all major legislation that does not have bipartisan support.
All non-major legislation and bills that have the support of Labor and the Coalition would continue to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
“It has been revoked, so we’re looking at things on their merit, and there’s a lot of bipartisan measures coming up in the Senate which we’d support, which is good for the country,” Palmer told Sky News.
Furthermore, Palmer acknowledges that this arrangement would be reviewed by the end of the week.
Palmer said the move was necessary in order to elicit details on the Liberal party’s accounts. Leadership was no longer his main concern, he said.
He said he had tried to gain clarity on the amount of donations given to the party in a speech in parliament on Monday, but was cut off by government MPs.
