By Sean Nicholls
It exists in the shadow of its more famous lower house cousin, the bearpit, but anyone who has covered state politics knows that the upper house of the NSW parliament is often where the real wheeling and dealing takes place.
The Legislative Council - rather cruelly nicknamed the ''loser's lounge'' by some - has been home to an impressive array of minor parties over the years.
The parade has included One Nation's David Oldfield, the Outdoor Recreation Party's Jon Jenkins and Reform the Legal System's Peter Breen, all pushing their agendas with varying degrees of success. As we saw this week, Pauline Hanson was very nearly added to the list.
Nonetheless, we still have the Shooters and Fishers Party, which - as in the previous parliament - finds itself holding a share of the balance of power with Fred Nile's Christian Democrats, meaning that Barry O'Farrell will need its support to pass legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens. Negotiations have not started well. O'Farrell has moved quickly to rule out opening up national parks to hunting, one of the party's top agenda items, with which it negotiated long and hard with the previous government.
That this will surely have enraged the party's MPs, Robert Brown and Robert Borsak, appears to not overly concern the Premier, who had said on more than one occasion that he will not do deals with crossbenchers to get his legislation through.
So, how does he plan to do it? Surprisingly, the answer appears to be by negotiating with the Greens. Yes, the very same party he likened negotiating with to dealing with the devil.
The Coalition figures that many of its election promises will be supported by the five Greens MPs in the upper house, meaning the government can achieve a majority without the Shooters and Christian Democrats.
And they are right: O'Farrell's plans to restrict political donations to individuals and therefore remove the capacity of unions to spend $1.05 million during election campaigns will gain support from the Greens, as will his plans to abolish Part 3A of the planning act.
Where he may run into trouble is with his promise to outsource management of Sydney Ferries and lease the desalination plant at Kurnell.
The privatisation of the desalination plant is particularly important for O'Farrell, as it will provide seed funding for his other big-ticket promise, Infrastructure NSW.
So, despite his determination not to do deals, it would appear that on at least some of his most important legislation, O'Farrell will be forced to negotiate.
Except, of course, if there is no need for legislation.
When the Iemma government faced losing the vote over its plans to privatise the state's electricity assets, it sought legal advice, which said it didn't need to go through Parliament.
This is an option which remains open to O'Farrell, also subject to legal advice.
O'Farrell has already started arguing that he should not face any impediments because his election win has delivered in a significant mandate.
Parliament resumes on May 3, shortly after which we will learn if the minor parties are prepared to respect it.