BOB Katter is a larrikin famous for wearing a 10-gallon hat over his shock of white hair, an unabashed protectionist who walked out on the National Party in the lead-up to the 2001 election, declaring Howard government policies had destroyed the livelihoods of tobacco growers in his constituency.
Tony Windsor is a tough pragmatist who believes the major parties have ignored regional and rural Australia. After a period in the New South Wales Parliament when he held the biggest margin in the state, he switched as a federal Independent to New England, the northern NSW seat previously held by long-time Nationals leader Ian Sinclair.
Rob Oakeshott, a cosmopolitan character with a social conscience, likewise holds a traditional National Party seat held previously by another Nationals leader, Mark Vaile, for whom he once worked. He describes his style as ''community politics'', by which he means putting his electorate first.
These three Independent MPs today hold the key to who forms government - Julia Gillard's Labor or Tony Abbott's Coalition.
However, it is far too simplistic to assume these three former National Party members will automatically support the Coalition. They are very independent Independents who have long-standing axes to grind with their old party - antipathies that are reciprocated.
Tony Windsor made clear his disaffection with senior National Party figures when he called Queensland National Barnaby Joyce ''a fool'' during a heated exchange on TV on election night. Bob Katter sent shivers through the Coalition
on Saturday night when he accused Nationals leader Warren Truss of attacking him personally and described an unplugged intervention by Senator Joyce as a ''similar piece of incredible unfortunateness''.
Along with Rob Oakeshott, who holds the NSW coastal seat of Lyne, all three have proved extremely successful in their independence, sitting on comfortable margins that have proved impossible for the major parties to breach.
And all have been preparing for some time to flex their collective muscle in the case of a hung parliament, which now confronts the Federal Parliament.
A month ago they agreed to ''caucus'' before they entered any discussions with the major parties. They also agreed to consider seeking a meeting with Treasury secretary Ken Henry to get detailed advice about the economy and to compare the spending plans of the Labor Party and the Coalition.
The agreement bodes uncertain times for Mr Abbott and Ms Gillard as they try to reach workable arrangements.
The gang of three is not a naturally cohesive political group. Its members are united only in their opposition to the structured party system, and each of them commands large blocs of support from both traditional Labor and Coalition voters in their electorates.
Mr Katter's electorate of Kennedy covers almost a third of Queensland and despite - or perhaps because of - his outspoken manner, he is considered one of the savviest electorate operators in Australia.
He says he learned his craft by wandering from town to town, property to property, simply listening and understanding the well of anger that had built up in remote communities.
One of the toughest problems for Tony Abbott in his attempt to win support from these three renegades from the conservative fold is their strong support for the Gillard government's National Broadband Network.
Mr Katter, who was appalled by the Howard government's Telstra sell-off, believes privatised communications will inevitably harm rural residents because private operators would have no reason to maintain loss-making operations in remote areas.
Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott share this view, although their support for the broadband network is more nuanced, but they consider Mr Abbott's scheme inferior.
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