The outcome of the 2016 election remains in the balance after a substantial swing against the government has caused it to lose nearly all of its majority and elected another independent-filled Senate.
At the close of counting last night, Labor looks to have definitely claimed nine additional seats — about what it was expected to pick up, according to most polls — and the Nick Xenophon Team has taken a House of Representatives seat in its first election. The ALP is also ahead in the seat of Herbert and currently level in Chisholm, a Labor seat that had looked as if it had shifted to the Coalition last night.
Beyond those, there remain seven seats too close to call; Labor is ahead of the Coalition in five of them, and some other seats currently in the Coalition column remain theoretically in play as well. It is possible that Labor could end up gaining 15 seats, leaving Malcolm Turnbull short of the 76 seats he needs to govern in his own right. Labor is currently in a tight contest with the Greens in Batman but remains ahead there, and the ALP has fought off a strong Greens performance in the seat of Wills. Labor performed particularly strongly in Tasmania, picking up three seats from the Liberals, but was unable to shift any seats in Victoria.
[Has anyone seen the elusive member for Batman?]
On current counting, the government has suffered a 3.7% swing on its primary vote and a 3.4% swing in two party preferred terms.
In the Senate, it is almost certain that it will be every bit as ungovernable as the last one. Pauline Hanson has easily won a quota in Queensland and may well bring a second One Nation senator in with her, and she even has a chance of a NSW senator. In Victoria, Derryn Hinch looks likely to win a spot; in South Australia, NXT has 2.8 quotas, meaning it is likely to field three senators; Jacqui Lambie has also been successful in Tasmania. The Greens, however, appear likely to lose at least three spots, losing senators in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. Preference allocation means a number of Senate spots remain up for grabs at this point.
[Poll Bludger: the Pauline Hanson factor]
A happy Bill Shorten declared that “Labor is back” to a delighted crowd in Melbourne at Labor’s election event. The Prime Minister, however, did not arrive at the Coalition’s Sydney function until well after midnight, to declare that he expected to be able to form a majority government. The Prime Minister angrily lashed Labor for its Medicare scare campaign and even attacked internal critics in a remarkable “election night” speech that betrayed deep unhappiness on the part of a Prime Minister who seized the leadership last September promising to deliver his party electoral success.
Turnbull’s deeply-misjudged address was astonishing, at times bordering on the unhinged. This to me is the single lasting image of the entire night: a glimpse of the petulant disdain that a certain kind of brittle born-to-dominate personality will succumb to when lesser people just don’t do what you and you alone know is good for them. It’s an echo of the elite response to Brexit, a sour, plaintive and semi-coherent mix of hautiness and plaintive narcissistic pleading. He chopped between telling six or seven million voters that they’d been stupidly and ignorantly manipulated, by nasty and conniving (and possibly criminal!) millionaire Union thugs, and almost begging everyone to be united and positive about the future (as he sees it) because, well, to do anything else is to hide under a doona like a bubby.
Dear lord, why not just tell Australia to ‘suck on it’ outright with the same directness of Leigh Sales.
The damage to his personal brand is devastating. When you look at the cold hard numbers he’ll have to own, the impossibility of internal ‘stability’, the door opened on even more Senate chaos (including a ressurrected Hanson that nobody wants but least of all his own tenuous progressive base inside the Libs), the self-mocking act of clutching desperately and belatedly for the IR non-issue at the core of a DD gamble about which he apparently ‘had no choice’…oh ‘well, we did actually…’ ramble ramble…you’re left with a smoking pile of very little.
Wow. Just…wow.
And dear god…months of pain over the same sex marriage debacle – long public debates over this or that ‘mandate’ and then a conscience vote in the ‘broad church’, anyone?? – and economic implosion ahead into which even on a small governing majority he’ll be bound to lob the ‘mandated’ big biz tax cut which clearly most people don’t buy…bloody hell.
JackR – agree about Talcum’s froth filled campaign launch masquerading as a victory speech – it reminded me of Krudd’s victory speech in 2013 when Labor lost, or threw it away, to the Abbotrocity.
Is there some chemical in those soft leather Benches that addles the brain, given them delusions of adequacy?
Agree Jack, totally unhinged. He was sulking inside his aggression. Absolutely no grace an didn’t extend sorrow to the likes of Roy and Briggs for losing. We got a creep on our hands.
Loz, bit of a stretch to extend the sorry to likes of Roy( currently being investigated AFP) & Briggs (the international groper)! Otherwise agree total lack of grace and unhinged.
It would be interesting to know whether Turnbull threw one of his famous tanties at campaign team. I hope he was being secretly recorded…
There’s never been a better time to watch Australian politics?
Half of the population (on 2 party basis) yet again voted for an elitist party that looks after its own and treats poverty as a moral deficiency.
Perhaps I am not very bright.