Nats wiped out in Lyne, big swing against Libs in Mayo. Interesting stuff happening in the two federal by-elections tonight. It’s all over red rover for the Nats candidate in Mark Vaile’s old seat of Lyne, Rob Drew, who’s on about 22% of the primary vote – a swing against the Nationals of over 30%. With two thirds of the vote counted, Independent Rob Oakeshott has romped in with nearly 64% of the primary vote counted so far. The Nats are now down to a historic low of nine seats in the House of Representatives… In Mayo, there’s a swing against the Liberals of around 11%, with the Greens’ Lynton Vonow polling strongly. — Larvatus Prodeo

W.A. – State of Uncertainty. Trying to understand the result of the Western Australian election on Saturday was complicated by uncertainties over the count. But in the cool light of a Sunday afternoon, it appears that the possibility of Labor being re-elected cannot be discounted. — Antony Green, ABC

WA: Worst. Campaign. Ever. This was an election where all of the ALP’s problems over the last 6-8 years came home to roost. There was no central theme. The campaign material was ugly, late out, badly written, and largely unrelated to anything voters actually cared about. The central campaign was a shambles, courtesy of a complete disconnect between the Parliamentary Labor party, party office, and the lay ALP membership. — Larvatus Prodeo

A weekend of elections. Everyone is looking for the wider significances of all this and there will obviously be some fallout. If the WA government changes (most likely) that will end Labor’s unprecedented dominance across the country and it will be interesting to see what that does to COAG, the institution Kevin Rudd has put a lot of attention into. That will most likely be the biggest national ramification. The waning of the National’s presence in the Federal parliament is also an issue, but in policy terms, the new member for Lynne (a former National) is unlikely to make much difference. Beyond that, I not sure about many of the interpretations currently on offer. — Tim Dunlop, Blogocracy

Michael Costa sacked. Update: Iemma resigns. The only question is why it took Morris Iemma so long to see what everyone else could see plainly. Apparently Paul Keating had a hand in the decision. — Larvatus Prodeo

And here’s a bonus article from the Canberra Times writing up a speech made by John Howard over the weekend…

Rudd’s here for the short term, says Howard. The Coalition should think of the Rudd Government as a one-term government, former Prime Minister John Howard told a large crowd of Coalition supporters at a dinner in Canberra last night. — Canberra Times