Eight seats remain on the Electoral Commission’s close seats list and although the parties regard the contest as over it’s amazing to see how lucky the Liberals have been.
Labor appears to have lost the Western Australian seat of Swan, but has gained the Darwin-based seat of Solomon, the NSW Central Coast electorate of Robertson and the new, notionally-National Party Queensland seat of Flynn.
It’s generally believed that former minister Fran Bailey has hung on in the Victoria electorate McEwen and that Queenslander Peter Lindsay will just keep Herbert.
The count in another Queensland seat, Dickson, held by former minister, Peter Dutton, is tight but good enough for Brendan Nelson. Dutton was appointed to the shadow ministry yesterday.
Another Queensland Liberal, Andrew Laming, appears to survived allegations of electorate allowance rorting to hold Bowman by the skin of his teeth.
“On election night and the following day, the best bet seemed to be that Labor would emerge with between 86 and 88 seat,” William Bowe observes at The Poll Bludger.
“After that, Labor watched leads disappear in one seat after another… Present indications suggest [the Coalition] will win five of seven seats determined by margins of less than 0.3 per cent.”
It appears that the new house will have 83 ALP members, 65 Coalition MPs and two independents. The Libs have got lucky indeed.
Even if they just win a seat, they enjoy all the advantages incumbency. Their mega marginal MPs will be able to start taxpayer funded campaigns immediately – under the guise of informing their constituents, naturally. This frees up hundred of thousands of dollars for use in the seats Labor has just won.
The Coalition also has a much smaller target to win government than the 16 seats Kevin Rudd needed.
Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan will need to start cutting spending now to keep inflation under control, then bring in further spending cuts at budget time in May. The United States economy and banks will add to their challenges.
It mightn’t be fair, but things could be tough by the time we vote in late 2010 or early 2011.
The Liberals will certainly appreciate their luck then.
This is a tad silly Christian. The Libs will gain a couple of extra seats with all the trappings, but they will have 63-65 seats compared to Labor’s 83-85. And the ALP will campaign from Government. I don’t think 2-3 extra seats will have a major impact.
Reminds me of the Whitlam government’s small safety margin, but with a better Senate from 1 July. Given that
the ALP had to make up enormous ground in one election, it is not surprising and reflective of the late polls.
Why is it luck if Libs win a seat? The myth of a Rudd slide vanishes with the numbers & Libs have far less of a challenge in winning 11 seats than Labor faced. Why is it so hard to accept that almost half voted Liberal?