Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott will lead a Coalition government with a strong majority after yesterday’s federal election. The Coalition looks to have picked up 15-20 seats and will hold around 90 in a new Parliament; when counting had finished last night, the Coalition was predicted to pick up 89 seats to Labor’s 57. The final numbers will almost certainly shift as counting resumes today and postal ballots are counted in the days ahead.
Abbott’s gains came in NSW (a 3% swing to the Coalition), Victoria (5.25%) and Tasmania (10%), as well as a seat each in South Australia (5.5%) and Queensland (1.5%). The only faint positives for Labor was that the predicted rout in western Sydney failed to materialise, with Treasurer Chris Bowen holding his seat of McMahon and Jaymes Diaz’s debacle of a campaign for the Liberals producing a swing to Labor in Greenway. Kevin Rudd suffered a swing against him but the oft-predicted loss of a Prime Ministerial seat predicted by pollsters never looked likely.
The surprise of the night was the performance of Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party, which exceeded predictions and achieved between 11-12% of the vote in Queensland and looks to have picked up the seat of Fairfax for Palmer himself, a Queensland Senate spot for former footballer Glenn Lazarus and possibly two other spots.
Seats still in doubt include Indi, where Sophie Mirabella is in danger of succumbing to the challenge of independent Cathy McGowan, Eden-Monaro, where Labor frontbencher Mike Kelly’s early lead has been run down by the Liberals’ Peter Hendy, and Labor backbencher John Murphy’s western Sydney seat of Reid.
An upbeat Kevin Rudd conceded defeat before 10pm and said he would not recontest the Labor leadership, declaring it was time for generational change in the party.
While counting for Senate places is still in preliminary stages, Lazarus may be joined by two other Palmer senators and several other independents/minor parties, with obscure parties such as the Liberal Democrats, the Motoring Enthusiasts, the Sports Party and Family First all in the mix to pick up Senate spots.
And after News Corporation’s urging that the the Greens be “destroyed at the ballot box”, they have easily held Melbourne, picked up an additional spot in Victoria, look likely to hang on in South Australia and might save Scott Ludlam in Western Australia and are an outside chance to pick up another spot in NSW. However, they are unlikely to hold the balance of power from July 2014 with such a large crossbench. This will enable Abbott to secure passage of legislation through the Senate, if he’s able to negotiate with such an array of eclectic interests.
“The Greens play the game hard — volunteers had earlier donned Liberal blue shirts on the booths and circulated how-to-vote cards to encourage Docklands Tories to buck the Coalition’s official directive…”
Is that right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that against the law? If not – morally, how is fraud justified in the Greens mindset?
Sorry, I meant to post my comment below on the story about the Greens Melbourne victory… (my browser went berserk)
The Senate will be the real source of drama in the latter half of 2014. Hope Clive doesn’t feel too lonely on the cross bench in the Reps without Madhatter but at least he can chat to Bandt about his CIA funding.
The Coalition won 3 extra seats in Vic. And so far the biggest swing of a state towards it – 5.25%. The swings to the Coalition occurred in NSW, Vic and Tasmania. The rest of the states were largely unchanged. Why the change in the Eastern States? Part of the reason can be put down to state government leadership or lack of it. The NSW backlash against the ALP in the state election can be seen in the 2013 federal election. And in Victoria, we have a great Premier in Dennis Napthine. A vet from country Victoria and he’s become one of the state’s best Premiers. He’s definitely part of the reason the Coalition have done so well in Victoria. Also good local candidates – Sarah Henderson as the Liberal candidate in Corangamite in particular. Greenway swinging to the ALP is also an example of a good local candidate winning out, when all the pundits had all of Western Sydney turning Liberal.
I agree with your treatise on the Federal issues Bernard, but as always, there are local elements to the 2013 election too.
Speaking of the eastern states, here comes Campbell Newman again with a rather large and bloodied axe…