Isentia Index: Are you paying attention yet?

The election may have finally sparked the interest of most Australians, after it was meant to be over, by not being over. Media coverage has focused on recriminations on the Coalition side after what looked like a landslide nine months ago became Australia’s second draw in three elections. They don’t even have draws in Test cricket that often anymore.

Not much media focus on questioning what was seen as an extraordinarily good result from Bill Shorten, despite the polls having said 50-50 throughout the campaign, so perhaps the coverage should have been more about why did the media largely ignore the polls? Perhaps in a few days more fingers might be pointed at Daniel Andrews, whose dispute with the CFA may very well have cost the Labor Party a win. Anthony Albanese was meanwhile asked to rule out challenging Bill Shorten for the leadership, which he eventually did.

Pauline Hanson is back, with her party One Nation getting over 15% in some seats, and it will be interesting to see how much focus she gets from the media, compared to the many other crossbench senators just elected. Nick Xenophon is definitely not short of media coverage, after his candidate Rebekha Sharkie won a lower house seat and he finally got the number of senators that his vote totals in SA reflect, meaning he will have considerable power in the new parliament. Although if the Senate was truly nationally proportional…but that’s a discussion for another day.

Pauline Hanson slips ahead of Tony Abbott on social media, and I think she’ll probably stay there.

And it was all Pauline on talkback too, plenty of punters thrilled at her return. Ironic that many are big fans of both Pauline and Tony, considering their litigious past.

The grand slam just was not meant to be this time around, although it might only get harder from now on. Looks like Rod Laver’s record might stay safe for quite some time.