Australian Election Results
August 21st, 2010 at 10:27 pm by David Farrar1253 Latest from ABC is Coal 73 and Lab 72. I still think Gillard will hang on but it will be claimed she has lost moral mandate to govern by coming second.
11:26 Wow it is getting tight, and a hung Parliament now more likely. Labor and Coalition both have 68 seats. Greens 1 and Independents 4. That leaves nine seats to decide it. At present five have Labor in front and four Libs, so that would be 73 Labor 72 Coalition. Gillard will need not just the Green MP but at least one of the four Independents. Abbott is now down and out yet if this eventuates. He could govern with all four Independents. Greens will hold balance of power in Senate.
11:20 Abbott will not be PM, but will (like Don Brash) be revered as the opposition leader who almost won the unwinnable election. A difference is Abbott did it after one term, meaning Labor will have to work very hard to get a third term.
10:50 Sky TV now saying hung Parliament a strong possibility if Labor lose seats in WA or SA.
10:35 In the event of a hung Parliament, Julia Gillard will remain Prime Minister I predict. The one or two Green MPs will back her, and the three Independents are more likely to – despite being former Nats.
10:30: Not at the bar as my internal clock is still not adjusted from Europe and I fell asleep at 6 pm and just woke back up at 10.30 pm!
At the moment it is looking like the Coalition picks up 15 and loses 3, which would leave Labor with exactly 76 seats – the bare minimum needed to govern alone.
While any victory is a victory, to come so close to being the only first term Government to almost lose power since the 1930s will be a nasty wakeup call.
Related posts:
- Thoughts on the Australian election result
- Victoria State Election
- Australian State Results
- Australian Election Results
August 21st, 2010 at 10:30 pm
When one of the ALP MPs is Kevin Rudd, I can only say that if Labour holds on then we’ll see another election within the year.
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Have you been looking at the Green swing?
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Aren’t the Aussies so lucky to get to listen so much, to that lovely lady with the flame hair and soothing voice!
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:42 pm
I assume you mean a by-election Metcalph, not a general. They did a deal with Rudd to send him to the UN
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:44 pm
TimG,
That’s only been rumoured.
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Yeah wake up calls can be nasty for governments and the jet lagged
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:48 pm
DPF:
So are you still heading out to the bar for your lemon, lime and bitters… or whatever?
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:49 pm
Sure – like it was only rumour that he was the leak that was killing the campaign, which suddenly stopped
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Him and Aunty Hulun can swap revenge stories.
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 10:56 pm
It’ll only be a wakeup call if their position remains tenuous throughout the term. If they gain some modicum of stability, or feel a degree of complacency, they’ll fall back into the pattern of fucking the electorate. Well, let’s be honest here, they’ll continue to do that anyway, but they’ll take a more softly softly approach. And I don’t say this as somebody who believes that the Liberals will do any better. They’re both horrible choices. The system is broken, or breaking down at best. In some ways, it seems to be a checks and balances problem (extension and abuse of government power, etc), in others it’s an incentives problem (the attraction of high quality candidates unbound to a stupid ideology, etc).
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 11:15 pm
Right now the LNP coalition are the bigger loser. Where Labor has lost it is because they moved too far to the right of the electorate. The majority of votes are to the left, Labor have leaked too much to Greens.
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Behold, the fevered mind of Billy Bonkers.
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Why the hell is TVNZ 7 or TV One covering the Australian election? Its shameful.
And why can’t we get a preferential system for electorates here?
Vote:August 21st, 2010 at 11:42 pm
Gingercrush go here http://www.abc.net.au/ just click on the election.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:00 am
Frankenstein’s Monster banging on about his vote count.
Piss off Gweens.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:19 am
Three out of the four independents would be very unlikely to back Gillard. Tony Windsor (one of them) seems to be leaning toward a confidence and supply agreement and perhaps an issue-by-issue negotiation (if I’m interpreting him correctly) and has confirmed that the three conservative independents will informally caucus.
The fourth – Andrew Wilkie – is an interesting case. He’s the intelligence analyst who leaked anti-Iraq stuff which was designed to (and did) damage Howard’s government. Then stood unsuccessfully for the Greens. Then had a bust up with them and has now stood and won as an independent. No one knows which way he’ll go, but considering the Liberals basically tried to have him imprisoned for leaking…
If Abbott gets across the line and cobbles together a government he’ll face an even bigger problem – Greens control of the Senate.
ABC CEO Mark Scott has just tweeted “better keep the set up, there’ll be another election in 18 months”.
And Senator Helen Coonan (Libs) excitedly told the ABC Radio panel (of which she’s a member) that “I’ve just been tweeted that Tanya Plibersek has conceded Melbourne to the Greens” only to be told by the host that Plibersek represented a Sydney seat *facepalm*
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:23 am
Thanks David http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=26897355&blogId=538435974 hopeyou can get back to sleep
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:23 am
Labor: noble and conciliatory in the face of defeat. Not.
Former ABC TV doyenne Maxine McKew, hand picked by KRudd to stand against John Howard, loses Bennelong and blames the Labor campaign, the caucus, and basically everyone but herself. “I needn’t have stood in a marginal. I had better offers, let me tell you”.
That performance, plus the fact that the horrific and horrendous Allanah MacTiernan (ALP) didn’t win Canning, causes your humble correspondent to uncork another bottle…
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:32 am
Even if Gillard forms a government, it is hard to see it surviving long in the face of the bitterness, recriminations and infighting.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:38 am
Labor: fair and honest in campaigning. Not.
In Penrith in western Sydney, in the Labor-held but at-risk marginal seat of Lindsay, ALP workers were wearing blue tee-shirts almost identical in colour to the shirts worn by Liberal campaign workers with the name of Labor’s sitting MP David Bradbury but no mention of “Labor.”
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:42 am
Anyone wanting to know the background of the Australian election need only watch Taiwanese News, complete with 3D rendering of Julia stabbing Kevin in the back!!
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:43 am
Rex:
I don’t know what’s in that bottle you’ve uncorked, but I vote you uncork many more, and let the great commentary keep flowing
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 12:53 am
Labor: Lackeys to the very end. Why yes!
Can’t find any video of his performances so far (try Googling it later) but Treasurer Wayne Swan managed to answer every question put to him by both the ABC’s and Channel 9′s panels by saying “I just want to acknowledge the [insert sickening superlative here] leadership of Julia Gillard”.
I’d have tried slipping in a question as to how he copes with peeing sitting down and seen if I got the same response
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:02 am
I’d like to see Liarbore limp across the finish line and then get destroyed in a year.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:03 am
ALP powerbroker Stephen Smith celebrates great victory for Glorious Leader Gillard.
Don’t know why he looks so depressed… at least if they lose he won’t face the ignominy of getting the arse out of Foreign Affairs so Rudd can be bribed to stop leaking.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:07 am
Re my 12.23, the video of McKew spewing bile is now online. It makes Winston talking about Rodney look like a romantic sonnet
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:13 am
1:12am, ABC Online has it Labor 70, Coalition 73
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:16 am
Gillard and Abbott both preparing to speak to the media….
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:18 am
Just to prove I’m not just celebrating the demise of Labor I’m also raising a glass to the departing figure of Liberal MP Wilson “Ironbar” Tuckey who got his nickname after he was convicted in 1967 for beating an Aboriginal man with an iron bar. If challenged on the incident, Tuckey goes to pains to explain that it was “actually a length of steel cable”.
Needless to say he hasn’t mellowed with age… even David Garrett would probably call him a nutbar.
He also repeatedly expressed the opinion that the giant intellects of Parliament like himself were “underpaid by about $100,000 a year” and is the member of whom Paul Keating once famously said “He’s flat out counting past 10″.
(Oh, and Family First Senator Steve Fiedling)
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:21 am
Meanwhile the Libs get Australia’s youngest ever politician, 20 year old Wyatt Roy. The ABC tried to interview him from his celebratory function but the lights went out. At least one commenter has suggested it was his mum and dad reminding him it was past his bedtime
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:22 am
She speaks, yet she says nothing – what of that?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:24 am
Given that the Green seat is Labours in all but name it looks like four independents will rule Oz.
Who’d a thought that?
Rex, no comment on the green shirt wearing NLP fellows in Q’land?
Before the election was called Ockers were laughing at Abbott.
Only Ockers would vote for a joke.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:25 am
250 000 informal votes in NSW, Wow.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:29 am
Fletch “She speaks, yet she says nothing…”
Mate, that’s the case every time the venal, commie bitch opens her pie-hole. There are so many weasel-words and so much arm waving every time she speaks, even the MSM have trouble translating her BS into the usual leftist propaganda.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:33 am
V, the choice was between the Ocker versions of Helen Clark and Graeme Lee.
The wonder is it was only 250,000.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:39 am
Interesting for me is that with 75.3% of the vote countered the swing to the coalition is just 1.7%.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 am
Fletch:
Gillard is being very careful, realising that winning the independents will be the difference between winning and losing.
If ALP 73 + Wilkie (ex Green) + Bandt Green) = 75 and Coalition + Oakeshott + Windsor + Katter = 75, then there seems to be no choice but a new election. And that’s entirely possible. Labor has 70 and there’s two still counting (Corangamite and Lindsay ) where Labor is ahead. And a few (such as Hasluck) where it could go either way on preferences.
So she won’t concede… her speech sounded more like a campaign speech than an election night address and she specifically said they will “keep fighting till we have a result”.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 am
@MT_Tinman,
Well I guess over 600 000 nationally is a huge amount of spoilt votes, and wasted paper – that doesn’t help climate change!?
Your right, a choice between the operator of boat hotline and a bogan with a slogan is not much of a choice.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:43 am
MT_Tinman:
Greens scooped up most of the disaffected Labor vote. They’re up 3.8% and have probably doubled their Senate representation from 5 to 10 (or at least 8). Brown called it a “Greenslide”… which conjured up an image of the contents of a baby’s nappy (or is that just me)?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 am
Rex
The Taiwanese news link was extraordinary. Cheers.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 am
Question of the night: Given his appearance in speedos, will Tony Abbott be comfortable in a hung Parliament?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 am
Rex, well put.
Can’t help but agree.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:51 am
Best tweet of the night: “Australia has a hung Parliament? I thought they elected their leaders over there by a different method – knife fight in the prison yard”.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:53 am
# Rex Widerstrom (3,218) Says:
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 am
Question of the night: Given his appearance in speedos, will Tony Abbott be comfortable in a hung Parliament?
Given that and the other fellow (Guillard) CAN it be a hung parliament?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:56 am
400,000 more votes for the Coalition than ALP, cool.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:59 am
Somehow I doubt we will be hearing any left-winger complaining about:
a) winning the popular vote but losing the election (I think I heard a lot about that sort of undemocratic result being caused by a stupid electoral system several years ago)
b) a woman leader with a strong, “hick”, accent! (and I’m sure I’ve heard about that in the last couple of years)
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 2:04 am
The election parties tell the real story.
Labor’s.
Liberals’.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 8:54 am
A couple of points
Currently Labor holds more seats then the Liberal Party, AEC figures show
ALP – 71
Lib – 42
LibNatQld – 21
Nat – 7
Others – 8 (includes doubtful)
The Liberal Party has NEVER been able to gain sufficient votes to form a government without being in coalition. This is far from a win for Abbott, especially as the swing to Liberal is the smallest swing to the opposition ever at the end of a first term government.
The AEC site is also currently showing a 2 party preferred vote of
ALP 50.69
Coalition 49.31
It seems to me that Labor’s biggest mistake was not being left enough, look at the vote leak to the Greens.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 9:12 am
It’s all going to be about deals now. If Gillard is anything like Helen she’ll be making promises up hill and down dale to the independents – anything, as long as she gets into power.
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 9:31 am
And you think Abbott won’t be doing the same?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 9:31 am
Anybody want to wager how long it will be before Australia has another election (at least for the lower house)?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 9:42 am
MyNameIsJack, oh sure he’ll be looking to make a deal, but some will compromise more just to get what they want (Helen comparison again).
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 11:24 am
Unlike say, Hone Key, taking one for the Maori party and selling NZ down the awa?
Vote:August 22nd, 2010 at 1:06 pm
MNIJ – yer a f’kn idiot, not only do those figures look WRONG. But you forgot that ITS A COALITION!!!!!! Count Lib + NAT + LNP as one you intelligent deficit moron.
Vote:August 23rd, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Julia Gillard has 3 cards to play – She probably has a working majority in the Senate that is more workable than Tony Abbott, she has a couple of policies that are quite good – a big state broadband plan ( probably not credible) and policies on education and health, and she got a narrow majority in the 2 party preferred vote. BUT there is great instability brewing in the ALP. The bloodletting is just happening. I doubt Julia Gillard will see the Parliament out because the faction heads thinks SHE lost them Government. She set the coup off, she went far too early, she made strategic mistakes in the campaign. Gillard cannot offer stable Government. So it is Abbott providing they win 74 seats and that seems possible.
Vote: