Election day is over and we still don’t know who won.
Malcolm Turnbull says he has “every confidence” the Coalition will be able to form a majority government.
But no-one can really say with certainty what the outcome will be — not even ABC election analyst Antony Green.
That raises a lot of prickly questions, so let’s lay it all out.
How did we get here?
OK, let’s keep this simple:
- To form a majority government, you need to win 76 seats.
- The Coalition has won 67 seats.
- Labor also has 67 seats.
- There are two independents, one Greens MP, one Nick Xenophon Team MP and Bob Katter.
- And 11 seats remain in doubt.
Green says the Coalition will win more of the seats that are in doubt.
So what could happen?
There are two main scenarios:
- The Coalition picks up nine or more of the “in doubt” seats and can form a majority government.
- The Coalition does not reach the 76 mark and Australia has a hung parliament.
Green says the Coalition will win more seats than Labor, so a Labor majority government is not a possibility.
Leigh Sales is copping sexist backlash over her interview with Bill Shorten on 7.30. Post continues below…
What happens next?
We wait.
It will be some days before we know the outcome in every seat.
Less than 80 per cent of the vote has been counted so far, and the PM says the Australian Electoral Commission will not do any further counting on Sunday or Monday.
Counting — including postal and absentee votes — will resume on Tuesday.
“The Liberal Party is much stronger on organising postal vote campaigns than Labor on recent elections,” Green notes.
“It’s a cliche to say it will go down to postals but in modern voting trends that is important.”
When will we know who wins?
It’s not clear.
There are bound to be disputes over votes and, in seats where it really comes down the wire, there could be legal challenges.
Sometimes, with postal or absentee votes, it will be “a long and tedious process”, Green says, “because the parties will check every name that’s come in and check it against their list of who they think that’s voted and they’ll maybe question a signature here or date of birth on the form”.
What if it’s a hung parliament?
A hung parliament happens when no party has more than half the MPs in the House of Representatives, which means no party can pass laws without gaining support from other parties or independent members of the House.
That support could come in the form of a formal coalition, or the governing party may have to negotiate with the other parties to get laws passed.
The party in power — in this case Mr Turnbull and the Coalition — typically has the first opportunity to form government.
It would need to win a motion of confidence in the House of Representatives.
How might a minority government work this time?
The Liberal Party appears certain to have the highest number of seats and in the case of hung Parliament would need the support of crossbenchers to pass that motion of confidence.
It might look to figures such as independent MP Cathy McGowan, newly elected Nick Xenophon Team MP Rebekha Sharkie and long-serving north Queensland MP Bob Katter to get across the line.
For the Labor Party, it would likely need the support of all the minor party and independent candidates in order to form a minority government. That would prove a significantly harder task.
Didn’t this happen recently?
Yes. It happened in the 2010 election, which was contested by Labor leader Julia Gillard and Liberal leader Tony Abbott.
In the end, a handful of crossbenchers — including independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, and Adam Bandt of the Greens — sided with Labor and helped return Ms Gillard as PM.
Before that, you had to go back to 1940 for a hung Parliament. In that case, Robert Menzies was able to form and lead a coalition government, but subsequently lost support and was succeeded by Arthur Fadden in mid-1941.
Later that year, two independents switched their support to Labor and John Curtin became prime minister.
Um, what about the Senate?
Senate counting takes longer than the Lower House, so that’s going to take some time yet.
Results so far suggest whoever forms government will need to work with a significant crossbench, including:
- Pauline Hanson, who will return to the Parliament as a senator.
- Media figure Derryn Hinch, who is likely to take a spot in Victoria.
- At least two and likely three Nick Xenophon Team senators in South Australia.
- A re-elected Jacqui Lambie in Tasmania.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
© 2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. Read the ABC Disclaimer here.
Top Comments
What will happen
More infighting
More backstabbing
More false promises
So, yesterday I stood at the ballot box looking at the little green paper thinking that for the first time I had no idea who to vote for. None... So i turned to the great white sheet and still no joy there. Who are these random people, what do they stand for? I selected some preferences whose names I liked and didn't come from parties who I found offensive. And then stood for a further 15 minutes staring back again at the green ballot paper before making my selection.
What was clear to me, was that none of the people on the ballot represented my interests as a woman, as mother, and as an Australian. That not a single promise or smear made, resonated with me, and that if it did i didn't believe a word. NOT AT ALL. That's why we have no result, they all suck.
I filled out the white paper for the independents. With the green got my pencil and put a line across all the candidates and wrote 'not interested in any'. Why should I vote for the sake of voting? Why should I vote for something I don't believe in?
No, that is not why we have the result that we do (which is a result). It's because different people have different priorities and vote accordingly.
If you don't know anything about the candidates, you clearly have a computer, they're all on the internet, look them up and find out what they stand for.
If you get to the polling booth with no idea who anyone is, don't vote, just put blank forms in the boxes. We don't want people just randomly numbering boxes. This is important,
And you don't need to be a woman to come to that conclusion. I'm a middle-aged white man and can tell you that when the choice was between Abbott and Shorten, I would have only gone for Labor because they couldn't be worse than an Abbott government. But I didn't like that as an option.
Then Turnbull took over and I breathed a sigh of relief. Here was someone who seemed to "get it". I finally had someone to vote for.
Then Old Malcolm turned into New Malcolm, who is basically just a more coherent version of Tony Abbott, but with less conviction for the far-right-wing garbage he was selling. And then I had no one to vote for again.
Still, the future of internet communications is important to me, and especially to my children, so I had to lean toward Labor after New Malcolm decided we didn't really need a world-class network in his "Innovation Nation.
This kind of comment annoys me, because you said who are these random people, so it appears you have made no effort to educate yourself on what any of the parties are doing, then you say that none represent you, but how would you know if you haven't made any effort to find out what each party has to offer. Also there a lot of parties out there, particularly in the senate, some are pro medicare, some are pro animals rights, some are pro seniors rights, some are pro voluntary euthanasia, some are pro religion, some are anti religion, some are for more immigration, some are for less immigration, some are for less trade unionism, some are for more trade unionism, some are for more money to state schools, some are for more money to private schools, some are for better childcare, some are not. So there is not a single party amongst of all these that you can't find some issues that maybe you agree with? But then how would you know if you didn't look?
See this is what frustrates me about the great Australian public, everyone likes to whinge about politics yet half the time they don't even make any effort to find out what the parties stand for.
If someone says that there are some parties that represent some of what I believe in, but some things I disagree with and other things don't appear to be represented, well then fair enough I can understand that comment but to be completely diss them all without knowing what any of them are about I think is just very ignorant. Apart from all of that if a party doesn't represent your particular subset of issues, then do what others have done, either set up your own party, or lobby for changes. For instance the whole gay marriage push came from years and years of tireless campaigning (just to give one example of a topical issue). The Greens, to give another example, spent years in the political wilderness (excuse the pun) being called crazies over their stance on climate change, before they got anywhere. By the way I didn't vote Greens, as I don't like their stance on some other issues, but I am just making a point about them as an example, because many people involved in politics have worked extremely hard and been derided for following their passions.
I myself am involved in a political party and have spent weeks helping them campaign about issues that are dear to some people's hearts (but perhaps not yours but I don't think there is a party that aligns with every person in Australia), and today I am utterly exhausted. Yet all we ever hear is people deriding the parties and politics. And yes half the time the wrong parties get elected, because people who don't know anything much about the parties elect them in and then are surprised when they turn out to be nazis or something. get involved in the process and educate yourself as to what the parties are about.