Culture

Everything You Need To Know About Last Night’s Federal Election

So what the f**k happened last night?

by Osman Faruqi  3 July 2016

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For the second time in just six years Australians woke up on the Sunday after the election to news that no one had won and the country was an ungovernable mess. The election result is so close that we don’t know which party will form government or who the Prime Minister will be for at least another couple of weeks, and we could be facing another hung parliament.

If you thought that was messy consider this: Senator Pauline Hanson, Senator Derryn Hinch and Senator Jacqui Lambie. Yep, it’s happening.

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What Happened Last Night?

As soon as the results started coming in it looked like we were in for a tight race. The ABC’s electoral analyst Antony Green declared early on that it was going to be a long night, which was Australia’s cue to run to the bottleshop and stock up.

When Labor started winning key marginal seats like Eden-Monaro and Macquarie in NSW commentators and pundits lost their minds and realised we could be about to witness a shock Labor win. You can relive all of last night’s excitement on Junkee’s live blog.

As the night wore on it looked like Labor had done better than expected but would fail to win the 76 seats required to win majority government. The Coalition faced off strong independent challenges from Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott in regional NSW and Tony Abbott easily saw off the threat from ex-Idol host James Mathison (booooo!). But even though they performed well in the regions, as of this morning it looks like the Coalition will struggle to win 76 seats as well, which puts us squarely in hung parliament territory, where neither side has a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.

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The Current State Of Play

The ABC is currently projecting Labor to win 67 seats and the Coalition to hang onto 65. Another six seats are undecided and leaning towards Labor while seven undecided seats are leaning towards the Coalition. If these remaining undecided seats fell that way, we would see the following seat totals: Labor: 73 seats Coalition: 72 seats The remaining five seats are split among the following minor parties and independents: Adam Bandt (Greens), Bob Katter (Katter’s Australia Party), Andrew Wilkie (Independent), Cathy McGowan (Independent) and Rebekha Sharkie (Nick Xenophon Team). In a situation where neither party has 76 seats Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull will have to negotiate with the above minor parties and independents to secure a majority. But both of them have pledged to not form a minority government, so it’s not exactly clear what happens next. If neither party can form a majority then the only option is to have another election. Yay! It’s far too early to call the election one way or another. While the ABC is projecting a certain set of results, there’s still about 20% of the total vote to be counted. The Australian Electoral Commission won’t start counting postal votes (there are 1 million of them) until Tuesday, and given how close the race is in many seats we’re unlikely to have a final result for at least another week. The projected results in a bunch of seats could change, and there’s chance the Coalition could still form majority government. –

What’s Going On In The Senate

Despite most of the attention being focused on the House of Representatives last night, the Australian Election Commission did start counting Senate votes and the results are … completely wild. It looks like both major parties and the Greens will lose Senate seats and the big winners appear to be Pauline Hanson and Nick Xenophon. In Queensland Pauline Hanson outpolled the Greens and will become a Senator. Her One Nation party also has a good chance of winning a Senate seat in NSW. Outspoken media personality and “justice” campaigner Derryn Hinch will pick up a seat in Victoria and Jacqui Lambie has been comfortably re-elected in Tasmania.

In South Australia Nick Xenophon has won an extraordinary three seats for his party, and the Greens have lost one seat there. The Greens could also lose two more seats in Western Australia and Victoria, but it’s too early in the count to know for sure. In NSW the final Senate seat looks like a battle between Fred Nile’s Christian Democrats and David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democrats.

However the Senate count ends up, it’s clear that whoever forms government will have a headache passing legislation and Pauline Hanson, Derryn Hinch and Jacqui Lambie will likely have an enormous amount of influence.

That’s right Australia: while we like to make fun of the US for Donald Trump, we just elected a Senator who wants to ban Muslims into the potential balance of power.

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So Who Won?

Good question. Bill Shorten sounded very confident last night as he delivered his speech to the party faithful. Labor strategists seem pretty happy, after all they have potentially pushed the Coalition into hung parliament territory. The downside for Labor is that they received their second worst primary vote since 1949, and did well largely due to preferences from minor parties, including the Greens and Pauline Hanson, believe it or not. Even in a hung parliament scenario it’s not clear how Labor could form a government given Bill Shorten has pledged not to do any deals with minor parties and independents.

Malcolm Turnbull is definitely the biggest loser out of this election. His decision to hold an early double dissolution has backfired massively. If he does win a majority it will be by the barest of margins and he will have to deal with a hostile Senate as well as the right-wing of his party.

The Greens have had a mixed election, though they clearly underperformed compared to the high expectations they set for themselves at the start of this campaign. While they made significant inroads into a raft of inner-city Melbourne seats, they failed to make a dent Labor’s Sydney heartland and actually went backwards in the seat of Grayndler, held by Labor’s Anthony Albanese. The party has lost a Senate seat in South Australia and faces a tight contest to hold onto its seats in Western Australia and Victoria.

The real winners of this election are the other minor parties and independents. Nearly one in four Australians backed minor parties and independents this election, the highest vote in political history. Nick Xenophon capitalised on voter dissatisfaction with the major parties the most, picking up three Senate seats in South Australia and one seat in the House of Representatives. Thanks to voters in Queensland and NSW, Pauline Hanson is also a big winner out of this election.

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What Happens Next

We slowly rock back and forth, cradling our head in our hands and weep at the fact that Pauline Hanson will be a Senator. Our hard-earned, taxpayer dollars will fund her to the tune of $200,000 annually to spew out hatred and bigotry. What a time to be alive.

More seriously, the Australian Electoral Commission will continue counting votes for the next few weeks until we have a solid result. If the Coalition win a majority it will be business as usual, though Malcolm Turnbull will come under significant pressure from within his own party due to the poor result. If it’s a hung parliament all bets are off. No one really knows what will happen. Will the major parties negotiate or stick to their pre-election promise and refuse to deal, causing another election?

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Regardless of who forms government Australian politics is going to get even messier and more brutal over the next few years. The public are clearly unhappy about the direction the major parties are heading in, hence the record result for minor parties and independents. The Liberal party looks set to tear itself apart, and there are even reports this morning that Labor could be heading for a leadership showdown between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese.

Strap yourselves in. It’s going to be a wild, wild ride.