A Hung Parliament

I have to be honest I didn’t expect this outcome, I believed enough people would walk into a polling booth and find voting for a Tony Abbott led Coalition just a bit too much of a stretch. I still believe had Malcolm Turnball, Peter Costello, or even Joe Hockey been leader then the Coalition would now be in power.

Even though I wasn’t right, I wasn’t wrong either. You see the LNP only managed to improve their primary vote by about 1.2% while Labor saw a drop in 4.87%. That leaves a gap of about 3.63% that didn’t swing to the LNP but instead went to the Greens. So it is true that some people walked into a polling booth and couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Tony Abbott, but they couldn’t do it for Julia Gillard either.

So where does this leave us? Well with a hung parliament likely to be controlled by four independents and one green. What do we know about them and which way they will turn? Well primarily it will come down the number of seats each of the major parties holds which looks like the Coalition somewhere between 72-74 and Labor between 71-73.

The most likely outcome is Labor 72 with the Coalition on 73 seats based on the current count of the votes, however there has been some late confidence today that those numbers will be reversed. Regardless, if the Coalition manages 74 seats then they will govern with the independents and the rest of this blog today is a waste of time.

Adam Bandt, Green, Melbourne

Yes he’s a Green, and you would have to say he’s more likely to side with labor (he even says so himself). He appears to have campaigned on climate change, gay marriage, and refugees. All three of those policy areas are not in line with the promises of the major parties so perhaps we could see Julia or Tony break an election promise to woo him over.







Andrew Wilkie, Independent, Denison

Now beware that today the media are now claiming he may still not win this seat and it may go to Labor, but that may be a moot point given this man’s history. Andrew was the intelligence analyst who quit in protest in 2003 over the Howard governments choice to go to war. He effectively said the intelligence used to justify the war wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. To see him side with the Coalition would be a major revelation but anything is possible.



Bob Katter, Independent, Kennedy

If you don’t know who Bob Katter is then I’d wonder why you’re reading a this (apologies to first time voters). Bob quit the National party basically because he felt they no longer represented regional Australia, which is what Bob does and does so fiercely.

He believes in protectionism policy for agriculture and is very socially conservative. This means he would probably align well with the Coalition, but does a former defector effectively rejoin his old party to help them win government?




Tony Windsor, Independent, New England

To me Tony is a more stable (and probably more reasonable) version of Bob Katter, fighting very hard for regional Australia. He also quit the National party when he was not preselected for a seat, it should be noted that Tony commands a massive majority regardless.

He believes in Broadband but probably doesn’t buy into Labors NBN wholeheartedly, and he feels the major parties are too city-centric and don’t develop good policy for regional Australia.

Which way he will go might be decided no Broadband, so Tony Abbott might have to change his policy. But if he does that then he damages his attack on Labor of Debt and Deficit and that their NBN plans are not good for the country. It might be that Tony Abbott might offend some of those who voted for him by doing so.



Rob Oakeshott, Independent, Lyne

Just like Bob Katter and Tony Windsor, Rob is a former National who abandoned them in 2002 while he was a state MP. He is avery experienced and capable politician and in my opinion might hold a ministerial profile for whichever government holds power as part of a deal for support.

He believes in broadband and communications policy as well as health and education, again this looks more like Labor than the LNP but we’ll see.






*****

Does this make us any wiser? NO.

It does show that Labor will probably have an easier chance of winning over these five politicians which may be enough for them to be a minority government, but they still need to win 73 seats for this to be an assured outcome.

There is also the possibility none of this will work out and we’ll be back at the polls very soon. If that’s the case who will you vote for? Will the vote for the Greens and Independents get bigger? Will NSW and QLD have had their cathartic vent about their local state governments and return to Labor, or will it be even stronger?

Interesting days ahead…