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In an attempt to clear up some of the nonsense being bandied about all over the place, I’m going to summarise where things stand at present.
Right now Anthony Green has the ALP sitting on 72 likely seats and the Coalition on 73. Along with that we have 4 independents and 1 Green.
The following seats should not be taken as given:
Boothby – LIB ahead
Brisbane – LIB ahead
Denison – IND ahead
Corangamite – ALP ahead
Greenway – ALP ahead
Hasluck – LIB ahead
Lindsay – ALP ahead
If any of these seats switch hands, the numbers change. From Labor’s point of view, the main seat I’m worried about is Corangamite (live AEC results here). While we are ahead by 1,200 votes, there are still 20,000 to be counted and Labor’s postal campaign there was not as well-executed as in Greenway, Hasluck and Lindsay.
If Labor can hold Corangamite, Greenway and Lindsay and pick up any of Boothby, Brisbane or Hasluck then we are home and dry. However, this task may be insurmountable. Although Labor has run a strong postal campaign, whereby they send out campaign material along with a postal ballot form, the timeframe for postals unfortunately overlaps the period when the damaging leaks emerged about Gillard opposing paid parental leave. It is therefore difficult, though not impossible, to see Labor gaining any of these three.
Assuming we finish on 72, Labor’s task will be essentially to woo 2 of the regional independents. Adam Bandt from Melbourne (Green) has already said he will support Labor. The potential new independent from Tasmania, Wilkie, has a policy platform that mirrors much of Labor’s agenda and happens to be a former Green. So we can count 74. If Labor can then persuade Oakeshott and Windsor to come on-side, we have a minority government in the making. Katter could be made speaker (oh the hilarity!)
Oakeshott is a progressive from what I can ascertain, and both him and Windsor have outlined a policy platform that is far more in line with Labor’s approach to regional issues. Therefore, I believe, should Labor finish on 72 seats, we will see a Labor minority government.
There is one additional complication here, however. That of the Murdoch press. The Australian and the Daily Telegraph have already begun arguing that whichever party ends up with more seats in the house is the one with the legitimacy to form government. I think this is an attempt to twist public opinion against a possible Labor minority government based on 72 seats (to the Libs 73). I suspect the independents will be able to take the heat, but do expect to see the Murdoch rags getting increasingly shrill over the next few days.
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JJ, a very good summation, in my view. Last night Katter, effusive between Windsor and Oakshott was surprisingly appreciative of the work that Labor has done on water in Queensland.
He might be a loose cannon, but he’s famous for getting his constituency a good deal and if maintaining the balance of power for Labor is an effective way to get achieve that, I’d say he will.
I doubt that Katter holds a candle for either party though and the ironic thing is that his disaffection with the Libnats is what caused him to split in the first place. He actually said that the Nats achieved far less than Labor did for his constituency over many years and he praised Labor – albeit lightly.
Same for Tony Windsor, really – he took a safe Nat seat formerly held by Sinclair under hereditary title. Dunno about Oakshott. For some reason he reminds me of Fielding, but I’m pretty sure I’m being unfair here and I heard he was conciliatory and progressive talking to KO last night.
I think it’s amusing that the three independents intend to work closely together – quite like a party, really.
Oakshott has proven to be a thorn for the nats in NSW and is very good at getting good deals for his constituancy. I suspect that Labor may hold onto Beisbane and/or Hasluck as well as Corangamite only because they have sitting members in each seat and postals tend to favour the incombant.
I think you summed it up well JJ
Off topic for this site and first contribution after reading Crikey blogs and links to this site. This campaign by the media over the last say 2 years reminds me of 1975 when the same sort of coverage was conducted. But there were in my opinion 2 differences. 1 the msm campaign was more intense and over a shorter time frame and 2.the ABC still tried in 1975 to have some balance. In 1975 and after many of us talked about trying to set up alternative media but you just couldn’t compete with the $. Given todays alternative media (facebook, twitter, sites like this ) we may have an opportunity. I don’t know how you would set this up and at the moment it seems a bit fragmented but the Daily Bludge could be a good starting point. (I have had to get the grandchildren to get me to this stage). There are many who have access to stories etc that don’t get reported by msm. Use a site like this to get them out there and then provide links or instructions to get them to other sites that might be helpful. Apologies, a bit long winded but 35 years after 1975 we might be getting the technology to beat the Murdochs of thisd world.
with regard NewsFoxSkyCorp I hope Robbo is on the money,this technology should counteract MSM.