All the seats seem to be decided, Corangamite went to Labor, Brisbane and Hasluck to Liberals. This gives Coalition 73 / Labor 72, unless you don’t count Tony Crook for the Coalition in which case it’s 72 all. Even if you give the coalition one more seat it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to form Govt since Adam Bandt is definitely not supporting them, and Wilkie seems unlikely to do so, whereas the ex-Nat indies seem to get on OK with the ALP. Could go either way. Tony Abbott has agreed to treasury costings now so will be interesting to see how that pans out – did he really have something to hide.

Other news –

• The ALP are making accusations of vote tampering in Boothby, a seat they lost by about 1000 votes. Details aren’t too clear at this stage.
• Steve Fielding made a bit of a desperate attempt to appear relevant by threatening to block supply if Labor forms government. A couple of problems with this – Tony Abbott said that the Libs won’t block supply, and Bob Brown pointed out that by the time the next budget needs to be voted on there’ll be a new senate anyway. Here’s Steve being a queue jumper:
  [youtube jXjHNrP0BzA]

Big news tonight is that the Independents presented a list of demands and Labor’s response seems to be much more satisfactory to them than the coalition’s.

Read the details at the following places:

Grog’s Gamut

Peter Martin

Larvatus Prodeo

The main issue is that Abbott is still refusing to have policy costings looked at by Treasury. It’s interesting that on this and other issues the independents are holding the major parties up to the sort of scrutiny that the press largely failed to (when they were too busy on trivialities and horse-race style coverage).

Also, the latest on counts is that Denison looks to be solid for Andrew Wilkie, and Hasluck, Corangamite and Brisbane are still in the balance. Based on some of the links above the choice of Government might be determined regardless of the outcomes in these seats anyway.

As the count continues I’ll do occasional updates on various aspects of the election.

• Of course the big question is who will form government. I have no idea – looks like it could go either way. For now keep watching the counts in Hasluck, Brisbane, Denison, Corangamite and Dunkley. In particular Denison is a tough one, four way contests are tricky to predict!
• Many are pointing out that most people didn’t seem to want either Labor or Liberal to win and got they wanted. Note that the informal voters did not in any way achieve this – it’s the people who voted for other options.
• The AEC are recounting the seat the Grayndler as a two candidate preferred for ALP/Greens. I expect it will still be out of reach for the Greens since Labor’s Albanese has a very high primary but will be interesting to see how close it is. Note that the progressive count doesn’t mean too much right now, it’s booth by booth and they’ve only done 12/54 booths which aren’t necessarily representative of the whole electorate.
• The Age seemed to be trying to do a bit of a beat up about the Greens possibly supporting the Libs – all on the basis that Bob Brown said he’d talk to Tony Abbott. The Greens have made it perfectly clear that they will not form Government with the Coalition. They will however be sitting on the cross bench in the House of Reps, and will have balance of power in the senate – so what do people expect, should Bob Brown flat out refuse to talk to Tony Abbott? That would really be news. Regardless of whether Abbott turns out to be PM or opposition leader, it is entirely appropriate for the leader of the party holding balance in the Senate to meet with him, the Age have picked out one quote out of context and used it to make a sensationalist headline.
• The Senate is mostly settled though the last spot in Victoria is a tough call. Some people have been too quick to say that Fielding is out, he could still get in the last spot, though at the moment the ABC are predicting a win for the DLP! Not unprecedented, they picked up a seat in the Vic state parliament at the last election to give their first MP since the mid 70’s (when they had a NSW state MP who was elected when the sitting Liberal member failed to renominate in time – sometimes it’s been suggested he forgot but his side of the story is here.)
• I’ve seen quite a few comments around suggesting that it’s good now the Greens will get some scrutiny, and that people who voted for them will realise their error when finding out what the Greens are really like. For a start, the Greens voters tend to be well educated and probably are well aware of what the Greens policies are, but furthermore if there are voters out there with an unrealistic view of the Greens I think that it could well go the other way – if people believe the twisted version of the Greens often presented in the press (particularly Murdoch) then they’ll probably be pleasantly surprised when they learn more. It was interesting to view responses to the Vote-a-matic site that Fairfax did, where they put ALP, Lib & Green policies side by side and asked people to choose which one they agreed with – many seemed surprised at how much they agreed with the Greens (e.g. here).  Another point is that after watching tonight’s Media Watch about the poor performance of the press in the campaign is that it’s not as if the major parties have had that much scrutiny of their policies as the press has focused on trivialities.
• Malcolm Turnbull seems to really be enjoying himself on Q&A tonight – I guess a 10% swing puts you in a good mood! Next to him is an empty chair representing Mark Arbib who has just gotten even less popular (if possible).

While the overall result of the election is in doubt one thing is clear – there have been some great results for the Greens. Of course all results are not yet finalised, the figures quotes are the latest from the ABC website (or the AEC for any booth results)

Melbourne
I was confident about Adam Bandt winning Melbourne but was surprised at just how easily he did it. I thought it might be a nail biter but the result was clear pretty early in the night. Last time the Greens made history in Melbourne by getting ahead of the Liberals to be part of the two party preferred count, this time they not only easily won the two party preferred, but are actually starting to approach Labor’s primary vote  – Labor have 39.5% and the Greens 36.1%. The swing to the Greens is about 10%.

The Senate
At the last federal election The Greens had 3 senators elected (Tas,WA,SA). This time it is looking like 6 – one for each state. The only one that is close is NSW but it is looking good. In Victoria it looks like Richard Di Natale will be elected with over a quota, something the Greens have only previously achieved in Tasmania. This means he does not rely on preferences and is elected third out of the 6 Senators. Elsewhere there are other Greens also being elected before the last spot in the Senate count. Queensland has never elected a Greens senator before, this time Larissa Waters has received almost 13% of the vote, just short of a quota, but enough to be elected in 5th place – last time she missed out after getting 7.3%. Here in SA it’s another great result, we had a Senator elected for the first time in 2007, but an important factor there was the number of votes taken from ALP/Libs by Nick Xenophon, this time the Greens have over 13% of the vote and Penny Wright gets elected in 5th place. As expected Christine Milne and Rachel Siewert have been safely re-elected in Tasmania and WA. It is a shame that we couldn’t get a spot in the ACT but this was always very tough, it looks like the Libs have still managed to hold on to a quota. The Greens vote was an impressive 23%. The NT was never a chance, but the vote there is looking like about 14% which would be about a quota in a state.

Apart from the great result of now having 10 Greens in parliament, it is also notable that across the country the Greens vote has increased to a total of over 11%. In particular there are excellent swings in QLD, Vic and SA.

Queensland
In Queensland there were huge swings to the Greens which in many cases are a doubling of the vote, in particular in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. In Brisbane some of the swings to the Greens were Brisbane (9.5%), Lilley (6.1), Bonner (6.2), Griffith (7.3), Moreton (8.6), Oxley (6.4), Ryan (9.3), Rankin (6.8) and Blair (7.0). Other areas, particularly the northern suburbs, and the coast were lower but still there were many swings of over 4%. Also notable was the non-metropolitan seat of Wright (Gold Coast hinterland and up towards Toowoomba) with a 6.8% swing. On the Sunshine Coast there is Fisher (10.2) and Fairfax (9.4), both with a Green swing comparable to that in Melbourne!

Victoria
While the focus has rightly been on the seat of Melbourne, the overall vote for the Greens across many areas of Victoria is high, which has seen Richard Di Natale easily elected to a seat the Greens have never been able to get before. Apart from the seat of Melbourne there are other great results in inner city Melbourne, in particular the Greens are in the two party preferred count in Batman with a primary vote over 23%. Melbourne ports also has over 20%, and Wills is just below that. The Greens are in double figures or just short (quite a few eastern suburbs seats are between 9 and 10%) across much of metropolitan Melbourne. What’s also interesting are the gains in the seats outside the areas that have traditionally supported the Greens, outer suburban Calwell has a swing of over 7% to put the Greens in double figures, Corio (Geelong) has doubled to 12%, various  non-Melbourne seats  – Corangamite, Ballarat, Bendigo, McEwen, Flinders – all are over 10%. In Victoria it’s not just about Melbourne, the Greens have widespread support. The upcoming Victorian election in late November is a very exciting prospect.

South Australia
Here in SA we’ve also seen some big swings to the Greens. The highlights are Port Adelaide (6.3% swing), Hindmarsh (5.1), Kingston (6.6), Makin (5.5), Mayo (6.0) with a special mention to Jane Alcorn for getting an amazing 7.1% swing in Wakefield to lift the vote from 4 to 11% (must be all those latte sipping elites in Elizabeth and Gawler). Most SA seats have double figure percentage votes for the Greens, with exceptions being Sturt & Makin both borderline as to whether they’ll edge over 10, and the the two completely rural seats which still have both seen a significant increase in Green Vote (Grey 7.4%, Barker  8.4% – both almost double the 2007 figure). The best is Mayo which is now over 17% for the Greens. The electorate I know best is Adelaide, which had over 13% after just falling short of double figures last time. While we say a steady increase in our good areas (places like Unley, Goodwood, inner city, Mile End), what is really notable is the big swings in the northern areas of the electorate where we traditionally get few votes. These are working class areas which are very strong for the ALP (and some of the areas where I spent all day yesterday). Some of the individual polling booth swings to the Greens are Blair Athol (6%), Blair Athol North (4.8), Greenacres (5.3), Kilburn (4.5), Nailsworth (5.9), Northfield (7.5), Northfield South (6.6) and Northgate (6.2). In each case this corresponds roughly to a doubling of the vote to get the total percentage into double figures except for Northgate which went from 3% to 9%.

Grayndler
Of note in NSW is the seat of Grayndler where it looks like the Greens are going to get an excellent two party preferred result against Labor, though the ABC site still shows a 2PP with ALP/Libs. The Greens vote was over 25%. This is quite like Melbourne in 2007.

In general in the rest of NSW and in the other states the results were a bit more varied, but in all cases the Greens vote increased significantly.

It hasn’t turned up yet at electionleflets.org.au but according to this thread at Mess & Noise there is a leaflet being distributed in Melbourne which says ”Make no mistake – A vote for any other party in Melbourne risks handing government to Tony Abbott and the Liberals”. So Labor are flat out trying to deceive people about the voting system to scare them away from voting Green. This is pathetic. It’s obviously no coincidence that it’s coming out at the last minute when there is little time for a response.

Suppose you are in Melbourne, want to vote Green, and definitely don’t want Tony Abbott to get in. The basic point is that the Liberals have no chance whatsoever in Melbourne. For them to win they would firstly have to outpoll the Greens, and secondly pick up the preferences of pretty much every Greens voter. It’s not going to happen. And what’s more you changing your first preference between Greens & Labor isn’t going to change it even if it would happen. For the Liberals to win it would mean that even if all Greens voters who preferred Labor to Liberals switched their first preference back to Labor then they would still fall short – otherwise these preferences would elect them when the Greens are eliminated anyway. But once again, this is not a realistic scenario in the first place.

If you vote Green and preference Labor ahead of the Liberals then there’s two realistic possibilities. Either your first preferences helps to elect Adam Bandt for the Greens after the Liberals are eliminated (if enough of their preferences go to Bandt), or Bandt gets eliminated and your preference for Labor helps to elect them.

The other thing they might be suggesting is that if Bandt wins then he could support an Abbott Government in a hung parliament – something he has clearly stated that he will not do.

The Greens candidate for the electorate of Melbourne has confirmed he would side with Labor if he wins the seat and the parliament is hung. Despite expressing disappointment about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s positions on climate change and asylum seekers, Greens candidate Adam Bandt yesterday said he would work with Labor to deliver a ”stable, progressive and effective” government.

”Tony Abbott’s conservative positions on many areas, including women’s rights, climate change and our rights at work, do not reflect the views of the Melbourne electorate,” Mr Bandt said. ”It is clear – and I expect the election will confirm – that an overwhelming majority of people in Melbourne do not want an Abbott government.”

This tactic from Labor shows a real contempt for the voters of Melbourne and may well backfire on them.