Australian Election

Well, some pluses, some minuses. The Senate vote is the saddest part for me - especially the Queensland figures. I assume the ABC's figures are based on people voting above the line, and perhaps the Democrat supporters are the least likely to do that, but it's sad to see there will be no Democrats in the Senate. It's a shame that their conscientious and important contribution was not more widely appreciated. The Greens have a responsibility to try to fill these big shoes now, otherwise indications are we'll see the impact of sloppy legislation in the years to come.

It doesn't look to me like John Howard will be able to hold onto his seat. I think that Kevin Rudd has had to be rather conservative (whatever that means, these days), and also adopted a great deal of spin-doctoring (like the Liberals too) to achieve what he has. That's mostly unfortunate, but it's the rational approach, given the behaviour of the other parties and the voting public.

The most pleasing thing is to see that no single party will have control of the senate - at least after June next year. It seems that we'll have 37 Liberals and 1 Family First on the approximately conservative side, and 32 Labor, 5 Green, and Nick Xenophon on the other, although that categorisation is imperfect.

It will be interesting to observe the Coalition leadership process, now that Peter Costello had stepped down. I wonder if the coalition will want to demonstrate a move towards the centre.