(this was started while WA results were yet to be included, as it was still less than an hour into counting, so some details may change, but not expected to be by much)

I'm so glad that all of that money and all of that bright yellow in-your-face advertising by Palmer and his party didn't translate into votes again. It might actually mean that Australians in general are more intelligent than Palmer was expecting, with all of those election promises that he either couldn't practically deliver or shouldn't deliver if we didn't want the economy to collapse.

I guess the protest vote still had to go somewhere, but both One Nation & United are (only) ending up with 4-5% each, but (fortunately?) Greens and Independents are absorbing about 25% of the total vote between them as the main protest vote, with the two major parties down to a combined 67% (36% to Coalition and 31% to Labor).

The polls were mostly accurate to everyone except Labor, who was projected to be closer to 35%... and are nationally down from the last election*, which means that they aren't going to "win" the election, but the Coalition will "lose" the election, and Labor is only really gaining from preferences that are flowing from the Coalition through other candidates who were the protest votes (as the Coalition was down more from last election than Labor, but that loss didn't flow directly to Labor).
(* early results from WA has Labor with a higher primary vote than the Coalition, so that could get Labor closer to the polling projection)

The talking point is the inner city seats of the three largest cities going against the major parties (to Greens in Brisbane and "Teal" to Melbourn and Sydney), resulting in 3 corner contests in most of them that won't be decided for at least a week, because of preferences being needed when none of the candidates gets more than 35-40% of the primary vote and traditional preference flows do not apply to the on-the-day calculations.

There looks to be a record number of members on the crossbench this time, so if Labor doesn't get a majority (76 seats), they will need support of some on the crossbench... and we saw how difficult that was last time when Gillard was Prime Minister.
And as we saw with the Government (the Coalition only just had a majority at the start of the last term and ended in technical minority at the end), if you don't have a buffer majority of at least 5 seats, it only takes a couple of scandals and controversies to lead to by-elections or ejection to the crossbench to essentially neuter the Government. With the Senate still likely to remain held by the Coalition, who will block most of what Labor will want to pass, a Labor minority government would have trouble passing legislation in the lower house to begin with, without compromises to Greens or independents.

It was noted on the ABC coverage - if Labor doesn't reach 76 and they stubbornly refuse to negotiate with anyone on the Crossbench (as they promised during the campaign - a promise both sides always break when they want to secure government), and if no one on the Crossbench wanted to support Labor as a minority government without getting anything in return, it would mean that the existing Prime Minister remains in power, no matter how small their minority is... they just would struggle to get anything done, resulting in another election very quickly.
(saying that, there is no way Labor would reject taking Government, just so that they can get rid of the Morrison government, no matter what they have to give up to enough Crossbench people to do it)


At about 9pm on the East Coast, enough seats (more than 76) were called to non-Coalition candidates to prevent the Coalition from reaching a majority. Now that WA results are coming in, Labor are doing a lot better than the national average... so it is getting more likely that Labor will reach 76, but maybe not much more. And I would predict that if Labor get any less than 80 seats, they will only be in power for one term, as scrutiny is always on the party in power (so even if there are scandals on both sides, it will hurt the Governing party more), while their internal factions will be more keen to fight among themselves to assert their dominance... and if popularity polls for Albanese aren't good after he is elected (he is starting from a below average rating, and it is harder to gain support while PM), it could see efforts to force him to step aside before the next election (he can't be easily deposed, after Rudd changed the rules for leadership changes, so he would need to be talked into falling on his sword "for the good of the party" ).