11:39pm – This is my final update for the night – hopefully tomorrow I’ll be back home at the Tally Room.
The Senate has become extremely interesting.
At the moment the LDP has gained a seat, Family First has gained a seat, Clive Palmer has at least one senator and possibly three, the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts will win in Victoria if they can stay ahead in the count (off 0.5% primary vote). In addition to Xenophon and John Madigan, that’s eight crossbench senators outside of the Greens.
The Greens have retained at least three seats, and are likely to win in Western Australia. This gives them 10 senators. At the moment they are extremely close to overtaking the Liberals in the ACT, and have an outside chance in NSW. If they win both of these, the Greens will have 12 senators in addition to Adam Bandt.
This produces a very interesting crossbench. If all of those results take place, Abbott would need all eight non-Greens crossbenchers to pass legislation. If Faehrmann loses to Sinodinos in NSW, the Coalition will require seven out of eight to pass legislation.
10:43pm – This is a good night for the right-wing minor parties. Quite possible we’ll see Family First, LDP, Palmer, Motoring Enthusiasts and possibly a second LDP or Palmer elected in the Senate, along with Clive Palmer in Fairfax.
10:35pm – In Victoria, the Liberal Party, the Greens and the Motoring Enthusiasts Party are engaged in a close race for the final two seats after the election of two Liberals and two Labor. If the Greens miss out, it’s possible we’ll see a 4-2 right-left split in all six states.
10:32pm – It seems quite plausible now that Labor will lose seats to Liberal (Tas), Greens (Vic), LDP (NSW), Palmer (QLD) and Family First (VIC), and quite plausible that either Labor or Greens will lose a seat to Nationals in WA, although the vote is far too small.
10:04pm – Turn our eyes to South Australia’s Senate race. With just over 10% of the vote counted, Nick Xenophon is sitting on 1.8 quotas, with Labor on only 1.45 quotas. This translates into 2 Liberal, 1 Xenophon, 1 Greens, 1 Labor and Family First defeating Xenophon for the final seat by a 4% margin.
10:02pm – In Queensland, HEMP are only 0.22% away from overtaking the Greens and defeating the second Labor candidate for the final seat, in addition to 3 LNP and 1 Palmer.
9:25pm – I’m going to run through some seats where the ALP has lost or is in danger now. Firstly, in Banks, Daryl Melham has lost with a 3.5% swing. His seat was very marginal, but had been Labor-held throughout the entirety of the Howard government. The seat has moved substantially away from Bankstown and into the St George area.
8:59pm – Labor and the Greens have collectively dropped 17.9% in Tasmania: 9.4% against Labor and 8.5% against the Greens. While both parties would have suffered from Andrew Wilkie’s strong vote in Denison which won’t be reflected in the Senate, but both parties also suffered huge swings in the other four Tasmanian seats.
8:57pm – The Liberal Party gained 4.5% in South Australia, with Labor losing 4.6%. The Greens have dropped 3.8%.
8:55pm – All three parliamentary parties suffered major swings against them in Queensland: 3.4% against Labor, 2.7% against the LNP and 4.6% against the Greens. Most of that went to Clive Palmer.
8:49pm – In Victoria, the ALP has suffered a massive swing of 7.9%, which has mostly not gone to the Coalition, who gained 2.9%. The Greens swing was one of the lowest in the country, with a 1.4% swing away.
8:44pm – Let’s look at some state breakdowns. In NSW, Labor is down 2.7%, the Coalition is up 2.3%, and the Greens are down 2.1%.
8:41pm – Adam Bandt is holding up strongly with a majority of booths reporting.
8:20pm – In other news, nationally the Greens are down roughly 3% to just over 8%, while Clive Palmer’s United Party is polling over 6%, with over 11% in Queensland. Katter’s Australian Party is polling a dismal 1%.
8:10pm – Adam Bandt is holding up with a 44.2% primary vote, while in Fairfax Clive Palmer’s massive 29% vote puts him in with a chance of winning a seat.
7:45pm – The ABC has a swing of 10% to Adam Bandt off 5 booths. If his vote holds up at 46% he will win.
7:44pm – The Coalition are currently leading in the following Labor seats: Banks, Capricornia, Deakin, Dobell, La Trobe, Lindsay, Lyons, McEwen, Parramatta, Robertson.
7:34pm – The ABC is predicting 89 Coalition seats and 60 Labor seats.
7:31pm – Clearly Labor is on track to lose. Some more figures in a minute.
7:25pm – It’s taken until now to set up a place to blog. Wait a minute and I’ll have some figures.
