not too much

We joined the ritual of watching the election night count and broached a bottle when the result was clear. Sunday, the next day, was a long day. I preached at 8am and 10am, attended a liturgy planning meeting and sung in a 3-hour Messiah rehearsal in the evening. James is delighted with the Labor win. I am glad of it, but will also wait and see how Rudd performs before leaping for joy.

Bob Brown was deservedly delighted with the Greens' performance, but sadly Kerrie Tucker missed out. Both ACT Senators face the electorate whenever there is an election, and with only two Senators to elect, the quota for election is 33.3%. In the three previous elections, the Liberal first preference vote had been below this threshold and their candidate had scrambled home on minor party preferences.

Kerrie Tucker, who was a member of the ACT Legislative Assembly for nine years, was our Green Senate candidate in 2004 and 2007. In 2004 the Greens polled 16.4% of the vote. This time, the vote for Kerrie Tucker increased to about 22% but, even with the addition of surplus votes from Labor and with Democrat preferences, it has not been enough to unseat the Liberal Gary Humphries, who has gained a fraction over 34% of the votes thus far counted.

Yet the ACT is the 'Greenest' jurisdiction in Australia.

	2007	2004
Australian Labor Party	41%	41%
Liberal Party	34%	38%
The Greens	22%	17%
Australian Democrats	2%	2

The coalition will hold its one seat majority in the senate until July when the new senate sits for the first time, after which the Liberals and Nationals are likely to have 37 of the 76 seats, with Labor needing support from Family First, the Greens and independent Nick Xenophon to pass legislation. A tied vote in the Senate is a negative.

Liberal senators such as George Brandis say they will vote against some legislation; they say Labor has no mandate to repeal the former government's changes to labour laws. They may well block reforms to legislation relating to same sex couples. Even after 1 July, it will be tough to get them through.

37		Coalition (Liberals and Nationals)
32		Labor
5		Greens
1		Family First Party
1		Independent (Nick Xenophon)

The Bennelong count is an intriguing sideshow with the wonderfully ebullient Maxine McKew currently is ahead by 2439 votes. The superb Oz Politics site suggests that she would lose if Howard got something like more than 60 per cent of the absent, pre-poll and postal votes. In 2004, Howard got 57.6 per cent of them.