And so Labor wins the federal election as was widely expected. At present it looks like they will end up with 88 seats in the 150-seat lower house, with the Coalition holding 60, and 2 independents making up the remainder.

A fairly impressive mandate due to a 6% swing against the government. Newspapers on both sides of the Tasman are going on about Rudd's mandate and how it has set him up for several terms in power.

However, there has not been much of an examination of the Senate. The current Senate, which will continue sitting as is until 1 July 2008, is controlled by the Coalition who hold 39 of the 76 seats. Even after the new Senators take their seats, it appears that the Coalition will still hold 37 seats based on the votes counted at present (the voting system used in the Senate is ridiculously complicated and so final results take some time). In addition, Family First, a socially conservative party, hold another Senate seat.

This is going to make Rudd's legislative agenda rather complicated. While they will no doubt get through their Work Choices changes as there seems to be a clear mandate for that, other things may be somewhat harder.

It is very unlikely that the Coalition will attempt to block the budget as they did in 1975, I would not be terribly surprised if we have a double dissolution sometime in the next 18 months.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 8:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)