Kenneth, My take is that each one won 72. Labor 72. The others...

Kenneth, My take is that each one won 72.

Labor 72. The others agreed to go no further than not blocking supply or supporting unwarranted votes of no confidence. So 72.

Coalition 72. Ditto. Crook from WA also agreed to go only that far. So 72. For example, his constituency would linch him for supporting the mining tax on the one hand, and linch him again if he opposed the NBN and relegated regional WA to the IT stone age.

It's really a moot point either way. Similar to the 2 party preferred. Whether either ends up with 50.1 or 49.9 is largely irrelevant. It's dead heat. No side can argue they've been given a strong mandate blah blah.. Call it a pox on both your houses. Hawke and Howard both achieved less than 50% at least once.

The election seemed to me to be a proxy state election to some extent. Normally voters differentiate between the two. Cetainly in SA, VIC, NSW & QLD. Labor did well in the first two with more popular Labor governments and hammered in the last 2 where Labor is royally on the nose.

At the end of the day, a picture tells a thousand words. Gillard looks like the cat that swallowed the canary and Abbott looks like a kid who's had his ice cream stolen.