The Election Has Been Called For The Coalition (Two Days After Malcolm Turnbull Claimed Victory)

With the rollicking speed of a sloth-race or John Cage concert, Australia’s nail-biter of an election has revealed its winner (eleven days after the nationwide poll took place).

According to the ABC and its election computer (which is not just the nickname given to their resident counting-machine Antony Green), the Liberal-National Coalition has narrowly held onto power, managing a slim majority government by claiming 76 seats in the House of Representatives.

As you’ll remember from our post-election comedown, 76 is the minimum required for any party to take power without forming a minority government with smaller parties and independents.

(If you want to be finicky, the AEC has still not officially called it for the Coalition, but it's pretty close.)

It initially seemed that the Coalition, led by still-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, would have to form a minority government, with independents like Bob Katter, Cathy McGowan and Andrew Wilkie (who all offered to support the Liberals as their victory seemed more and more likely).

But with the tight races of Flynn and Capricornia being called for the Coalition last night, the ABC believes Turnbull will not need to call on the independents, and can form a majority government on his own.

The writing was on the wall from Sunday, when Turnbull claimed victory and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten finally offered his concession speech. (They both also backed the prospect of electronic voting in future elections, because forget this “wait 11 days” noise.)

Still, the Coalition hardly holds a resounding majority. Labor is expected to win 69 seats when all is said and done, up from the 55 they held at the last election. (The Coalition is down from 90.)

Among those seats is that of Cowan in WA, which the ABC election computer called last night for Labor's Anne Aly, who becomes the first female Muslim MP in Australian history.

It’s a silver lining of progress, and an interesting juxtaposition to Senate returnee Pauline Hanson, who was found by Junkee to have plagiarised her anti-Halal policies from a right-wing website.

This will be a very interesting three years.

Photo: ABC.