Tony Abbott has put his hand up to contest the opposition leadership. I couldn't think of anyone worse, except maybe Joe Hockey.

Mumble has suggested that anyone that leads the Liberal Party for the next three years is kissing their political career goodbye.

When put that way, perhaps that is something we would rather wish on Tony Abbott, and leave Malcolm for later to pick up the pieces?

Personally I'd rather see the Liberals quickly turn themselves around and work with the Labor government to right some wrongs.

But perhaps that is like wishing to win the lottery?

Meanwhile, Mark Vaile has just quit as leader of the Nationals.

Free fall?

In his summary of the election result [The Age], ex-PM Paul Keating has summed up my reasons for wanting the Howard controlled Liberals to go.

It had nothing to do with the economy, the environment, the war(s), or whatever other enormously complicated issue the electorate pretended they understood. It had to do with simple morals...

Quote:

In the Sydney Sun Herald last Sunday, John Howard nominated the putting asunder of political correctness and the celebration of our Anglo-Celtic past as the pinnacle of his social, indeed national, achievement.

In making the claim, he was nominating as a virtue political incorrectness of a kind that gave some the right to speak and behave towards others in terms disparaging of their colour, religion, class or social standing.

In a country of immigrants, such a view emanating from the prime minister is social poison.

Saturday night's victory was not just a victory for the Labor Party, it was also a victory for those Liberals such as Malcolm Fraser, Petro Georgiou and Judi Moylan, who stood against the pernicious erosion of decent standards in our public affairs.

The Liberal Party of John Howard, Philip Ruddock, Alexander Downer and Peter Costello is now a party of privilege and punishments. One that lacks that most basic of wellsprings: charity.

Malcolm Turnbull didn't waste any time indicating his desire to take over leadership of the Liberals in opposition when Peter Costello indicated he wasn't interested.

Malcolm Turnbull is described by the media as a "small l liberal".

His Wikipedia page explains a little of what this means. He voted in favour of relaxing restrictions on RU486, voted for stem cell research and is strongly in favour of Australia becoming a republic. Wikipedia indicates vaguely that he has also been critical of Peter Costello's handling of the economy, although it doesn't go into details. Malcolm was also strongly in favour of ratifying Kyoto, and still is.

Before the 2007, and the 2004 election, he promised to grant same-sex couples "death benefits in Commonwealth superannuation schemes." Without John Howard leading, perhaps he would extend this to remove all discriminatory laws as the ALP have promised to do (except marriage). Or perhaps it was an empty lie. We shall see.

Either way, a Liberal party ruled by someone such as Malcolm would be a very very different beast to one run by Howard and Costello.

The ALP won. By much more than I expected. The Greens vote was huge, and helped get the ALP more seats than they might have otherwise. In a different voting system (first-past-the-post like in the UK or the USA), the Coalition would have faired a lot better (but probably still wouldn't have won, I certainly don't care enough to check).

I disagree with Antony Green. The cheering and excitement in the Canberra tally room reinvigorated the whole exercise. Since the Victorian State Election I've been really down public tally rooms but the Federal effort changed my mind. Sure, they were all Labor supporters who'd come along to cheer on their victory and new their new hero (Julia), but still... Perhaps the media must turn up with soundproofed booths, or the public should be more separated from the cameras.

Or perhaps current politicians shouldn't be included in election night commentary. It's only going to encourage this sort of behaviour.

I had, for a moment, an unhealthy interest in the technical side of the results. The AEC's tally room still uses the old cricket board style paper results rig. Printers print big numbers, oompa-loopmahs put the results up in a big wooden scaffold. Boring. Apparently something was different (as vaguely explained by some commentators) that meant results would come in quicker, but that was never explained. I'm guessing they were talking about the internet based media feeds.

I still believe the tally board should go. Replace it with big TV screens. One with rotating electorate summaries. One with the ABC.

The new election results media feed format (as "tested" at the Victorian State election) seemed to cause some issues. Channel 9 included an electorate summary ticker which rolled over every few seconds. Early on (just after 6) it seemed to give the most votes to The Greens in every electorate. After sitting with my mouth open in surprise, wondering how a Green controlled Lower House would look, I decided it was a technical error. Soon after the ticker went away and was fixed. Similar issues seemed to plague the "summary" (number of seats won) results on other channels.

Anyway, I felt for the tech heads that probably spent the first hour or so with stress and panic leaking out of their eyeballs. The problem was either at the AEC end, or the TV channel end, but either way, I think a few swearwords were flying during the ad breaks.

Or perhaps I just read it all wrong...

The senate looks likely to be under the control of Family First and an independent. Liberals have 37, ALP 32, Greens 5 and one each for FF and the indie. This is all bad news but exactly what I expected (that is, control of the senate will be shared amongst multiple parties).

But the senate count isn't over yet, and won't be for a while, and proportional representation is built for surprises.

John Howard looks likely to lose his seat. Even if eventually he wins with the Liberal leaning postal votes, I doubt he'll hang around. More surprising is Peter Costello giving up the Liberal leadership. Some are suggesting he may also quit before the end of his term. This leaves us with a likely Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader. More on that later...