We don鈥檛 want either of you
Voters decisively reject Gillard but deny Abbott a mandate.
Sunday morning and the election outcome is clear, even though it has not produced a result.
The left won the vote but the right, with the aid of Australia鈥檚 partisan mainstream media, will probably steal government, for a little while.
Nationally, there was a 5.5 percent swing against Labor, most of it 鈥� 3.7 percent 鈥� going to the Greens. The Liberals could only scrape up 1.8 percent. Labor lost, but the Coalition did not win.
Half of all voters plumped for either Labor or the Greens: the Coalition could only muster 44 percent. The majority of the Australian people voted for a left-leaning, progressive government.
It鈥檚 what they thought they were getting when they elected Rudd, until he lost his nerve and began tracking right.
When Julia Gillard continued and even accelerated the rightward drift, voters punished Labor by depriving it of power. It鈥檚 a clear defeat for Labor鈥檚 right factions.
A strong position on marriage equality did not dent the swing to the Greens at all. In fact, there are signs that it actually increased their vote.
In constituencies where the issue was pushed hard, with leafleting by Australian Marriage Equality, and Labor and Liberal candidates endorsing equality, the Green vote was huge.
In Grayndler, held by Labor鈥檚 Anthony Albanese, the Greens鈥檚 Sam Byrne took more than a quarter of the primary votes, pushing the Liberals into third place. His seat is now where Melbourne was last time out, ripe for Green picking.
In Melbourne Ports, with an out gay pro-marriage Liberal running hard, the Liberal vote actually went down 1.2 percent and the Greens took 21.2 percent. In Tanya Plibersek鈥檚 Sydney seat the Greens collected 23 percent.
And of course Melbourne 鈥� with a pro-equal marriage Labor candidate in Cath Bowtell 鈥� the Greens鈥� Adam Bandt took the seat on a swing of 13.3 percent, with 36 percent of primary votes.
Whoever takes the reins now, with the Greens also having nine senators, equal marriage is firmly on the agenda and much, much closer than it was.
Meanwhile we shall have a period of undignified horse-trading and scaremongering to cobble together an unstable temporary majority with scant authority.
We could be back at the polls before too long, perhaps even as early as Christmas.
Who will head this temporary government? The Coalition, as the largest single party, should get first crack. But either would lack legitimacy. Because Labor lost, while the Coalition failed to win.
In Europe hung parliaments are not unusual, and caretaker governments remain in power for as long as six months while the horse-trading continues. The sky does not fall in as people discover that politicians are not that necessary after all.
But Australia, with its convict history, is probably not yet sufficiently politically mature to be able to tolerate an extended period without the illusory comfort of a settled authority in place.
