Technically it remains unclear whether the contested premiership of Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will continue into a second term. Practically it is now virtually inevitable.
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Officially, this declaration awaits the glacial count in half a dozen seats, some of which appear to be leaning towards sitting Coalition candidates. Unfortunately, that's the way it is folks: we might live in the era of email and digital immediacy, but this election has gone postal. Literally.
If the Coalition picks up all six, it would make for a 79-seat haul and a governing majority of three. By no means a big buffer, but a safe enough win. Seventy-seven is more likely because Hindmarsh in South Australia and Cowan in WA are likely Labor gains.
Even if the Coalition misses out on another two, it picked up the support of Bob Katter, making a second term a pretty solid bet. Fellow independents such as Cathy McGowan, Andrew Wilkie, and Rebakah Sharkie could also guarantee supply and confidence in the interests of stability, so a second term can confidently be forecast.
This will make uncomfortable reading for those who cannot separate forecasting from barracking or prediction from wish. Indeed, election 2016, is notable for the self-appointed media experts who, in an ironic example of premature conclusion drawing - their key complaint about professional pundits - have loudly condemned the "MSM" for accurately reporting public surveys, and for suggesting a Turnbull win was the more likely result. It turned out it was.
Fairfax Media's depiction of an election "cliffhanger" derived exclusively from these surveys, which by-the-way, were bang on.
To be sure the party spinners had different interpretations and promulgated these furtively in the final weeks and Turnbull himself said publicly he would win.
And there were senior voices even in the Labor camp who thought their side would fall 10 seats short, despite the prevailing view that it would be closer than the general commentary depicted.
Attention will quickly turn to the complexity of the political equation facing Turnbull after his under achieving campaign.
Turnbull now faces a triple-threat to his leadership: diminished authority in a fracturing party room; reduced numerical command in the Parliament including a potentially unmanageable Senate; and feeding these, diminished protection of popularity.
To add to that, the nation's triple-A credit rating has been put on negative outlook; tax cuts for big business face blockage; so-called retrospective superannuation changes from budget will be subject of an internal revolt; and Katter has warned his support would evaporate at the first hint of union bashing, making Turnbull's pursuit of the supposedly central trigger bills on union control, untenable.
This is not a government, it's a Rubik's Cube.
MONEY MATTERS
And with the Turnbull government likely to scrape back, what's next? What will it do to improve our economic prospects?
Turnbull went to the election offering a "national plan for jobs and growth" that was supposed to secure our future.
Trouble is, it now looks unlikely he'll be able to implement the centrepiece of that plan, the phased reduction over 10 years of the rate of company tax, from 30 per cent to 25 per cent.
Unsurprisingly, the proposed cut in company tax did not impress the voters, who think companies are paying too little tax, not too much.
Labor opposed the cut, save for the immediate reduction to 27.5 per cent for genuinely small business.
With the government now facing an even more hostile Senate, it's unlikely Turnbull will get any more than that.
This would be no great loss in the quest for jobs and growth. The government's own modelling suggested the tax cut would do virtually nothing to create jobs, and the boost to growth in Australians' incomes would be tiny and come only after a decade or three. – Sydney Morning Herald.