Bloodbath

Wow. What a night.


There are far, far too many things to talk about from last night, so I'm not going to pretend to do any of them justice. Let's just list the interesting stuff and then watch how things pan out over the weeks and months to come.


- The Greens. It looks like no extra seats in the Upper house. The Coalition will not need their votes to pass anything (given that they will probably have enough if Coalition, Shooters and CDP vote together). Looks like Labor will hold Balmain and Marrickville. Not a good result.


- The Coalition performance in safe Liberal seats. Lets look at the north of the harbour in Sydney. In Ku-Ring-Gai, 72% first preference. In Davidson, 74%. In Pittwater, 72% I don't care who the "other side" is - more than 70% first preference is an amazing number.


- The Labor performance in safe Labor seats. I haven't been through and counted myself, but I understand that there was only ONE seat where Labor won without needing to go to preferences (Liverpool). I mean, seriously. ONE. By contrast, the Coalition will have over 40 in the same category.


- Some of the swings. The biggest was Bathurst at 36%. ALP primary there down from 54% to 21%. That's 60% of the people who voted for you last time voting for someone else.


- NOT ONE seat swung to Labor. Not even one. Not even Penrith, won last year in a by-election, held while Labor was at its lowest (or so we thought), after the sitting member had to resign after ICAC got stuck in, with a swing then of 26%. Just incredible.


- The only good numbers for Labor - hanging on to Marrickville, and presently favoured to hang on at Balmain. In Balmain, Greens, ALP and Coalition each polled over 30%, so still nip-and tuck. The winner may just be decided by which of the three finishes third and then distributed preferences.


- Keneally resigned. It was always difficult to predict what would occur post election for the Labor leadership. Pre-election she refused to confirm her intentions, but it was difficult to see how she could possibly be the right choice for next time round. I think she showed some good sense in resigning - she must have known when she took the job that her position was always going to be an "interim" one.


- Robertson got up. As I type, the 2PP in Blacktown is 54/46, so he got up pretty easily in the end. Who knows whether his push-polling made a difference, but the overwhelming reaction on Twitter appeared to be along the lines that he is worst possible choice. Having said that, the next leader will never be Premier - the Coalition will have at least 8 years. Maybe Labor will look at the effect Abbott has had Federally and want someone to cause some chaos for a few years before they put someone realistic up there for 2019. We're going to see a lot more of that Keating letter.


- 2019 must seem a long way away if you're a Labor loyalist.


- And finally, I tipped 21 seats in @sspencer_63's sweep. Current ABC projection is 22. I can feel it in my waters, I'm going to win this one…


That is all. Now we wait to see what kind of shadow cabinet Labor can cobble together from what is left. Keneally said she would be on the backbench, but if she is she will be pretty lonely back there...