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Nearly two weeks after polling day, counting continues for all electorates in the House of Representatives, with absentee, postal and declaration votes trickling in.
The Australian Electoral Commission now has the ALP on 80 seats, the Liberals 50, The Nationals 10, and independents 2.
There are 8 seats still in doubt.
La Trobe is no longer regarded as doubtful, retained by the Liberal member, Jason Wood, by 889 votes. [Read more…]
The future of the ALP’s “star” recruit, former Democrats leader Cheryl Kernot, is in doubt following her hospitalisation this week. Kernot is suffering from exhaustion.
Kernot defected from the Australian Democrats in 1997 and was narrowly elected to the Queensland electorate of Dickson in the 1998 Federal election. She ruffled some ALP feathers on election night when she criticised the ALP for not preselecting her for a safe seat.
Kernot sought and was granted an exchange of shadow portfolios with Martin Ferguson several weeks ago. She claimed she was unable to service her marginal electorate and also be the shadow minister for Transport and Regional Development. She was shifted to Education and Training.
In an interview this week, Kernot criticised her electorate office staff for not appreciating the extent of her illness. She also spoke of the difficulty of retaining Dickson, an electorate she was “trying so hard to be Liberal.”
Whilst the ALP has invested a lot in Kernot, their patience must surely be wearing thin.
A recount of votes in the Queensland electorate of Dickson yesterday put Labor’s Cheryl Kernot over 100 votes ahead. One packet of votes from the original count was found to have been given incorrectly to the Liberal candidate.
Barring discovery of further mistakes in the count, it now appears certain that Kernot will take the seat. Assuming the ALP takes the Tasmanian seat of Bass and the Liberals win Kalgoorlie, the state of the parties in the new House of Representatives will be:
| Liberal | 64 |
| National | 16 |
| ALP | 67 |
| Ind | 1 |
| Total | 148 |
Following the provision of a Speaker, the government will then have an absolute majority of 11 votes.