Australia Votes 2007: Howard conceeds defeat

At around Midnight AEDT, 11am GMT/UTC, Liberal leader John Howard conceeded defeat in the federal election. It was the end of a long era. John Howard had been PM for 11 years, and had been an MP since 1974 in the constituency of Bennelong.

It seemed he realised, even then, that this wasn't just the end of his premiership, but also the end of his political career, as he noted in his concession speech that he might even lose his seat in Parliament.

Australia Votes 2007: The leaflet scandal

I'm sure you remember the scandal concerning the fake leaflet from the non-existant "Islamic Australia Foundation". I covered it in a recent news roundup. Well, some justice looked like it was going to be done as just after 8pm on election night, the expectation was that the Liberals would lose and Labor, the victims of the fake flyer would triumph. This victory was confirmed a couple of hours later.

Australia Votes 2007: Exit Poll

The early signs for the Liberals were not positive as a Channel Seven/Sky News exit poll put Labour as the winner by 53% to 47% for the Liberals under the two-party prefered outcome method.

However, few people were putting much faith in the exit polls, as they have a bit of a chequered history in Australia, much in the same way that they have had a chequered history in UK elections too.

Australia Votes 2007: Melbourne voters drives car at journalist.

One of the early stories to come out of this election was not a positive one at all.

Liberal campaigners and a voter clashed over posters outside a primary school in Heathmont. The posters got ripped down, and a newspaper journalist almost got run down.

Whilst I'm all in favour of being passionate about your political beliefs, and any other beliefs, there are times when you shouldn't take action, and temper your instincts. Politics is currently polarised enough, without people thinking that action needs to be taken to support their beliefs.

Australia Votes 2007: The stats

I promised earlier that I would report the stories of this election and that's exactly what I'm going to do. First, we're going to look at this election statistically.

Two seats in the Australian House of Representatives did not go to any party, but to independents. Kennedy in Queensland went to the Independent Bob Katter, who was a National Party MP until 2001, and Tony Windsor in the New England constituency in New South Wales.

The National Party has 10 MPs so far, The Liberal Party has 48 MPs and Labour has a massive 83 seats. 76 seats are needed for victory, so Labour will form the next government.

Looking at the State of the Parties, we see that Labour and Liberals dominated the voting.



Labour had 43.5% of the vote, Liberals 36.5%, the Greens 7.8%, the National Party 5.5% and Family First just 1.9%.

In the Senate, the Liberal coalition is still the biggest force with 37 senators, Labour with 32 senators, the Greens have 5 senators, Family First has 1 senator and there is 1 other.

Okay, those are the 'boring' but essential numbers out the way. Next, we'll start looking at the other stories that came out of this election.