Now Gillard must watch her back
So a scrappy campaign has ended with a messy result, and an election that's been compared to a national soap opera has not yet produced its concluding instalment.
The voters all chipped in with script lines. More than 14 million of them.
Perhaps they ultimately decided that nobody truly deserved to win.
Julia Gillard looked ashen-faced as she stepped before her supporters in Melbourne and admitted that the Labor government had so far failed to muster a majority. Then came the tacit acknowledgment that only horse-trading with the single Green MP and a handful of independents would keep the government in power. She even started heaping praise on them from the platform, which some might have viewed as rather pleading and desperate.
She decided to call a snap election thinking the honeymoon she had enjoyed after becoming Australia's first female prime minister would last until election day. Manifestly, it didn't. Instead she was punished in Queensland, especially for the manner in which she got the job. There was a big backlash against the government in New South Wales too, which was a rejection both of the federal government and a deeply unpopular state government.
But the backlash was not vicious enough to hand Tony Abbott a clear-cut victory. Doubts about his plausibility as prime minister may have lingered. Perhaps some prospective Liberal voters wanted more evidence that he had a vision for Australia and could be an innovative policy-maker.
At the end of a suitably twisty-turny night, the likelihood now is of a hung parliament with the handful of independents and the one Green MP holding the balance of power. The Greens won in Melbourne, gaining their first seat in the House of Representatives and achieving their best ever share of the vote. More proof of the disaffection with the major parties.
Julia Gillard failed to deliver Labor a decisive victory; the raison d'etre beyond the leadership coup two months ago. Presumably, she'll be watching her back.
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