Australian government hopes to win after last votes counted

Downplaying earlier expectations that his party would be the decisive crossbench element in a new parliament, Senator Xenophon said: “There will hopefully be three senators from the Nick Xenophon Team, as well as Rebekha Sharkie in the seat of Mayo, and that’s a pretty good set of numbers for (me) to have a fairly powerful say (in parliament)”. It is also expected to have the support of four independents. With no party holding a majority in the Senate, the next government might have to do deals with Hanson and other crossbenchers to get contentious legislation passed.

“Australians have voted, we respect their decision, there are many lessons in that election for all of us”, Turnbull told reporters in Melbourne, reprimanding his industry minister, Christopher Pyne, who appeared to celebrate prematurely when he described the coalition as an “election-winning machine”.

We’re asking you to share your messages for Mr Turnbull here so he knows just how serious Australia’s seniors are about the issues that matter to them.

But the opposition warned that while the conservative Liberal Party-led coalition was likely to cling to power, the government would not survive a year.

These seats are expected to include Capricornia, Cowan, Forde, Herbert, Hindmarsh and Flynn which are all officially labelled as “in doubt”.

“This caucus can gather in a spirit of some reasonable optimism”, he said. “We are united, we are determined and we are most certainly positive”.

With more seats up for grabs than in usual Senate elections, the quota to win a seat was reduced. Rogers said in statement the rare double dissolution election conducted under new voting rules was “the largest, most complex election in Australia’s history”.

However, even a busy weekend of counting may not be enough to declare victory for one side or another if the result remains close.

As the vote count continued, both Turnbull’s ruling Liberal/National coalition and Labor were short the 76 seats needed to claim a majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

Katter said after the meeting that he had agreed to support the government if it fell short of a majority.

Labor’s Leisa Neaton is less than 180 votes ahead of sitting Coalition MP Michelle Landry with 82.3% counted. While this has grown to 450 votes, it still seems very close.

But Green has explained why the Coalition has reason to be confident.

According to the ABC election calculator, the Coalition has 73 seats in the bag.

In three of the seats where Labor is leading, it does so by less than 700 votes.

Turnbull lost the government’s comfortable majority in the House of Representatives in Saturday’s election after his campaign on “jobs and growth” and “innovation” failed to resonate equally across the vast country.