Malcolm Turnbull now needs to win nine votes from an 11-member crossbench in the Senate And the final result for the 76 seats is as follows: the Coalition have 30 seats, Labor 26, the Greens nine, One Nation four, Nick Xenophon Team three, with four independents: Derryn Hinch for his Justice Party, Jacqui Lambie for her Network, Bob Day for Family First, and David Leyonhjelm for the Liberal Democrats. You might recall that in the last Parliament Malcolm Turnbull and his predecessor-slash-victim Tony Abbott liked to moan about how gosh-darn unfair it was that they had to rely on seducing five votes from an eight-member crossbench. Well, those miserable days are finally gone! Now the government merely needs to win nine votes from an 11-member crossbench! Also, just to add some extra spice to that already-sizzling legislative curry, that will require both One Nation and NXT to both support the government on any legislation for which Labor and the Greens do not care. In order to pass through the Senate a piece of legislation needs 39 of the 76 votes. Labor and the Greens have 35 between them; the Coalition has 30. So one fun question to ponder is "what sort of legislation is the centrist, decide-things-on-their-merits NXT going to support which also ticks all the boxes for the hard-right, deeply protectionist, the-Muslims-is-coming One Nation?" Another is "how well-disposed to the government are Lambie and Leyonhjelm likely to be feeling, since they seemed to correctly interpret Turnbull's double dissolution as a personal insult?"

Nick Xenophon will risk prosecution as a test case by boycotting the census name requirement. Credit:David Mariuz Meanwhile, as the constant torrent of leaks from the cabinet room about whether or not the PM did or did not support Kevin Rudd's nomination for UN Secretary has reminded us, the vibe within the Coalition isn't as grateful-to-still-have-their-jobs as you might expect it would be after the narrowest possible victory. They're probably not going to be pushing for a lot of jolly bipartisanship right at the moment. So, what are Turnbull's options? One Nation leader Pauline Hanson controls three senators in the new Parliament including Mr Roberts. Credit:Facebook 1. Go super-hard right. Turnbull might just assume that Labor and the Greens will block stuff like the still-unpassed higher education cuts, the same sex marriage plebiscite legislation, and pretty much all of the non-supply elements of the budget and pander to prejudices of One Nation/Leyonhjelm/Lambie and hope that NXT fall into line. Of course, since the majority of voters for One Nation and (especially) NXT were unhappy Coalition voters, why would either party want to be seen to do what Malcolm tells them?

Likely outcome: stalemate, which puts Turnbull's leadership at risk. 2. Only produce legislation that Labor are likely to support. After all, there's a fair bit of crossover between the parties and such a deal would help prevent any grudging Labor-Greens coalition having a chance to congeal against a common foe. Of course, that would allow Labor to claim that the government were adopting their agenda, which isn't a good look, and galvanise the still-seething conservative elements of the party into finding themselves a suitable leadership alternative. Likely outcome: centrist progress, which will give his right wing a panicked reason to move against him. 3. Wait for NXT and/or One Nation to fall apart. As Palmer United have demonstrated, small parties led by a pushy leader with their name in the title have a tendency to implode around the same time that their senators realise that if they quit the party they can keep their jobs, get wined and dined by the government and never have to be yelled at in the party room ever again. Likely outcome: High - the two decade history of One Nation is basically a series of interconnected tantrums - but it'll take at least a year, and that isn't time Turnbull has to achieve nothing.