An unwieldy Senate, the rise of small parties and an uneven swing – your guide to the what’s what of this election

Most of the votes are counted, but we still don’t know the final outcome. But here are five themes emerging from a tumultuous election weekend.

The Coalition will find it tough in the Senate

There are a lot of seats that are left undecided in the Senate, but it’s clear that the Coalition will have just as much trouble corralling crossbenchers in the new Senate as they did in the old Senate.

On the current numbers the Coalition looks set to win 29 seats, down from 33. Current projections suggest blocs of Nick Xenophon Team and One Nation senators, along with Derryn Hinch, Jacqui Lambie and a scattering of other small party senators.



Labor and the Greens look set to win 36 seats, up one from their current representation. So if Labor and the Greens vote together in opposition to a Coalition government, they only need to drag across two crossbenchers to block legislation. To look at this another way, the Coalition would need to stitch together an alliance of 10 crossbenchers, including teams led by Pauline Hanson and Nick Xenophon, every time they want to pass legislation in the face of opposition from Labor and the Greens.



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A new Labor government would have an easier time in the Senate – an alliance of the Nick Xenophon Team and the Greens would be enough to govern. The Greens would be necessary but not sufficient to pass a Labor government’s legislation. If the Greens chose to side with the Coalition, they would be able to block any bill that had the support of Labor and the entire assorted crossbench.



Being a sitting senator isn’t enough to win re-election

Nick Xenophon and Jacqui Lambie were both successful in winning a sizeable vote in a small state, in part due to their platform as prominent senators, but it didn’t work quite so well in larger states.



Glenn Lazarus polled a paltry 1.67% on early Senate votes in Queensland, while Ricky Muir’s Motoring Enthusiast party could manage only 0.95% in Victoria. John Madigan’s party is sitting on only 0.16% of the statewide vote in Victoria.



On the other hand, prominent outsiders such as Derryn Hinch and Pauline Hanson were able to leverage their fame into a Senate seat (Hinch was probably helped by a favourable ballot position).



Decline of the vote for major parties since 1996

Minor parties continue to surge

A smaller proportion of Australians voted for the major parties in 2016 than did in 2013, which was renowned as an election dominated by minor parties.



The proportion voting for Labor or the Coalition in the House of Representatives dropped to 77.2%, while only 65.4% voted for a major party in the Senate. This is a significant drop since 2007, when more than 85% voted for the major parties in the House of Representatives, and more than 80% in the Senate.



Minor parties are proving to be more of a threat in the House of Representatives, traditionally dominated by the major parties. It appears likely that the Greens will only hold their single seat of Melbourne, but they gained significant ground in the four neighbouring seats of Batman, Wills, Melbourne Ports and Higgins.



Nick Xenophon Team’s influence is limited to South Australia

We already knew that Nick Xenophon is popular in South Australia – he won more than 20% of the vote in statewide elections in 2006, 2007 and 2013.



This time around, his party ran Senate candidates across the country along with House of Representatives candidates across South Australia (and a handful of others).



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South Australians did indicate that they were willing to vote for Xenophon’s team, not just for him personally. His party polled 21% in the lower house across his home state, came in the top two in four seats, and looks likely to win up to two seats.



But the party did not take off in the rest of the country: while NXT polled 21.9% in the Senate in South Australia, it managed only 1.67% in the rest of Australia. It seems unlikely that NXT will win any Senate seats outside South Australia.



Seat swings didn’t follow neat patterns

The Liberal National Party held the Queensland seat of Petrie by a slender 0.5% margin – but the LNP is likely to retain the seat. Meanwhile in the seat of Longman, immediately to the north of Petrie, Wyatt Roy lost with an 8.4% swing.



The Coalition comfortably held on in the suburban seats of Deakin, Banks and Reid while other seats on similar margins fell.



Unlike in 2010, when Labor gained ground in Victoria and South Australia and lost ground in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, there is no big differences in swing between states – Labor gained ground in every state, ranging from a 2.2% swing in Victoria to a 6.5% swing in Tasmania.

