The Australian Federal election

was held on Saturday, but the final result is still not clear.

With postal & absentee votes & recounts in close seats still to come, & legal challenges sure to happen, the preliminary result so far is that either Labor or the conservative Coalition will hold 73 to the other's 72 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the Lower House; the Greens will have one seat; & there will be four independents, three of whom are to be considered to have conservative leanings.

It means that, in order to form government, one of the major parties will have to rely on the independents for support. At first glance, it might appear that the Coalition have the greater chance of winning that support, given the background & the rural/regional electorates of the three "conservatives". But, interestingly, it is the policies of the Labor Party—e.g. a national State-owned broadband network with its ability to deliver not only wider internet & telephony coverage but greater rural health services via its connectivity, the conservation of water & the general environmental policies favoring agriculture over mining—that the independents appear most attracted to. Also, the National Party, once called the Country Party, which is the junior Coalition party, did their relationship with the independents a great deal of harm by publicly declaring two of them, as late as last Saturday, fools & idiots.

So we wait & see what will happen. In the interim, newspaper reports suggest that it is only The Sex Party, which fielded a number of unsuccessful candidates in the election, that can find any pleasure in the idea of a hung parliament.