Election wrap-up

Oh what a night! Labor has swept into government with a massive 6% swing, and for the first time in Australian history, the incumbent prime minister has lost his seat.

A few observations from election night:


- The Prime Minister elect will mirror the former PM in many ways. Notice that Rudd has already adopted Howard's trademark gold tie.


- There's something about being the Member for Bennelong that seems to provoke the two-arm celebratory wave.


Last night was a great night for Labor, but also a great night for 'bone-heads'. If you watched the ABC TV election coverage last night, you might have noticed the record number of people making faces, waving, and holding up giant Rudd heads in the background. The crowd in the tally room were also making a lot of noise, and at one point Kerry O'Brian got quite annoyed. In the future I think the ABC will want to do election coverage from a controlled studio, A) because of the bone-heads, and B) because the rumour is that the Australian Electoral Commission are planning to no-longer make use of an actual tally-room in the future in favour of a virtual tally room.


When the previous Labor prime minister, Paul Keating, won in 1993 he called it a win for the 'true believers'. That was code for a promise to govern from a foundation of Labor ideology. Rudd, however, borrowed Howard's line, and promised to 'govern for all Australians'. So expect to see a very conservative policy - a small target approach. The 'true believers' will have to look to Julia Gillard for traditional Labor values -- she's the 'light on the hill'.