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Sunday October 10, 05:43 AM AAP
Coalition swings to victory
A 1.82 per cent swing has delivered the coalition 52 per cent of the two-party preferred vote and an increased majority in parliament.
Labor lost votes in every state, only picking up statewide swings in the ACT and the Northern Territory.
In Queensland, where Labor hoped to pick up seats from the coalition, there was a 2.11 swing to the coalition, giving them 57 per cent of the two-party preferred vote.
The Liberals looked likely to gain the new seat of Bonner, contested by former Keating government minister Con Sciacca, and possibly Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson's seat of Rankin.
In South Australia, also a key to Labor's hopes of winning power, the coalition picked up an extra 0.18 per cent of the vote, winning 54 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, with 46 per cent for Labor.
Labor looked likely to win Adelaide and Hindmarsh from the Liberals but to lose frontbencher David Cox's seat of Wakefield.
The Liberal-held seats of Kingston and Makin were too close to call.
In NSW, the coalition gained an extra 0.77 per cent of the statewide vote, giving it 52 per cent, compared to 48 per cent for Labor.
Labor lost the previously safe seat of Greenway.
In Victoria, there was a 2.77 per cent swing to the coalition, giving the government 51 per cent of the vote and Labor 49 per cent.
In Tasmania, where voters in rural areas were expected to punish Labor for its forestry policy, there was a 3.74 swing to the coalition, giving them 46 per cent of the vote, compared to 54 for Labor.
Labor lost the seats of Bass and Braddon.
In Western Australia there was a 3.56 per cent swing to the coalition, giving them 55 per cent of the two-party preferred seat vote and the seats of Hasluck and Stirling.
In the Northern Territory there was a 2.31 per cent swing to Labor, giving them 53 per cent of the vote, compared to 46 per cent for the coalition.
In the solidly pro-Labor ACT, the Liberals lost 0.62 per cent of the vote, leaving them with just 38 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, with 62 per cent for the ALP.
******** AAP
Greens see-saw back to parliament
The Australian Greens have lost their only lower house seat, but looked set to boost their numbers in the Senate.
Greens MP Michael Organ was resoundingly beaten in the NSW coastal seat of Cunningham by Labor's Sharon Bird. ADVERTISEMENT
With nearly 80 per cent of the vote counted, Ms Bird clinched the seat with 40.2 per cent of primary votes, double that of Mr Organ.
Mr Organ, who surprisingly won the Wollongong-based seat from Labor in a 2002 by-election, described the outcome as a double blow - he lost his seat and Liberal Prime Minister John Howard was back in power.
"We've basically held our vote from the by-election so we're pleased about that but we don't have the preferences working in our favour this time," he told AAP.
Ms Bird, a 41-year-old former TAFE teacher, was pleased to have won back support for Labor from voters who had voted against the party in the 2002 by-election.
"I'm very excited about all this," she said.
"I just want to get on with the job."
The picture was brighter for the Greens in the upper house, with party leader Bob Brown claiming a Senate seat victory for former Tasmanian MP and high-profile conservationist Christine Milne.
"She will win the fourth or fifth Senate seat in Tasmania," Senator Brown told ABC TV.
Ms Milne was on 12.94 per cent, slightly short of a full quota, as voting continued.
The Greens remain hopeful of picking up another Senate seat in Western Australia.
But while the Senate gains were welcomed by the Greens, the party failed to achieve Senator Brown's target of reaping one million votes this election.
The Greens enjoyed a national swing of 2.12 per cent of first preference votes after increasing their vote in all states and territories.
The Greens appeared to have gained ground lost by the Australian Democrats, which suffered a national swing of 4.24 per cent against them.
The party's strongest performance was in Tasmania, where it enjoyed nearly 10 per cent of the primary vote.
Senator Brown said the Greens' primary vote across the country was extraordinarily good.
"Right across the country the Greens are polling above our last vote, which itself was a record vote," he said.
Fellow Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said while it was disappointing the party lost its only lower house seat, the Greens enjoyed strong support across the country, especially in Mr Howard's seat of Bennelong.
Whistleblower and Greens candidate Andrew Wilkie managed to grab 16.56 per cent of the primary vote in Bennelong.
"I think we have got votes from everywhere and I think when you look at somewhere like Bennelong where the Greens got 16.5 per cent ... well that's coming from everywhere that level of support," Senator Nettle told AAP.
"I think there's a message in that for the Labor Party about their failure to address the Iraq war as one of the key issues during the election campaign."
===== "In the shadow of its own incomplete emancipation the bourgeois consciousness must fear to be annulled by a more advanced consciousness; not being the whole freedom, it senses that it can produce only a caricature of freedom-- hence its theoretical expansion of its autonomy into a system similar to its own coercive mechanisms."
Adorno, NEGATIVE DIALECTICS
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