Liberal supporters gathered in front of the stage at Malcolm Turnbull’s election night speech were urging each other to make some noise.
Not knowing they were standing next to reporters, they elbowed each other, saying, “We need to yell something.”
“Turnbull! Turnbull!”
Their lack of genuine enthusiasm matched the funereal mood at the Wentworth-Sofitel in Sydney. You could almost hear the knives being sharpened in the Liberal party’s backroom.
Malcolm Turnbull said we might not know until Tuesday what the outcome of the election would be.
But the best advice from Liberal party officials, he said, was that the Coalition would form majority government when all votes are counted.
When the hopeful PM finally turned up at the official Liberal party function at 12.20am on Sunday, he was quick to remind supporters about the opponents he faced during the campaign,
“The Labor party ran some of the most systematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australia,” he said. “The election is over. Only the counting remains.”
The 2016 election has come to this. Australians will go to work on Monday without knowing who their next federal leader is.
The ABC’s election coverage was reporting that the Coalition had won only 72 seats, and Labor 66. The Coalition needs 76 seats to form majority government.
“Let me say this without any fear of contradiction,” Turnbull said. “The Labor party has no capacity in this parliament to form a stable majority government. That is a fact.”
An hour earlier, Labor leader Bill Shorten had told Labor supporters, and the nation’s television cameras, that no matter what the outcome it was clear that Turnbull would not have a mandate to govern.
But Turnbull was adamant the Coalition would be governing by week’s end.
“The hour is late. I don’t expect us to be waiting till 2am, until the final pre-polls are counted,” he said. “But as I said, based on the advice I have from our officials and advisers and strategist within the party, I am confident that we will be able to form a majority government.”
But concerns about a hung parliament are intense. Thoughts have turned to 2010.
There will be plenty of yelling to come.
