I’ve got a feeling the Nationals might go with Labor. It’s hard to explain why Brendon Grylls should give Alan Carpenter a big assist to stay in the leadership otherwise. But the contrary hypothesis would be it’s part of a game plan to keep us all guessing.

But, if the Fin Review is to be believed, the significance of a 4% plus swing to the Greens hasn’t escaped the attention of ALP wonks. “Labor hardheads” are quoted by the paper as concerned by the vote in Fremantle, and the implications for the seats of Federal Ministers such as Lindsay Tanner, Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek. “Labor strategists” are cited as concerned about a drift away among “left-leaning voters”.

This is hardly rocket science. Any modern managerialist ALP government is bound to disappoint at least some left voters after the initial euphoria of a Tory defeat has worn off. And the Greens nationally are going to have a much bigger profile with a balance of power role in the Senate and new Senators who may develop a high profile. The article, however, leaves us none the wiser as to how “Labor strategists” think their party should respond.

The Labor Party’s response in the past seems to have often taken the form of “Extreme Green” propaganda. Kevin Rudd’s current disposition appears to be to ignore Bob Brown and the Greens altogether (perhaps because putting together a Senate majority comprising the Greens, Xenophon and Fielding is an inherently unwieldy act) and concentrate his rhetorical fire on the Liberals.

But at a deeper level, the fact that a party with almost 12% of the vote in WA goes unrepresented in the lower House (making something of a mockery about claims that it represents “one vote one value” because single member electoral systems don’t really do that) should cause progressives of all stripes to rethink things. There’s always going to be immense hostility from the major parties and all sorts of entrenched interests to any form of pr in any lower House (and Tasmania crippled its own governance by a Lib-Lab deal to shut the Greens more or less out of its version of Hare-Clark).

But Kevin Rudd should perhaps be thinking long term here (as he claims that he does). Tony Blair probably did want some sort of arrangement with the British Lib Dems – as demonstrated by his reaching out to then leader Paddy Ashdown and the inclusion of Lib Dem MPs and Peers in several Cabinet Committees. In the British context, even preferential voting would have been a significant innovation, however, and it was a bridge too far for Labour.

If, as has been reported, Rudd also has some sort of dream of a grand and enduring re-alignment which would consign the right of politics to a permanently embattled position, the best way to achieve this would be through electoral reform which would enable the ALP and the Greens to work together in a much less adversarial fashion. However, it’s hardly something that our Prime Minister, whose reputation for caution appears well deserved, would propose.

I think it’s time that we the citizens started pushing for this. MMP in New Zealand came about basically because of enormous distaste and alienation with business as usual “better of two evils” big party politics. This seems to me to be something an organisation such as GetUp! could well campaign on (and perhaps attractive to them because it would negate claims they’re an ALP front). It’s not as sexy as some of their issues, but it’s undeniably important. I suspect that it would actually be very much in the interests of trade unions to support such moves, because the disadvantages of putting all their eggs in the Labor basket should already be starkly apparent.

Whichever party the Nats decide to deal with, they likely won’t enter into coalition. They’d guarantee supply, but otherwise keep their options open. And given the Nats’ likely control of both houses, it would possible for one of those options to be to get legislation passed without the help of the government. Meaning ministers forced to implement legislation they voted against.

Unlikely, sure. But wouldn’t it be fun while it lasted? And what other wacky scenarios can people think up before boring reality kicks in again?

The Nationals in WA are more agrarian socialist than they are in the rest of the country, and there are some who say that Brendan Grylls personally leans more towards the Labor Party. Common ‘wisdom’ and Liberal MPs suggest that the Libs and Nats will come to an arrangement, but Gryll’s personal politics, and a desire (and need) to appear genuinely independent and influential mean that there’s a good chance he may prefer to make a deal with Carpenter.

Whether Carps will want to, when it will mean having to fork out a huge amount of money to rural seats, in addition to meeting all his election promises, and dealing with the instability of an angry party and CCC reports, is another question. Whether he’s capable of working with another party when he’s so terrible at working with his own is a third. To be successful would require an ability to reach a consensus, at least with the most important bills; that just isn’t his style.

But whichever man ends up Premier, both parties need to learn some serious lessons from yesterday’s result. On the booth I was on, there didn’t seem to be a lot of passion, either for or against anyone. This is reflected in the high minor/independent vote, and in what I’m betting is a high informal vote. While there were plenty of those heartbreaking votes with just a one that are clearly intended as formal votes, it appeared to me like there were a much bigger number of blank papers than usual. Unfortunately they are all lumped together in the final result – so anyone else who scrutineered a count last night, I’d be interested to hear your observations. For that many people to make the effort to get to the booth, wait in line, fold up the piece of paper and put it in the box, it says a lot that they found writing five or six digits too much of an ask. It also felt like there were much more donkey votes than usual, although with those it really is hard to tell whether it was intended as a donkey vote or an actual expression of preferences. Perhaps Mr Bludger can assess the results of candidates at the top of the paper as compared to their expected results?

One of the most effective ads of the campaign (as opposed to the one I enjoyed the most) was a silent piece that asked the viewer to name three things that the Labor Government had done with the boom. A Labor hack who pays attention to politics, I struggled for a while to answer the question. I have no doubt that most people struggled. Partly because it was a question that would have taken people by surprise, it’s also because, though arrogant about their mad skills as a government, they weren’t very good at The Narrative. Also, they weren’t all that flushed with mad skills. The Carpenter Government was uninspiring, lacked passion, and were pretty crap at understanding and communicating with the community. Their lack of political ability was made crystal clear in their lack of direct response to the ad. When I first saw it, I thought it was a good ad, too early. Turns out, I overestimated the Labor campaign team. It should have taken an hour’s writing and a day’s production to create a simple ad: “Only three things? Here’s 10!” Even they could have managed 10. I think.

They also need to learn how to work with others. It’s going to be an oft-repeated mantra that one of the reasons for the disaster was the imposition of parachuted candidates into seats. This is missing the point. Candidates like Bob Kucera were also parachuted candidates, but he knew how to work with local rank and file party members and supporters. What was a problem was campaign teams who thought they could run the show without them, and who didn’t care about including everyone. It was merely an extension of the last three years, in which the government grew even more distant from the party, and in which the rank and file grew increasingly disconnected. You can’t get a whole community excited about you if you can’t even bring your own party along. Not to mention another party…

Another problem with the “Dream Team” was the lack of diversity. While it was important for Carpenter to make a symbolic break from the problems of the last few years, his focus on actual “youth” alone was a mistake. In telling Kucera he was too old, for example, the Premier told a large group of his voting base that they, too, were too old.

Right now, the two parties are both trying to make deals with the Nationals and Independent MPs. But regardless of who wins, both parties will need to seriously examine the reasons for this result. It’s the job of the various party offices to examine the campaign flaws, however. Let’s hope that MPs choose to focus on the reasons they failed, as well.

But over in the West, Brendon Grylls’ strategy has worked a treat, with the Nats improving their vote and holding the balance of power in both houses. At state level, agrarian socialism and the politics of pork barrelling and extortionate negotiation seems to be a viable strategy for the party. So both Warren Truss and Barnaby Joyce have been contemplating an exit from the federal Coalition. As Andrew Bartlett points out, this is pretty weird for two Queenslanders who are supporting a merged entity at state level. The Nats, of course, don’t see the dissonance, because they’ve effectively swallowed up the Queensland Libs, and are happily preselecting their own members as LNP candidates in state seats which the Liberals had a better chance of winning in, and claiming that the “new face of Queensland” comprises a frontbench where the Borg has only one Brisbane member. Meanwhile, some former Liberals sit on the sidelines, hoping to resurrect their party if the LNP bombs at its first electoral outing when Anna Bligh goes to the polls.

In actual fact, the Nationals are a collection of disparate state parties rather than a national party. What works in WA and SA may not work in Victoria, NSW or Queensland. It leaves them in a huge dilemma, though, about how they position themselves federally, and any choice they make there – whether the previously mooted amalgamation or a Coalition split – will in turn effect their state strategies. The WA Nats are actually rather lucky they don’t have any federal representation.