On the ABC’s latest figures, the Tasmanian vote split is 37.1/39.1/21.3 for Labor, the Liberals and The Greens respectively, with a 10-10-5 allocation of seats predicted. It’s interesting, in passing, to observe that The Greens didn’t come anywhere near as close to Labor’s vote as polls might have indicated, though nevertheless scoring a handy swing of 4.6%. The swing against Labor in Tasmania was -12.1%, compared to -7.4% in South Australia, where the great majority of the swing has gone straight to the Liberals, with only a small increase in The Greens’ vote of 1.6%.

I’m going to be very interested to see whether those members of the commentariat who were proclaiming that a Labor loss in one or both states would spell doom for Rudd, further embolden Abbott, and claiming that “state results have federal implications and feed into the psychological battle in Canberra” will now rewrite their scripts for tomorrow’s papers.

In truth, there is very little point pouring over state tea leaves to concoct a federal brew.

The first term Rudd government is at a very different stage of the electoral cycle than the state administrations, and the range and scope of issues quite distinct. Those seeking to weave a narrative of Labor decline based on state results should pause and reflect that there is great particularity to each state’s political culture and history, before we even get to the fact that historically there is little correlation between election results at Commonwealth and state levels.

The only real point of interest, because it will involve many of the same players and techniques, is the performance of the campaigns. SA Labor obviously ran a well targeted marginal seat effort, so a move in the statewide vote could be contained to seats where it didn’t count. The political dynamics of the Tasmanian contest are very different, driven by its unique electoral system, but the ALP campaign appears, from a distance, to have been both ineffectual and unprincipled.

So, to the degree that there are lessons to be learned, Labor, the Liberals and The Greens will be seeking to understand what the campaigns’ implications are for the mechanics and technics of the federal contest.

Incidentally, speaking of observing at a distance, I wasn’t surprised to see Christopher Pearson coming closest of any of the commentators to picking the SA result. I’ll never forget Peter Van Onselen writing just before last year’s Queensland election of ‘many marginal Labor seats in South-West Queensland’. My belief that local and historical knowledge is crucial to electoral commentary led me to decline a kind invitation from Crikey to join in the conversation on these elections. I think it’s worth remembering that principle when evaluating the worth of comment on politics in our very large, variegated and complex continent.

Elsewhere: John Quiggin:

Given the extent to which Abbott’s bogus “authenticity” campaign relies on momentum, this could be a big problem for him. Or maybe not. Despite the Libs pre-election spin, tonights votes had very little to do with Federal politics, and rightly so.

Trevor Cook:

People who get excited about the News Ltd / Newspoll excitement about the so-called Abbott rise ought to see this as a reality check.

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.

Writing in the Centre for Policy Development’s Insight, Bill Bowtell takes a look at our electoral system:

Counter-factual history is entertaining, and no more than guesswork, but at the very least truly fair elections would have resulted in many more occupants of the Prime Ministerial throne over the last six decades. And in four out of five of these elections, the will of the people was to embrace the ALP rather than the conservative alternative.

Had the will of the people been implemented at these elections, whether to install governments of the left or the right, these governments would have been more reflective of the contemporary needs, aspirations and opinions of the Australian people who after all have voted for change ten and not just five, times since 1949.

It is therefore deeply wrong to blame the Australian people for the sclerotic timidity and lack of vision that has so often disfigured Australian politics and greatly delayed necessary reform by many post-war governments. Since 1949, the Australian people have voted for political change at almost every other election, yet their will has been denied by a complex system that does not reliably deliver a majority of seats to the side that wins a majority of votes.

This absurd contraption of single member electorates locks up and effectively disenfranchises millions of Australians in safe electorates, while showering largesse on a small number of voters in marginal seats. Over time, this has created a massively distorted imbalance in the national distribution of services and subsidies. This has counted against safe seat voters on both sides of the political spectrum – and especially voters in most rural and regional seats and the inner cities.