The Poll Bludger is progressively updating late counting, while Tim Dunlop discusses the low turnout. Antony Green also looks at the impact of absentee votes and is critical of the administration of the election and Andrew Bartlett discusses the coverage of the election, and has some other interesting observations.

I noticed the usual predictable “it spells doom for the Rudd government” and “no it was fought on territory issues” dichotomy being produced in comments by pollies yesterday. I doubt that either Julie Bishop on one hand or Chris Bowen and Stephen Smith on the other were really following the election closely and that they are speaking with any authority on this matter. It’s always possible that they were privy to some internal polling, but unlikely in my judgement. I’d prefer to get some information on the dynamics of the contest from someone who’s actually an informed Territorian, so I’d take a lot more notice of Ken Parish’s take on the campaign and the result at Troppo.

If the election does produce a change of government, there will of course be federal implications – for governance and federal politics. Probably not so much in terms of the “coast to coast Labor” thing, as the territories are supplicants to the Commonwealth for money, and not among the most influential COAG players, but certainly in terms of Indigenous and resources policy where a significant amount of what’s going on occurs in the territory of the Northern Territory. I also think it’s foolhardy to suggest that the fact of calling an early election which didn’t produce the desired result necessarily has all that much to tell us about Alan Carpenter’s decision in WA. As Peter Beattie could tell us, early elections sometimes pay off in spades – but they do need a relatively convincing rationale.