The Labor landslide looks to have carried over to a better-than-expected result in the Legislative Council, where Labor and the Greens seem likely to win half the 36 seats between them. Depending on how things pan out in Mining and Pastoral, that will be either Labor 15 and Greens three, or Labor 14 and Greens four. However, Labor will have to provide the President, who only gets a casting vote in the event of a tie on the floor, which tends not to happen because of the odd numbers once the President is taken out of the picture. So the government will need another vote on top of the Greens to get contentious measures through — including, perhaps, measures related to the reform of the chamber’s malapportionment and electoral system.

The Liberals look to have crashed from 16 seats to nine, while the Nationals are down from five to four. That leaves another five cross-benchers on top of the three or four Greens. As I write at the close of business, the ABC computer is crediting the Daylight Saving Party with a seat in Mining and Pastoral, but this is because it is misidentifying Stefan Colagiuri as the party’s candidate, when he is in fact from Shooters Fishers and Farmers, who appear set to win two seats. However, the Daylight Saving Party might yet win the seat the ABC is crediting to the Liberal Democrats in South Metropolitan. There are also non-trivial chances of other disturbances to the current picture. One Nation should at least win a seat in South West, and the micro-party preference network looks a good chance to deliver Fluoride Free a seat in East Metropolitan.

I’ve run simulations based on the current voting numbers with randomised variations to test for the likelihood that results will differ from those shown by the ABC calculator. These are shown below, with confirmed wins in the first column and probabilities of winning one of the outstanding seats in the second.

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