bogarde73 wrote on Jun 6
th, 2016 at 2:06pm:
Mark Kenny SMH:
"...insiders in both camps report Labor is doing better in its heartland - i.e. safe seats it already holds - than it is in the marginals where swinging voters will decide the election.
The result could be a repeat of 1998 - a sizeable swing to Labor for only a modest return of new seats. Yet for Shorten personally, that would bring an upwelling of affection from the Labor faithful, casting him as a defeated leader who had fought the good fight for "Labor" values - very useful if your challenger is the darling of the rank-and-file, the Left's Anthony Albanese.
All of this suggests Shorten may well be already thinking about his own survival as leader beyond the horizon. Don't expect him to use the term or even to accept the logic, but the inescapable conclusion is that he has a two-election strategy having concluded months ago that gaining the 19 Coalition seats needed to win on July 2 is unachievable."
Rubbish - the Coalition can only afford to lose 14 seats, not 19. After that we're in hung government territory where anything is possible including another election. The Coalition have lost two notional seats due to redistributions so we're down to 12. They will probably lose 3-4 seats in Queensland and gain Fairfax, lose another 2-4 in NSW, lose one or two in Victoria and the same for Tasmania, lose Solomon in the NT and at least four in WA and possibly up to eight. SA is too hard to predict but it is not likely that the Coalition will hold all their seats there.
Even an optimistic assessment for the Coalition suggests they will probably be down to 75 seats and looking to the crossbenches to form minority government. Most likely they will gain support from Katter. It is possible that McGowan or even Windsor will lend support as well. I expect the latter two to support the party or coalition who holds the most seats just for the sake of stability.
A more pessimistic assessment for the Coalition won't see them getting to 70 seats. Once either side fails to reach 70 seats, forming government is impossible if the crossbench has five or more MPs.
And Turnbull knows this. That is why he's trying the desperate tactic of pleading for votes by dishonestly asserting that only the Coalition can deliver stable government. Once a party stops telling people about policy, there is the real risk that people stop listening.
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