Federal Election 2016 live coverage day four: Counting of votes resumes

Okay, friends. It's time to wrap this thing up for the day as we await the results of this cliff-hanger election.

A summary of our current conundrum:

Vote counting continues but is slow progress. Eight of those crucial seats remain too close to call and three more are very tight.

Malcolm Turnbull has taken "full responsibility" for the election result and Bill Shorten claims the Prime Minister is considering a snap election.

Michael Gordon analysis: Malcolm Turnbull's response could be the making of him - or his undoing.

Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop will do her first post-election interview tonight on ABC's 7.30 program.

And as a bonus, here is a quick outline of ABC election analyst Antony Green's latest predictions.

He's projecting it will be Labor 70, Coalition 70, Greens and Xenophon one each, and others with three (and five still too close to call).

"We think we're getting up to 70-70 with five others, which means if the Coalition wants to get to majority, if those numbers hold up they can't get there," he said.

"More of the seats which are in doubt are likely to be won by the Coalition, so I think it's more likely the Coalition will have more seats than Labor, but it looks a difficult task for them to get to a majority in their own right."

He said we'll have more figures come in "later tonight", the result of today's counting, with most of the seats decided by the end of the week.

"Only a seat which is under a few hundred would still be in doubt into next week."

Antony Green's prediction for the House on Tuesday afternoon.

Labor's candidate for Cowan, internationally renowned counter-radicalisation expert Anne Aly, says the democratic process that produced Senator-elect Pauline Hanson should be respected.

"Perhaps we should look at this a different way and perhaps looks at it as an opportunity to discuss things openly and with transparency and have a debate on some very important issues as long as those debates are respectful and as long as those debates are informed and are backed by evidence and research and facts," she told Sky News.

She said it doesn't serve any purpose to "denigrate" her election.

"What's done is done. She's there, she's in the Senate and we just need to make it work."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said Ms Hanson is "not a welcome presence on the Australian political scene" and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said today that her rhetoric was "racially inflammatory".

Anne Aly appearing on Sky News on Tuesday afternoon.Credit: Sky News

Some WA voters are saying they were denied the chance to vote because polling stations in various electorates ran out of ballot papers in the afternoon.

Hard-fought Hasluck and safe Liberal seat Pearce are said to be affected by the mishap, reports WAtoday's David Prestipino. ​

Cowan, currently on a knife-edge, could be affected by 150 votes being rendered void because they were not signed properly.

Senator Eric Abetz was philosophical on his feelings about Malcolm Turnbull's leadership and whether it reflects his conservative politics.

"Anger is a terrible emotion," he mused. "It never allows you to come to a rational decision and so I don't use that sort of terminology."

"Disappointed in relation to the campaign? Yes. Were we out of touch? Clearly, the election result shows that. Do we need to do more to engage with the Australian people? Clearly, we need to," he said.

He reassured that there was no appetite for a leadership challenge and stability was the priority but said the makeup of the ministry was critical to party happiness.

"It is the prerogative of the Prime Minister to choose his cabinet and he will have to make a decision as to what is in the best interests of the party to bring us together in these difficult circumstances.

"And a cohesive party has to be the top priority in these circumstances and I trust that that will be a part of his thinking when he appoints a ministry when we, as he says he is hopeful of, form majority government."

This is a senior conservative basically warning the Prime Minister to promote more of his kind to powerful positions in the government. We're talking about figures like him, former prime minister Tony Abbott and backbenchers such as Canberra senator Zed Seselja.

Eric Abetz, senior conservative and one of Malcolm Turnbull's fiercest critics inside the Liberal Party, has some candour this evening.

On the "false and dishonest" Medicare scare campaign and the electorate's perceived concerns about the Coalition's commitment to healthcare, Senator Abetz says they were not proactive, savvy and alert enough in their response.

"We should have inoculated against this a lot earlier. We tried but by the time we were seeking to inoculate the disease had already spread," he said, adopting a rather nifty medical metaphor.

"We should have been onto this issue a lot earlier, a lot quicker and a lot more emphatically. We didn't do it, we suffered the consequences."

Giving voice to some of the internal concerns about the issues covered in the Coalition's campaign, he said "there were many good policies but I think we could have done more in relation to trade union corruption, Labor's proposed carbon tax, Labor's proposed negative gearing [measures] and so the list goes on".

"And what we have to do is carefully analyse why these issue weren't raised, weren't campaigned on, who was responsible etc.

"And my view is, I suppose as a true conservative, you work through these things step-by-step, case-by-case, don't come to rash conclusion and learn from the lessons of this election and, in particular, we have to be more attuned to the genuine aspirations of the Australian people."

Ominous.

"On his third attempt, Malcolm Turnbull has delivered the words he should have conveyed on Saturday night and, in the process, taken the first tentative steps to salvage his prime ministership," writes Michael Gordon, political editor of The Age, in some typically valuable analysis.

Read on here.

Meanwhile, Fairfax Media's numbers man Matt Wade has an update on the seat tally, which I know we're all thirsty for. Don't get your hopes up, however, there's a long way to go.

His analysis is that there are still seven seats too close to call and another three (at least) that are very tight.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, which has been running a campaign against the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule, says the unclear election result shows voters want indexation returned to the rebate.

"Australia has spoken and made it undeniably clear they want the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) for GPs lifted," president Dr Frank Jones said.

The RACGP demanding a guarantee that the annual indexation will be reinstated, which Labor has already to committed to doing.

They introduced the original freeze when in government. The Coalition then froze the rebate at 2014 levels and, in this year's budget, announced it would be extended two years until 2019-20, saving the budget $900 million.

It was one of the central planks of Labor's health policy scare campaign in the lead up the election.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr says Pauline Hanson will hurt Australia's image overseas, calling her a "mischievous troublemaker and racist".

Mr Carr, who now works full-time on improving relations between Australia and China through roles at three prominent Sydney universities, said the re-emergence of One Nation would have been noted with alarm across Asia.

Read more here

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, a very senior figure in the conservative wing of the Liberal Party, is calling for unity behind Malcolm Turnbull but says anger at the campaign strategy is understandable.

Mr Dutton said Mr Turnbull is a "strong leader" who can navigate the Coalition to government.

"I've spoken literally to dozens of my colleagues and there is nobody suggesting that there should be change of leader. Indeed everybody wants to make sure that Malcolm Turnbull is successful in forming a government and I think we can do that over the coming days," he told Sky News.

"That is the only game in town and there is nobody in the Liberal Party, on the conservative side of the party or otherwise, that believes there should be a change of leader and Malcolm Turnbull has my full support. He has the full support of the cabinet and our colleagues."

It wasn't all positive, however:

"Undoubtedly, and understandably, people are angry about different aspects of the campaign. Whether we should have gone more negative and pointed out to the Australian public Bill Shorten's chequered background. All of that can be determnined in due course."

Some MPs are reportedly bewildered that the campaign didn't focus more on border protection, Mr Shorten's union background, and climate change policy.

Mr Dutton narrowly avoided a loss in his seat of Dickson, experiencing a swing of 5.84 per cent. He blamed bikies, union thugs, activists and "sneaky" Labor tactics for this drop in support.

A Melbourne author has criticised election campaign tactics used by the Australian Christian Lobby, including linking her picture book for transgender children to support for a controversial anti-bullying program.

Read more here