One-vote buffer for Labor will make reforms hard

JULIA Gillard has won the tightest election in Australia's political history by the smallest possible margin.

JULIA Gillard has won the tightest election in Australia's political history by the smallest possible margin.

As a result of the decision taken today by the independents, Gillard, on the question of confidence, will have the floor majority 76 to 74 - which means one vote.

One vote is the key here. If she loses one vote then she's in trouble. But that sort of floor majority, provided there's no major scandal, provided there's no embarrassing by-election, means that she might get through for the full three years.

Gillard has saved her prime ministership, and possibly saved her political career today with this decision by the independents. Two of them, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, went with the Labor Party, and the third, Bob Katter, who made his announcement first, went with the Coalition.

So we thought at one stage that there might be a diabolical result of 75-75, which would have meant another election.

So, Julia Gillard and the Labor government have “got out of jail” and there was a profound sense of relief from the Prime Minister when she had a press conference late this afternoon.

Tony Abbott came as close as possible to becoming prime minister.

He played a big role in the destruction of Kevin Rudd, he denied Julia Gillard's majority at the election, and as late as this morning it looked like he still had a chance with the independents, but that was not to be.

Abbott will remain Liberal leader, he will remain Opposition Leader. I think this will be an extremely tight and a heavily contested Parliament.

I think there is a real risk of the possibility of bad blood as the result of these negotiations over the last 17 days.

As far as the parliament is concerned I think there is now a real risk of a weak government delivering poor policy or not too much policy, because all Julia Gillard has got is the commitment of the independents when it comes to confidence and supply, but she has to negotiate every bill item by item.

So I think that suggests that it will be difficult to build a consensus, I don't think this will be a significant reforming Parliament.

One of the points to highlight finally about this is, one of the points that guided the independents in their decision was stability, they went for Gillard not Tony Abbott because they felt that was the best way of getting a three-year parliament.

Tony Windsor even admitted that if there was a new election he thought the Coalition might win it. I think this does raise a question of legitimacy over the new parliament.

What's so bad about a new election sometime over the next three years?

What's so wrong about giving the Australian people another chance rather than saying we have to have stable government for another three years?

The task is not just stable government - it's also effective government.