OPINION: Lots of lessons to learn from election

I, LIKE many, foolishly put too much faith in what were ultimately faulty polls ahead of Saturday's election.

LAST LAUGH: Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has outlasted many of her foes. Picture: Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

FIVE MINUTES WITH FIELDING

POLLS SLUMP

I, LIKE many, foolishly put too much faith in what were ultimately faulty polls ahead of Saturday's election.

On Friday night, a friend said she believed the Liberals would win.

Why, I asked. Was it a gut feeling? Was it based on what she had read and heard?

No, was her assured reply. The polls were wrong. She didn't trust them.

Yesterday former Newspoll boss Martin O'Shannessy revealed why she was right not to trust them.

Changing telephone habits, Mr O'Shannessy said, combined with increasing pressure to reduce the cost of polling, meaning corners get cut, were to blame.

Could this be the beginning of the end for political polls in Australia?

SARAH'S LAST LAUGH

Sarah Hanson-Young was re-elected to the Senate.

Fraser Anning was not.

The Greens received 1,189,308, or 10.5 per cent, of the national vote.

Fraser Anning's Conservative National Party received 62,811, or 0.53 per cent.

Hanson-Young won 0.8258 of a quota while Anning won just 0.0943.

SENATE SHRINKING

The new voting system in the Senate will see it reduced to five parties in the future: Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals, the Greens and One Nation (and for them, likely only in Queensland).

Jacqui Lambie benefits from the small quota needed to win a seat in Tasmania.

It's hard to see how any other party or candidate will be able to win a senate seat now that small parties can no longer harvest accumulated preferences.

QUEENSLAND (STILL) DIFFERENT

Queensland decides the outcomes of federal elections in Australia.

It has as long as I can remember.

Tasmania played a key role this time around but it's the Sunshine State that Labor needs to focus on if it is to win.

FIGHT DIRTY

Scare campaigns work. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's miracle win came on the back of concerted attacks, often unfounded, on Labor policies.

Labor will need to defend itself more aggressively and be willing to attack just as dirty if it wants to win.

There were huge economic failings under the Coalition last term that Labor did not make a peep about as the government picked it apart on economic management.

Originally published as OPINION: Lots of lessons to learn from election