This remarkable election outcome should be a wake-up call for all three parties. The people have spoken, and with a clear message.
There was a massive and well-deserved loss of confidence in the Labor Government's policies. But the Coalition's insubstantial policy alternatives barely benefited from it. The increasingly well-informed Australian electorate saw through the triviality of what both major parties were offering. The Greens — a serious party — gained massively, yet there is no room for complacency in that party either.
Australia now truly has a three-party system in place. The remarkable erosion of support for the two major parties was focused in Australia's best-educated inner city electorates. So it is a harbinger of more to come.
I am quite sure that this result is attributable primarily to the major parties' pusillanimous policies on climate change, leading to a progressive loss of confidence among thinking voters in either party's fitness to govern the nation. The Greens vote will continue to grow in future for as long as the major parties cling to scientifically ignorant, pressure-group-subservient climate policies which are little better than spin and greenwash.
Gillard could fail here, as Rudd and Abbott failed. All three leaders have turned a deaf ear to the people's urgent demand that Australian federal governance take decisive policy action against disruptive climate change.
Rudd, Gillard and Abbott now have paid the price for this. In a hung House of Representatives, no government can be formed without the support of four or five Independent MPs (three ex-Nationals, one Green, and probably Andrew Wilkie). And after July 2011, no new policy will pass the Senate without Greens support there.
Looking at the past policy profiles and post-election statements of these independents in the Lower House, I believe a Gillard Government is likely. Abbott is only arithmetically and formally still in contention.
The three NSW/Queensland sitting Independents are open-minded or progressive on climate change policy and all share a healthy scepticism of market rationalist economics in confronting the water and climate change crises. Wilkie is ethically focused, and Green MP Adam Bandt has, of course, Green values. I cannot see them working with the Coalition as led by the erratic and undependable Abbott.
The Greens will need to use their new power responsibly. They should hold to their principled 2009–2010 position that Labor's carbon-trading ETS was corrupted and ineffective. They should firmly press on with concrete proposals