<< In the end, all that matters is who can secure enough support to command a majority in Parliament. >>

<< In a hung parliament, everything will come down to the support of the independents and the Greens MP; they will have the power to make a government, and to break it. >>

George, this all sounds eminently sensible, except for one thing; the independents by their very nature should not be supporting either major party. They should be, er… independent.

Once they support one or other party their very independence and integrity is brought seriously into question, is it not?

The same should apply to the Greens.

For the independents and Greens to align themselves with one or other party on certain issues would be fine. But a general alignment for the purposes of forming a government really does seem dodgy.

However, this is just one more dodgy aspect of our political machinations to add to a long list!

So, what’s to stop the independents and Green from putting their heads together and supporting the party that they less agree with?

This party would then form government. The independents and opposition would oppose just about everything other than supply bills and the government would be booted out at the next election because of lack of action on anything!

Could it be in the interests of the independents and Green to actually do this – to support the party that they have the least in common with? ( :>/

Thank you for a clear and concise article on the current situation.

As they say – in a democracy - you get the government you deserve.

In the Lib’s case they just carped on against everything and stood for nothing. In the ALP’s case, thanks to the most inarticulate and confused campaign ever, appeared too scared to own any policy as they dismally failed to communicate on any level. For example, they failed to communicate why broadband is the nation building technology of this new century, (like everyone who votes is Gen Y, tweets every third second and lives for face book). The whole situation gave the Greens the opportunity to use the policy gap between both major parties to leap into the Senate.

The Media turned the election into a soap opera – never giving the election policies the scrutiny they deserved and the tied and apathetic voters just sucked it up.

Interesting times.........

Why not return to the law, that being the Constitution, to resolve this issue.

It is the conventions that have caused the difficulty.

The constitution indicates that the elected parliamentarians elect a speaker. It is the speaker's job to proceed from there. A natural course of action could be for parliament to elect a leader, who then forms a Party and so on. If no leader is elected then an election will need to be called.

Of course, nothing can be done until the counting is concluded.

There is nothing in the constitution about Prime Ministers, Swearing in Ministers or Parties and thus "hung" parliaments cannot happen.

So at this stage the Governor General is not involved at all - let's forget conventions.

Conventions do not replace the law.

Am I wrong in all this?

All in all, a commendably brief re-statement of the obvious, or at least the widely-understood, as to the conventions within which our Constitutional Monarchy operates.

I do note the seeming prominence of, if not the emphasis upon, that convention whereby the Governor-General acts on the advice of the caretaker Prime Minister, in the concluding sentence of the second paragraph of the article. I note it because I sense the possible emergence of a circumstance that may indicate that an exception to the following of this convention could be justified.

A news item in The Australian indicates that the Governor-General is seeking advice with respect to a perceivable conflict of interest that might be seen to arise from the relationship as son-in-law to Her Excellency of Bill Shorten, a believed major player in the events which brought the present, now caretaker, Prime Minister to office. See the news item here: http://bit.ly/9b2XvD It is to be noted that the OLO Article author is quoted in that news item.

George Williams, speaking with respect to the Governor-General's possible stepping aside, said:

"That could well be a case where the perception
might become untenable, and it would be wise
for the decision to made by someone else"

The speculation in The Australian is that the senior State Governor (of NSW), Professor Bashir, might step in.

I suggest that because the caretaker Prime Minister, too, may be perceived to be in a conflict of interest situation with respect to Bill Shorten, and that such potential conflict may influence the very advice she might give the Governor-General that would even permit Professor Bashir to step in, the provisions of Section 126 of the Constitution are the ones that should come into play.

The Governor-General acting alone could request Her Majesty to authorize the Governor-General to appoint General Michael Jeffery, the former Governor-General, to be her Deputy and exercise her full functions as Deputy Governor-General, until all question of conflict of interest has passed.

Australia trusts Mike Jeffery.

For our next GG we need to ensure she/he have no family, friends or relations. It might even be better if they have belonged to no church, union or political party. Is this what the media and mining magnates are hinting at? Maybe we should let the Queen take a direct role. What are the views of the Royalist now, as they say the system is not broken? Now if the GG came from the coalition side of politics, there would be no problems

Well said, Flo.