Thanks for this analaysis, Graham. The Victorian election will certainly give you plenty more opportunities to observe the pro-green demographic as it emerges.

It seems the markets and market gurus generally favour a hung parliament.
Methinks a mixture of 'no news is good news' and 'at least, do no harm'.
We could be in for what Sir Humphrey would describe as 'a restful period of masterly inactivity'.

My impressions has always been that the Labor party has always kept their distance from the greens whilst informally forming an alliance through preferences. In governing, the agenda was always Labor, with the occasional inconsequential bone thrown to the greens.

The hung parliament has changed this dynamic, with the greens having real power. The result is that many of the centrist promises that labor made to draw votes from the libs now have to be abandoned, which the libs are not likely to allow to fade from the voters' minds.

A labor / green alliance was strongly denied even in Tasmania prior to the elections because it leaves the center vacant. In federal politics, the resultant strong green agenda is alienating the conservative working class who will punish Labor harshly in the next election.

Graham

Your poll and analysis is fine but have voting intentions changed from what was seen at the last election. ie have Labor voters deserted to the coalition. I doubt that.

Soooo the obvious is that a new election would see Abbott well in front and with Oakshott's and Windsor's departure a Coalition returned for an extended period. I think we'd see the Greens relegated, over a longer period, in a similar fashion to the Democrats, and with their disillusioned labor supporters drifting inevitably, as they age to the Liberals.

The longer term will see the death of an increasingly media 'hooked' dysfunctional ALP and the Greens increasingly marginalised as the climate cools.

You might say Graham,that a really well hung parliament gives democracy gonads once again.

I guess the merits of a hung parliament largely come down to the merits of those that hold the balance of power. Afterall, neither of the major parties has got much in the way of principles. They will largely go with the flow, according to whatever will keep them in power or win them power. So they’d freely swing in the breeze in the direction of the party and/or independents that hold the power balance.

But unfortunately the Greens just don’t cut it, as far as our future wellbeing is concerned. And neither do the three amigos, it seems.

If they just had the real green agenda at heart, we could overcome some of the things that we couldn’t overcome if they weren’t the balance of power… and we could actually power towards a much better future, instead of continuing to rapidly erode our future wellbeing.

First and foremost, we could overcome our addiction to continuous growth and start to genuinely approach a sustainable society with a stable population. Now, if ONLY the Greens would do this, which really is the corestone of a real green agenda, then we could say that a hung parliament, with the Greens holding the balance, would be the greatest thing to ever happen in Australian politics.

But alas, the Greens are not really green.

The greatest chance we’ll ever have to implement some of the desperately needed changes in our political paradigm is slipping past us. This hung parliament is not looking any better at all than the previous few non-hung parliaments.