This was published 9 years ago
OK - that will do us for the live blog tonight. We'll be back bright and early tomorrow for all the *exciting* #auspol action.
Will we be any closer to finding out who will be PM? Probably not.
Until then, follow our coverage online and, of course, #buythepaper.
Cheers.
One more link before we wrap up this blog for Sunday.
The Sydney Morning Herald political editor Peter Hartcher writes that the two major parties are lost in "all-consuming narcissism".
"The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, is claiming that, regardless of the final outcome, the Coalition "have lost their mandate".
"He's acknowledging the possibility that Malcolm Turnbull could be returned as prime minister, yet he argues that he'd have no mandate.
"The election response of the Liberal Party is not much better. The Tony Abbott faction of the party is taking the result as its opportunity to open a civil war.
Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger has repeated his analysis of why the Coalition performed so badly at Saturday's election.
He said the "off the table, on the table" games played by Malcolm Turnbull with tax reform contributed to a perception that the government had no economic plan.
"The message to the electorate was: we don't really know what to do, we're trying to work it out," Mr Kroger told Sky News.
During those months, Mr Turnbull floated several ideas including raising the GST and allowing states to levy their own income taxes.
Mr Kroger warned against anyone who went around offering predictions about the final election outcome.
"The truth is nobody knows," he said. "You do not know, and anyone who can tell you they do is lying to you."
Just referring back to an earlier post - while Fairfax Media has made some predictions on likely seat outcomes, the AEC tally currently stands as follows:
Labor 69 (+ 2 close seats)
Coalition 64 (+3 close seats)
Greens 1
Katter 1
My colleague Fergus Hunter has been going through the history books in case the worst comes to worst for Malcolm Turnbull.
If the prime minister loses his job - perhaps through being outfoxed in negotiations for minority government, or being dumped by his party - he would be Australia's sixth-shortest serving PM.
He would at least have outlasted Chris Watson, Arthur Fadden, John McEwen, Earle Page and Francis Forde who served 113, 39, 23, 20 and 8 days respectively.
Dive into the record books with Mr Hunter here.
There's a rush among commentators and the established parties to explain the emphatic return of One Nation into Australian politics.
Former Labor frontbencher has weighed in with this, blaming the Senate voting reforms and double dissolution election (which halved the necessary quota for a Senate seat):
There has been much discussion all day about whether Pauline Hanson's return reflects economic insecurity, entrenched xenophobia, electoral opportunism or some combination of the lot.
What do you think?
Chief political correspondent Mark Kenny writes that Malcolm Turnbull betrayed embarrassment, anger and frustration in his election night speech:
"No magnanimous recognition was offered for the common wisdom of the voters.
"No concession of legitimacy or goodwill was extended to the opposition nor crossbench MPs and senators who had just been elected - and who Turnbull may come to rely on for his majority.
"And no personal responsibility was taken for leading the Coalition to the brink of destruction from a once winning position."
According to the Australian Electoral Commission and our own political gurus, here's what we know numbers-wise at the end of Sunday:
National two-party preferred
Coalition: 50.07%
Labor: 49.93%
National primary vote
Comment: Malcolm Turnbull is quietly confident of being able to form a majority government, but he faces the prospect of being a lame duck leader in a poisonous Parliament.
One Coalition insider rates his chances of surviving at one in 10, and says the two things in his favour are the absence of an alternative or the stomach to tear down another leader.
His agenda is in tatters, his authority diminished and his judgement is being questioned on multiple levels.
Read the full analysis by The Age political editor Michael Gordon.
I've been making a few calls about the marriage equality plebiscite to get some clues around what happens now.
The short answer: no idea.
Essentially, if the Coalition forms a majority government we can assume it will proceed with its planned plebiscite.
Labor, the Greens and other Senate crossbenchers may claim the government doesn't have a mandate for a plebiscite, but would probably be forced to wave it through.
If it's a hung parliament, who knows? The crossbenchers are not keen on a plebiscite, preferring a free vote on the floor of the parliament.
But would Malcolm Turnbull be able to convince his divided and significantly reduced Coalition party room to junk the Abbott-era plebiscite? It seems unlikely.
Anyway, you can read up on the latest here.