Mark Kenny is Fairfax Media's chief political correspondent. A director of the National Press Club, he regularly appears on the ABC's Insiders, Sky News Agenda, and Ten's Meet the Press. He has reported from Canberra under three prime ministers and several opposition leaders.
All the signs are that an enlarged right-wing cross bench will create new tensions, dragging Turnbull's party in unhelpful directions, and emboldening hardline conservatives to re-litigate the case to scrap section 18c, and argue about climate change science.
The unforeseen Northern Territory royal commission notwithstanding, Malcolm Turnbull's reform dance card is hardly full.
And so, after a tremulous, difficult birth, the Turnbull government begins anew, for the first time under its own electoral steam.
On same-sex marriage, a potentially weakened Malcolm Turnbull is sitting on a powder keg.
The polls point to a narrow Coalition victory but either side could yet crash and burn.
There's no second prize in elections. And history has a tendency to repeat itself.
Malcolm Turnbull's courage to swim against the tide had defined the future PM in the public mind. But his non-delivery since has offered Labor its best opportunity to dismantle his allure.
Listening and truth are the two big missing ingredients in this abnormally distended election circus.
An election that was supposedly about jobs and growth and opportunity has turned jarringly into something else – like a rerun of 2001(Tampa) or 2013 (stop-the-boats).
Post-budget bungling gives the Opposition an opening to exploit the fairness card.
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