What a shemozzle. Hours after the voting booths closed, recriminations and speculation about leadership challenges were rearing their ugly head – on both sides of politics.
It seems the only certainty about this election is more uncertainty. After eight weeks of what boils down to a number of empty policies, scare campaigns and political waffle, Australians spoke loudly by giving neither major party a clear mandate to govern or get policies through the Senate without a hitch.
In a press conference on Sunday, Malcolm Turnbull said he remained "quietly confident" that a majority Coalition government would be returned at this election.
"We need to demonstrate their parliament can work to achieve the outcomes this country needs," he said.
Good luck.
While there are more than 1.5 million votes still to be counted from pre poll voting and postal voting, the Senate will be a dog's breakfast. The decision to call a double dissolution was a mistake that will haunt Turnbull for years.
His decision to roll the dice on a double dissolution backfired badly, giving minor parties the opportunity to wreak havoc for years to come.
If Turnbull forms government, he will do so with a substantial swing against him. It is why he was hitting the phones to crossbenchers first thing on Sunday trying to do some swift negotiating and promises of compromise – which will mean walking a tight rope.
It is a chilling reminder of Jonathan Swift's brilliantly biting satire Gulliver's Travels, where in the land of Lilliput, when a great office becomes vacant, candidates apply for the position "with a dance on the rope, and whoever jumps the highest without falling, succeeds in the office".
Uncertainty prompted AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver to fire off a note warning that "whoever wins it means that the risk of a sovereign credit rating downgrade has increased further".
Uncertainty is not what markets need in times of global uncertainty. Nor is it the type of sentiment business needs.
The peak lobby group for big business, the Business Council of Australia, issued a pleading statement: "Business is appealing to Australia's political leaders to provide a road map as soon as possible through the uncertainty of an unclear election result to a functioning government." It said: "While counting of votes is likely to continue for several days, Australians and Australian business can ill-afford gridlock, recriminations or in-fighting."
Voting might be incomplete but the clear indication is it follows a trend over the past few elections that the two-party system is starting to break down.
It should be a wake-up call to both parties to modernise and reform. They need to be more adept, more tolerant, more inclusive, less demanding and insistent that people tow their ideological line.
The move towards independents including the Nick Xenophon Team, is not a whim. Australians want more flexibility and that is why they are increasingly voting outside of the two parties.
ALP leader Bill Shorten might say Labor is back, but he is overreaching. Yes the swing back towards the ALP was creditable, but it says more about Turnbull and the Liberal Party, their priorities and inability to mount a decent campaign.
Turnbull blames the "Mediscare" campaign as a key reason for the state of play. The fact that people believed what Shorten was saying despite the loud howls of denial from the Coalition speaks volumes about the disengagement of Australians.
For this reason, the Liberal Party needs to do some soul searching of its own. Turnbull said aspects of the election result demonstrate a need for a step up in political culture. He is right. "People expect us to have a workable effective parliament to get done what needs to be done," he said.
That will include a closer relationship with the Nationals, who did relatively well in this election. The boost in seats wasn't lost on Nationals Senator John Williams who made it clear the Nationals would be calling for a bigger input and share of the ministry this time around.
The prospect of a hung parliament can't be ruled out, which has put both major parties on notice that the new parliament will require compromise like never before.
The Turnbull government has a track record of failing to do this effectively and is now suffering the consequences.
ALP leader Bill Shorten told a press conference on Sunday that Turnbull was out of touch. He was referring to a core plank of the Coalition's policy to give companies, including the big banks, $50 billion in tax cuts. He said not having a royal commission into the banks didn't help, along with cutting health and education.
But it goes deeper than that. Jawboning about the need to invest more in innovation to future-proof the economy and the trickle-down effect of $50 billion of company tax cuts to create jobs and growth are intangible concepts to most Australians.
Even the Coalition's policy on super was poorly explained and misunderstood within its own ranks. It created a lot of acrimony from many within the party and is likely to become a big issue when the dust settles on the election outcome. Put simply, Turnbull's changes to super in their current form have zero chance of surviving.
The $50 billion of cuts to corporate tax will also struggle to see the light of day under the new senate.
But the chaos and uncertainty will make the banks nervous that a Royal Commission into the banks might just happen, no matter who forms government. The ALP, Greens and the Nick Xenophon party are all in favour of a royal commission. Some inside the Coalition have also signalled their support.
On its how to vote cards, the Nick Xenophon party lists one of its three core values as corporate and government accountability. Xenophon has long been a supporter of a royal commission into the banks. It is something the Australian public is also keen to see, according to the polls. It raises the question whether a deal could be done for an inquiry.
Turnbull himself used a speech at Westpac's launch of its bicentennial year in April to tell the banking sector that financial advice and insurance scandals that have ripped off customers, could no longer be ignored and that it risked losing its social licence if it did not clean itself up.
This will all make the banks uneasy that, particularly as they stare down the barrel of some sensational allegations in the bank bill swap rate scandals to be aired in court.
Then there is a senate inquiry into the $44 billion life insurance sector to be reintroduced on the back of the Commonwealth Bank's CommInsure scandal.
All of this will keep the blowtorch on bank culture. Any new scandals will become a reminder to the voting public that the Coalition denied them a royal commission into a sector worth trillions of dollars, yet believed it was a good idea to hold a royal commission into the building industry and pink batts. One things, for sure, the next term of parliament will look a lot like Lilliput.
