There was a strong early swing against Labor due to the forestry workers in Tasmania, and it looks like the Coalition has picked up one, possibly two seats there.

7:15PM: Click!

9.34% primary, 4.81% preferred counted.

Labor 8
Liberal 18
National 7
Independent 2

7:20 PM: Click!

11.98% primary, 5.96% preferred counted

Labor 12
Liberal 24
National 9
Independent 2

So that's 33 for Howard, 12 for Latham.

Well, early days, early days.

7:25 PM

My DNS server isn't responding. Wah?

7:30 PM

19.10% primary, 9.49% preferred vote counted.

Labor 30
Liberal 40
National 12
Independent 3

They've taken one of the Tassie seats off the Libs and put it back in "doubtful", though.

7:33 PM And remember, it's not just Australia that's voting today. Afghanistan is going to the polls too. Thanks to, well, you know.

7:35 PM

20.37% of the primary and 10.39% of two-party-preffered votes counted.

Labor 32
Liberal 43
National 12
Independent 2

And remember, the Liberals and the Nationals are in coalition, so it's 55 for Howard and 32 for Latham.

7:40 PM

How do they count these things so fast? It's not like they're particularly simple, and they're not computer-based or punched cards.

Anyway:

26.57% of the primary and 14.44% of the preferred vote has been counted.

Labor 40
Liberal 49
National 12
Independent 3

7:45 PM

28.67% of the primary and 15.65% of the preferred vote counted.

Labor 41
Liberal 50
National 12
Independent 3

The Coalition has 62 of the 76 seats it needs for a victory, and there are still 44 seats in question. I think it's a pretty safe call for a fourth term for John Howard.

But I'll be back in five minutes anyway.

7:50 PM

31.83% primary and 18.47% preferred counted.

Labor 40 (yep, they went backwards)
Liberal 54
National 12
Independent 3

Looks like a national swing of around 2% to the Coalition, so they will likely be returned with an increased majority.

7:55 PM

Not only have I lost the CD cases for my original Sims collection - which have the license keys on them - but I've lost the file I created that I put all my license keys in. Poot. Oh, no change on the election in the last five minutes.

8:10 PM

Not much movement now, as the marginal seats won't be called for one side or the other until a lot more votes have been counted. Labor has picked up 1, with 38 remaining undecided.

However, the Coalition need only 9 of those 38 to win, whereas Labor would need 34. I'm seeing the Coalition picking up an extra 5, maybe 7, seats compared to last time. (And they already had an 81-65 majority.)

8:30 PM

While we wait for something to happen (like the votes coming in from Western Australia), the ABC is predicting 85 seats for the Coalition (up 4) and 62 for Labor (down 3).

9:45 PM

Mark Latham has conceded. John Howard is once again Prime Minister of Australia.

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