A decision

Seventeen days after the election, Julia Gillard and Labor are back in power. After days of speculation Bob Katter announced today that he was throwing his lot in with the Coalition. That left two independents. I was fairly certain that they must be going to announce in Labor's favour as if the independents had been unified, they would have announced their decision together. I had to do the afternoon school run after a quick last minute check before leaving work that nothing had been announced.

Hauling school bags and cranky children in from the car, my mobile phone beeped with the message "Julia wins." No I don't have Labor on my alert team. It was Mr Blithe knowing that I was away from my computer and that the radio in the car hasn't worked since the car was garaged without the antenna being retracted (twice). The advantage of an old car is that you don't have to worry about it. The disadvantage is lack of automatic doodads that save you from things like this.

So what now? ABC has a nice article outlining what happens once the independents decide. I also like Annabel Crabbe's analysis of why she thought Julia would prevail. Now to see what happens now that both major parties can express themselves a little more bluntly. I suspect it will be less kiss and more tell.

Did I mention that I love politics?