Australia 2022 Election

[YL]

Why does the National Party still exist? Why don't they just merge with the Liberals given that they are de facto the same party

Because they represent rural areas in a way the liberal never has and can never do.

I've heard that argument, but there are Liberal MPs from rural areas and if the Liberals are such a "big tent" party surely they can easily accommodate having some MPs from rural constituencies. I don't see other rightwing parties needing to create a rural "sub-brand". There is no separate party for UK Tories who have a lot of farmers in their constituencies and ditto for Canada and New Zealand. Just seems like an odd anachronism

I think it is relevant that Australia is such an urban country, meaning that rural areas are more likely to be worried about being marginalised, even within the Right.

In some states the Nationals have maintained more of a separate identity, whereas in Queensland and the Northern Territory they are actually merged, as the Liberal National Party and the Country Liberal Party respectively.

[YL]

At this rate, when it comes to the Coalition, who knows if we're headed for an eventuality of Liberal/National *seat parity*.

There have apparently been some Liberals saying that the Coalition has to split if the Liberals want to survive. Take that with a truckload of salt though.

Is it really the Nationals who are the problem, though?  Looking in from the outside, the Liberals seem to have enough of the sort of culture war politics which alienates the sort of voters who went to the "teal independents" of their own.

[YL]

Looks like the only two House of Representatives seats left in substantial doubt are Gilmore and Brisbane at this point.

In this late stage, do you expect a Labor majority or a Labor minority?

Majority I assume, as I imagine he has them winning Lyons and Macnamara, which would be enough.

[YL]

Three party preferred counts in Brisbane and Macnamara: https://www.aec.gov.au/news/results-3cp.htm

It looks like the Greens are favoured in the first and Labor in the second.

[YL]

Has anyone calculated what the seat count would have been in Australia if there was no preferential ballot and it was pure FPTP like in the UK or Canada?

It's not easy, because you can't just assume that people's first preference votes would become their only preference votes.  I assume that in practice a lot of first preference votes for parties out of contention would have instead been tactical votes, but you'd have to estimate the extent to which that would happen.