Even if Labor, by an extremely fortuitous chain of events, secures the 76 seats it needs to govern, such a government would be intrinsically unstable.

Unless it could rely on the support of the three bush independents, it is hard to see how it could form an effective government with a working majority of one in the lower house.

This is especially so given the Labor-leaning Greens don’t own the Senate for another six months.

It is this paper’s belief – and one we have stated many times – that the conservative independents have an obligation to give the Rudd-Gillard government a second term.

A failure to do so would make this the first one-term federal government since before WWII.

To force a change of government when the opposition has not won a clear majority of seats would represent a serious short-circuiting of the democratic process.

This is particularly the case given an independent-backed ALP minority government would be inherently more stable than its Coalition equivalent.

With the independents citing broadband and stable government as major issues, they seem to have no option but to back Labor.

To do otherwise would be to appear as if they were self-indulgently pandering to their own electorates at the expense of the national interest.

It is becoming more and more apparent a marriage of convenience between the conservative independent faction and the Coalition is extremely unlikely.

On a special edition of the 7.30 Report last night, Tony Windsor reportedly referred to The Nationals as a “dying party” and called Senator Barnaby Joyce – once mooted as a challenger for the seat of New England in this election – as “a fool and an embarrassment”.

Bob Katter gave Warren Truss a serve before saying he had worked with people he loathed and detested in the past.