Liberal Coalition Barely Survives In Australian Election

I wanted to follow up on the Australian elections that I wrote about last week. Over the weekend, the Labor party candidate, Bill Shorten, finally conceded the election to the Liberal coalition leader Malcom Turnbull after over a week of vote counting that had still left the election in doubt. It still remains to be seen whether the Liberal coalition can actually form a majority government or whether it will have to bring other minor parties into a minority government. In either case, passing any legislation that does not have a pretty broad consensus will be extremely difficult. This was essentially a defeat for Turnbull and the Liberals as they had expected to maintain a clear outright majority. The razor thin margin of this vote and the possible need to rely on third parties going forward makes another election in the next year or so a real possibility.