It is now more than a week  since the election and negotiations proceed to determine who will form the next government; noting that we already have a government, albeit in caretaker mode.

Incumbency could become very significant in this complicated post-electoral game of musical chairs, as Jack Waterford explained in The Canberra Times recently. Waterford's point was that if Julia Gillard were to go to Government House now and sought a fresh appointment as PM, she would get it, on the grounds that until a no-confidence vote in the House of Representatives went against her, she is entitled to assume that she the confidence of the House.

A no-confidence motion would require either 75 votes to be successful, because the Speaker does not vote, by tradition, unless there is a tied vote – though interestingly in the ACT the Green Speaker of the Legislative Assembly has been known to temporarily give up his post as Speaker so that he can cast a partisan vote.