Liberals in turmoil as vote count continues – as it happened

• Today, Malcolm Turnbull did his first press conference for two days. His point was to take responsibility as leader for the election campaign and to acknowledge the disillusionment with the major parties as expressed in the low primary votes. He described the “grotesque lie” of Labor’s Medicare campaign but also suggested that the Coalition had to acknowledge they had a lack of trust on health. These points immediately suggested that he also acknowledged the Coalition’s broken promises on health. He rejected that analysis but it seems to have left the way open for a policy change.
• Peter Dutton would not accept that analysis either, simply saying the main game was forming government, then we can talk about policy.
• Dutton is a captain of the conservatives. He threw his weight behind Turnbull. No one was suggesting a change in leader and he has spoken to dozens of his colleagues, he said. Everyone is focused on a forming government. Speaking to MPs privately, they agree there is no appetite for a change of leader except among a few delcons. Ironically, they say the lack of success with the last change is the thing that is protecting Turnbull. But even so, who would lead? Morrison had a terrible campaign. The younger aspirants are not quite cooked.
  
• Bill Shorten tried to box Turnbull in by suggesting he was considering calling another election. He urged Turnbull to work with him in the parliament no matter what happens. But he blamed Turnbull for the rise of One Nation, given the double-dissolution election cut the quotas. Mind you, even with a normal election, Hanson would likely have won a seat in parliament.
  
• Shorten continued his victory lap. Yesterday he toured new Labor seats in western Sydney. Today he went to Queensland. He seems to want the longest election to keep going a little bit longer.
  
• Counting is continuing but it is like watching grass grow.

Tomorrow, the grass will continue to grow as the count continues. Thanks for your company and thanks to the brains trust, Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp, Helen Davidson and Gareth Hutchens.

Goodnight.

On Pauline Hanson, Dutton says the government will have a respectful approach.

Whether it’s Pauline Hanson, Ricky Muir or Clive Palmer, that’s the approach we will take.

Important thing is for us to be united and that is the view of the conservative element of the party, says Dutton.

What about you as deputy, asks Speers.

Dutton says the only game for all of us is to make sure we can form a government with Malcolm Turnbull as leader.

Q to Dutton: As a leading conservative in cabinet, what is your message?

Nobody is suggesting a change of leader.

They all want to form government.

Malcolm Turnbull has my full support.

People are angry about different aspects of the campaign, he says. Some believe we should have gone more negative, says Dutton.

You were kept in a box, says Speers.

You take the professional advice, says Dutton. Not the worst thing in the world to be running a positive campaign.

What can you read into it?

All of us are to determined we can form a government, says Dutton.

Speers is pushing it uphill.

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, is speaking to David Speers at Sky. He says “overwhelming” they want the Turnbull government re-elected. But Labor ran a very dishonest campaign.

But the PM says the government needs to restore trust on health?

We ran an honest campaign, says Dutton.

We need to make sure we do tell people the truth and the truth is we are investing more in hospitals and health every year.

Do you need to unfreeze the rebate? Do you need to change any policies?

All of that will be dealt with over the course of government.

The NSW National party MP for the Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall is cranky that the NSW National party sent out a letter backing Barnaby Joyce, the federal leader.

The Inverell Times reports:

Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall was outraged by the circulation of a campaign letter to communities in the seat of New England late last week, which encouraged people to vote for the member of New England, Barnaby Joyce.

The letter was delivered to households on Mr Marshall’s stationary and included his photo and signature on the bottom.

“When the letter was brought to my attention I was absolutely furious,” Mr Marshall said.

“I did not see, nor endorse the letter which was sent out to people’s homes, purporting to be from me.

“If I had wanted to write a letter to residents, it would be from my own hand. From the heated phone calls and personal exchanges since being alerted to the letter, I can assure people that those in head office will not be doing that again.”

Joyce’s office said it was not their office but NSW head office. Marshall was fuming.

I don’t require people to speak for me and am insulted that those in head office think I do.

I also think it’s a massive slap in the face to the community.

I have received an apology from the state director of the party about how the fraudulent letter came to be delivered to people in Inverell and Glen Innes without my approval.

Hopefully, though, people saw through it – an old photo, wrong letterhead and a printed signature. It’s clearly not from me.”

Rob Oakeshott is down again in Cowper by the way; 284 votes.

Katharine Murphy has analysed the recent Turnbull press conference.

Enemies of Turnbull would say this is only reinforcing a reality that is already obvious, the natural consequence of his own electoral failure, a justly deserved reckoning.

Strip away the animus from that analysis, it’s more or less right. This election has fundamentally wounded Malcolm Turnbull to the point where it is hard to see how he can recover.

Short term, yes: self-interest can begin to assert itself if the count over the next couple of days trends favourably to the Coalition but, long term, the outlook is incredibly uncertain.

Anyone who saw the prime minister speaking in Sydney on Tuesday would have seen how diminished he looks after his weekend electoral shock: his anger, only just in check, the slight unsteadiness in the delivery.

Turnbull is now in a position where he has to bow penitently before the voting public, acknowledging voter disillusionment, vowing to work harder, acknowledging the extent of the campaign miscalculations.

Melissa Davey has a good story in the washup from Indi.

Victoria’s volunteer fire brigade has said it was not behind robocalls made to the marginal electorate of Indi urging people to vote for Liberal candidate Sophie Mirabella and to preference Labor last.

The Country Fire Authority (CFA) is embroiled in a complicated dispute with the Victorian Labor government and the United Firefighters Union over a proposed new enterprise bargaining agreement. CFA volunteers argue the agreement gives too much power to the union, and have refused to sign up to it.

Wangaratta resident Anne Shaw, who is in the electorate of Indi, said she was angered to receive a robocall from a CFA volunteer called “Bob” who told her how to vote two days before polling day.

“Everyone I’ve spoken to received one of these calls, it was quite widespread,” she said.

“It sounded like a real person, they introduced themselves as Bob and said: ‘I’m a CFA volunteer. If you want to save the CFA, the only person who can is Sophie Mirabella.’

A CFA spokeswoman told Guardian Australia she understood the Australian Electoral Commission was investigating the calls, adding that the CFA had nothing to do with them.

“The CFA is an apolitical organisation just like all public sector organisations, so we have no involvement in political campaigns,” the spokeswoman said.

McGowan has won the seat on an increased majority.

Graham Readfearn has written about Pauline Hanson’s No 2 on the Queensland Senate ticket.

As I wrote before the 2013 election, One Nation’s climate science denial appears largely driven by former coalminer Malcolm Roberts – the project leader of the Galileo Movement.

The Galileo Movement, with its patron Alan Jones, was launched in 2011 to spread doubt about the science linking global warming to fossil fuel burning while fighting with every breath attempts at putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

Roberts, like One Nation, claims there’s no evidence that humans are causing climate change and that the IPCC, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have been engaged in a “fraud” over climate science.

Katharine Murphy and Gareth Hutchens have rounded up the Liberal story today.

Liberal moderates have hit back at a coordinated push by the conservative wing to undermine the authority of Malcolm Turnbull before the final votes from Saturday’s election have been counted.

As the prime minister emerged from his Sydney home on Tuesday morning, key Turnbull supporters warned colleagues the rolling public recriminations since Saturday night risked consigning the Coalition to opposition.

The government Senate leader, George Brandis, who has been reaching out to the new Senate crossbenchers, including Pauline Hanson, issued a clear warning. “Stability is always better than instability, discipline is always better than indiscipline, playing a team game is always better than self-indulgence,” he told the ABC.

Shorten does not want another election. And he wants to work with Malcolm Turnbull.

The challenge we have in Australia at the moment as we try and work out who has won this election and who controls what seats, we have a weak prime minister, hostage to the right wing of his party. He has got instability within his ranks, he has instability in the Senate and what I’m saying to Malcolm Turnbull is – work with me, and we’ll make this 45th parliament work. Of course, let’s save Medicare, let’s reverse the cuts, let’s properly fund our schools, let’s take action on climate change and the rest of Labor’s platform, but, Malcolm Turnbull, you created this mess, don’t look for the easy option of just bringing on an election and blaming everyone else.

Question to Shorten: Would you be willing to work with the Coalition in the Senate and some of the most extreme or unstable parties you mentioned to receive only a half term rather than a full term in the Senate?

Well, let’s cross that bridge when we get to it but one thing is certainly very clear here – Labor will stand up for all of the diversity in Australian society. We don’t support watering down racial hate speech laws, we don’t believe in prosecuting or picking out different groups because of their faiths. This country is an immigrant nation and we want to keep social cohesion. The Labor party won’t go missing on the hard debates. My concern with Malcolm Turnbull is whenever there has been a challenge he folds to the right of his party.

Ivory towers. Bill Shorten references Turnbull.

I see that Malcolm Turnbull has made one of his rare public appearances in the safety of a voter-free environment in a tall city building in the middle of Sydney. Well, I need to remind him that this election wasn’t just people looking at Malcolm Turnbull, and saying that they didn’t want him as prime minister. A lot of what happened on Saturday was people agreeing with Labor and the issues Labor was talking about including making sure that they don’t damage Medicare.

Bill Shorten fires a shot across the Turnbull bow.

Mr Turnbull gave us the instability in his own party and the instability in this Senate. He now needs to genuinely concentrate on making the 45th parliament work. He needs to put the nation first, not himself first. Everyone knows there is great instability in the Liberal party, but he shouldn’t contemplate considering the instability in his party, by asking Australians to go to an early election.

Mr Turnbull may be tempted to say this is all too hard and he will go to an early election and put himself first but not the nation. Australians expect us all to genuinely work together on the issues we agree upon.

Joyce says he is confident of getting across the line in Flynn and Capricornia, both National seats.

Turnbull reiterates his confidence. And his frustration.

I know many Australians find this sort of frustrating, the wait, and you can imagine that we are among them.

It happens regularly though in western democracies, Turnbull said.