Not easy to interpret senate figures so early in the piece, but a couple of observations so far:

The Democrats are history. They have performed dismally in Queensland (0.09 quotas on first preference at the moment). They're on 0.11 quotas in Victoria which makes it damn hard for Lyn Allison. In New South Wales, they've been outpolled by the DLP, which has been spent force in Australian politics from the time Vince Gair was despatched to Dublin.

The Greens aren't doing as well as they might like. Bob Brown will be returned in Tasmania. Kerry Nettle has to get up from 0.55 quotas on Labor and minor party preferences. She's certainly better positioned than in 2001. More significant is the situation in the ACT. The Greens had high hopes that Kerrie Tucker would knock off the Libs' Gary Humphries. Current figures indicate that Humphries has a quota in his own right, and that probably means the Coalition retaining control of the Senate until 1 July 2008, regardless of what else happens in this election.

Bennelong update 9.30pm: Maxine McKew not prepared to claim victory yet, but this sounds damn well like a victory speech. In fact, I must get a link to the audio in the morning. (UPDATE 11.30pm: Video is on the ABC website.)