It's the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning.

Here's how things stand.

Rudd won the election. Woo. Yay.

Howard lost Bennelong. Double Woo.

Andrew Bartlett lost the Senate. Boo.

Johnson won in Ryan. Hiss.

Humphreys won in the ACT Senate. Ho-hum. That means that there's going to be Liberal-held Senate until sometime next year... in opposition to Labor.

All in all - 83 to 85 for Labor. A reasonable majority. I wanted more, but mum said I should be satisfied with what happened.

The sad thing is that dad wasn't around to see it. He died of melanoma nearly two months ago. He wanted Howard gone. He would have been happy. And I'm sad he wasn't there to see it. But he was able to tell me about peak oil well before most other people.

People are writing off the Liberals' chance of getting back in power. Two terms - possibly three or four, if they don't disintegrate first. I'm not so sanguine. Petrol production has peaked, which means less petrol for more consumers. This means higher petrol prices. Australia will be looking at $2/litre in a year - perhaps in six months. Rudd might have won the election, but I think his battles have just started. Signing Kyoto is the easiest part.