By KATIE HRYCE
LIGHTS, cameras, action! Add in Australia’s best journalists and an inquisitive, restless public and you have the atmosphere of the National Tally Room in Canberra on Election Night. After five weeks of campaigning, it has come down to this – what many are calling one of the closest elections in living memory.
This is evident tonight in the Tally Room, with the nation’s votes being counted and displayed by invisible hands on an imposing back wall. Heads are constantly turned in its direction to see which party has the latest leg-up on its opposition, sometimes with audible cries of protest accompanying the updates.
130 journalists from major print, broadcast and online news services are working frantically in the roped-off press area. Rows of tables are littered with computers, cameras, radio equipment, and nearly everyone has their mobile phone pressed against their ear at all times. The six major broadcast stations are set up on platforms for all to see, with politicians and political experts filing in and out after quick interviews, and onto their next press commitment.
Interviews are being staged anywhere and everywhere as everyone is pressed for time and trying to get stories to-air or published as quickly as possible. Journalists are interviewing students, students are interviewing politicians, political authors are interviewing members of the public – anything goes.
Indeed, the frenetic activity here at the National Tally Room shows no sign of slowing down. With many surprise swings against traditionally safe candidates already, the next few hours will no doubt be interesting to watch as history is made following one of the most tumultuous terms of government in Australia’s history.
