So, is the conservative victory good for you or not?
Yeah, it is. Looks like I'll have a new (and better paying) job within the next 2-3 weeks.
Hope your fellas win, John!
Here's a question for you: My dad-in-law have been talking about the lack of a viable third party in US politics. Do you think the multiple parties and subsequent coalitions are a beneficial thing, or does it give a smaller party disprportionate power based on their "swing votes"? Not to put you on the spot or anything , 
just curious...
It's worth, I think, mentioning that in order for a political party to get into our parliament, it needs to win 5% of the popular vote (or one of their candidates can win a local constituency/electorate). This means we don't get the large numbers of parties that you see in, say Italy, where they don't have a similar threshold. This means our governing coalitions are usually formed around one strong major party and a couple minor parties. So they're inherently more stable than in some other countries.
We've only had a proportional system since 1996 (we have 3-year parliamentary terms), so I think it's fair to say that we still maturing. Earlier on we had a number of parties that were built around charismatic individuals rather than a solid policy/brand identity - as we know from playing Birthright, charismatic leaders leading their own faction/cult tend to engage in activities to make themselves the centre of attention. When they gain real power, they often hold an influence disproportionate to their actual size/power. We saw the same thing here - though as part of the evolutionary / maturing process, these parties are now falling by the wayside. Last night, the most influential of these parties was kicked out of parliament and, given that their charismatic leader is likely to retire, we probably won't see them again. Two other minor parties are down to just one MP and likely to disappear within one or two parliamentary terms. So in that sense, I think it's fair to say that, yes, minor parties do wield disproportionate influence, but how disproportionate that influence is reduces over time - in simple terms, the voting public lose patience with minor parties that skew results.
However, the degree of disproportionate influence also depends on the strength and desperation of the major parties. This time around the conservative party here is in a strong position (holding 59 seats out of a needed 62 by itself) and its coalition buddies are desperate to get rid of the left wing governing party, so likely won't make too many demands. The labour party was desperate to retain power and was making all sorts of promises before the election to other parties which would have made any resulting government unwieldy and difficult to maintain.
In broad terms I think multiple parties are a good thing. Our experience is that it reduces to an extent the hostile adversarial nature of politics (the two main parties are still quite adversarial towards each other, but everyone generally tries to work with the minor parties). It also increases the focus to more of an issues-based process, rather than an ideological one, because the governing party often needs the votes of different minor parties at different times. Things also tend to take longer to get done, because the main governing party often needs to talk to a number of parties to get their votes on individual issues before they can act - and the horse-trading that goes on often moderates government policy. This also means, of course, that the main governing party sometimes can't respond to a problem quickly, nor can it impose a more radical agenda (which can be either a good or a bad thing, depending on your point of view).
I do tend to think that if you have a 'first-past-the-post" system where the party that gets more votes (or more electoral college seats) forms the executive all by itself, then minor parties have much less influence. In proportional systems where parties roughly get a number of seats according to their percentage of the popular vote, their influence is greater simply because they have a greater presence within the legislature (and those in coalition get a presence in the executive).
