All signs point to a hung parliament: what does this mean, and what should crossbenchers do?

If no party wins an overall majority, the Coalition and Labor will look to members of the crossbench to guarantee ‘confidence and supply’. Composite: Guardian

For the first time in living memory Australia is going into an election campaign facing not just an outside chance, but a strong probability, of a hung parliament.

A mid-February YouGov poll with an impressive sample size put the likelihood that neither party would reach the magic figure of 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives at 78%. A month later the same poll found Labor had improved its position in terms of the number of seats it was projected to win (though with a primary vote even lower than in 2022), but still put the chances of neither party having an overall majority at 61.3%.