While the Liberals were apparently never in doubt to get one of them, it turned out that the preference deals got the Nationals the 5th seat, despite only starting with 46% of a quota, and the Liberals the 6th, having started with 68% of a quota.

Unfortunately the actual allocation trail isn't findable on the AEC website. But it doesn't really matter in this case as even if the Greens, Labor, Democrats and all the minnows were combined, they would not have managed a quota while Pauline Hansen, One Nation and Family First were going to help the Nationals or Liberals.

Nowadays the AEC just rely on pressing a button on a computer to do the allocation, so it would take quite a bit of detective work to establish whether there was a point within the distribution where the order of elimination of candidates depended on a handful of votes and therefore might be open to legitimate dispute.

Unlike in certain other parts of the world, I have no doubt it is all done with honest intentions, but what concerns me is that the process in such situations sometimes can seem to run counterintuitively.

One good thing to come out of Queensland was that, even standing as an independent, Hanson comfortably reached the public funding threshold and finally got something back out of the system that has screwed her so relentlessly.