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The Woman Who Could Create A Hung Parliament Is Just Waiting Like Everyone Else

'It's too close to call'.
Nick Xenophon congratulates Rebekha Sharkie on her win in Mayo.
Fairfax
Nick Xenophon congratulates Rebekha Sharkie on her win in Mayo.

Like the rest of Australia, Nick Xenophon Team MP Rebekha Sharkie is still waiting to find out what our Parliament is going to look like.

The woman who toppled embattled Liberal MP Jamie Briggs for the South Australian seat of Mayo told The Huffington Post Australia "it's too close to call".

Before the election Sharkie told HuffPost Australia there would never be a hung parliament, and now the Prime Minister is making contact with her.

"This is the first election since 1990 that I don't have it right," Sharkie told HuffPost Australia with a laugh on Wednesday.

"I'm pretty surprised at what we're dealing with now. But I still think there's capacity to form a stable government."

If there's a hung parliament and if we are involved in some capacity as a team we would naturally be looking at what we could achieve with either party.

Labor leader Bill Shorten has not made contact with Sharkie (and neither has Briggs) but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has sent her a short message.

"He just said he's looking forward to working with me on the floor of parliament and I'm looking forward to working with him and the other 148 representatives," Sharkie told HuffPost Australia.

"If there's a hung parliament and if we are involved in some capacity as a team we would naturally be looking at what we could achieve with either party."

The Nick Xenophon Team's 11 point wish list was revealed in The Advertiser last week, with jobs at the forefront of their negotiation points. And Sharkie told HuffPost Australia she will stand by these points -- with youth unemployment in South Australia the highest in the country.

Sharkie is hoping her colleague Andrea Broadfoot will join her in Parliament. Broadfoot is the NXT candidate running for the South Australian seat of Grey which is one of the incredibly close long-Liberal held seats.

But for now, Sharkie will continue working from her kitchen table until the election comes to an end. Sharkie's campaign was as grassroots as a campaign can get, working from her kitchen to her car to a small room at the back of an accounting firm in Mount Barker.

So the kitchen table with suffice for now. And it may be a while.

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