Labor starts from behind before the vote FEDERAL Labor may be the government going into election day, but the coalition will have half the seats in parliament without a single vote being counted. That's the enormity of the task facing Labor. The reality is the coalition is at the starting line with a firm hand on 75 seats. One more means government, two more guarantees an absolute majority on the floor of parliament's lower house with its own Speaker. Labor, on the other hand, is like a Stawell Gift backmarker. Unlike any other federal government in modern Australian political history, it needs to win seats to retain power. You have to go back to 1943 to find a government in a similar position. Coincidentally it was one led by another Labor prime minister. John Curtin managed to garner nearly 50 per cent of the primary vote to win a landslide victory at the height of World War II. Kevin Rudd's Labor will be lucky to reach that mark after preferences. No-one, not even the government's most supreme optimists, believes Rudd can repeat his 2007 victory when Labor polled 52.5 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. More likely is a repeat of the near 50:50 split of the 2010 election. And even if that happens, there's no guarantee that result will allow it to retain government. That's because three seats held by independents in the 43rd Parliament - New England, Lyne (NSW) and Fisher (Qld) - almost certainly will be reclaimed by the coalition. It was Tony Windsor (New England) and Rob Oakeshott (Lyne) who gave Julia Gillard the votes she needed to form a minority government. More times than not, Liberal turncoat Peter Slipper (Fisher) gave her a helping hand when he sat on the cross bench. None of them will be in the next parliament. Labor begins the election campaign with 71 seats and with reasonable prospects of taking back the seat of Melbourne from Australian Greens MP Adam Bandt. But even that's not certain. Labor must finish first or second on the primary vote count and then rely on Liberal preferences to win the seat. Independents Bob Katter (Kennedy, Qld) and Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Tas) are likely to retain their seats. Who wins the NSW central coast seat of Dobell, held by former Labor MP turned independent Craig Thomson, might have national consequences for both major parties. Even with Kevin Rudd and without the baggage of dishonoured Gillard promises, Labor is in a perilous electoral position. It is defending seven seats with margins of 1.5 per cent or less: Corangamite (Vic), Deakin (Vic), Greenway (NSW), Robertson (NSW), Lindsay (NSW), Moreton (Qld) and Banks (NSW). A uniform swing of 0.5 per against Labor produces a coalition win. NSW, especially western Sydney, could drive Labor from office in Canberra. The federal government has been on the nose there with voters over issues such as asylum seekers and cost of living. Add corruption allegations against state Labor and it's a recipe for an electoral backlash. A not unreasonably-expected swing of 2-3 per cent in NSW gives the coalition at least four Labor seats and within a few hundred votes of a fifth. Queensland, Rudd's home state, is the government's most likely but not certain salvation. Federal Labor did very poorly there in 2010, receiving just 44.9 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote and eight of 30 seats. You have to go back to 2004, then 1996 and then 1977 to find lower federal Labor votes in Queensland. A swing back to Labor of 2-3 per cent gives it five coalition seats - Dawson, Herbert, Longman, Forde and Brisbane - but the last four with margins of less than 1 per cent. The bookmakers have the coalition at short odds to win the election, but state-by-state vagaries will make it closer than they think. And another hung parliament is not out of the question.