If Victorians have really made up their minds, then Labor is heading back to government.  But that's a big "if", and one thing is clear: whoever wins government will not control the  upper house.

As premier, Daniel Andrews at best could hope for a Legislative Council in which Labor holds its numbers while its natural allies take two seats off the Coalition, to give the left overall a 21-19 majority.

And if Denis Napthine is re-elected as premier, the best he could hope for is that any seats the Coalition loses in the upper house go to its natural allies – so that the present 21-19 majority for the Coalition becomes a 21-19 majority for the right. There are a thousand possible outcomes in the council for this coming election. The worst could be a 20-20 deadlock, making the state ungovernable, unless our political leaders can summon a rare sense of common purpose.

The microparties on the right have formed smart alliances to jointly harvest their votes, and pool them with one party in each seat, giving them a real chance of winning.

Their problem is that on the polls, the only seats they can hope to win are seats now held by the Coalition. In Eastern Victoria, Jeffrey  Bourman of the Shooters and Fishers Party has won a spectacular haul of preference  deals. But the only MP he could unseat is the Liberals' Andrew Ronalds. The only threat to Labor is from the Greens.

In Northern Victoria, the preference deals give both the Shooters and the Australian  Country Alliance a chance of winning a seat off the Liberals. In Western Victoria, it could  be the Shooters, the DLP or a new party with a catchy name, Vote 1 Local Jobs.

In Melbourne, the threat to the Coalition is also from its own side. In Eastern  Metropolitan, Vickie Janson of the Australian Christians could harvest enough votes from  preferences to unseat the Minister for Manufacturing, Richard Dalla-Riva.

In Western Metropolitan, the DLP is the microparty of choice, while in Northern  Metropolitan, it's Family First and the People Power-No Smart Meters party. But again, the only seats they could win are from the Liberals.

The microparties' only chance to take a seat off Labor is in South-Eastern Metropolitan  – where their joint candidate is the anti-Muslim preacher Danny Nalliah, boss of the Rise Up Australia party. Time will show whether he was a wise choice.