It appears that the Liberals have now lost control of the Senate.

Costello has now announced that he will not stand for leader. That leaves a strong guess that Turnbull will be the new leader.

Labour needed 16 seats to win, they gained about another 16 as well.

The Democrats now cease to exist as a political party (you must have elected member to be a 'real party' - pending a new party before its first election, of course) - the last 2 who were up for re-election did not regain their seats, and will now finish at the end of June. The Senate has fixed terms - 4 years with half up for election every alternate 2 years.

The democrats got less than 2% - you need a 'quota' - 100% divided by the total number of seats. Once a party has a quota, they can 'carry' the excess from the first elected candidate onto the second candidate, etc. From memoery it's about 12% for a quota.