Griffith by-election result bad news for Tony Abbott

That means they call the result a draw.

But imagine if the result had gone where it could have with the loss of Rudd's personal vote?

A big swing would have called into question all the polling showing that Abbott could lose an election and convinced pundits that they were mere vanity polls.

A big swing would have convinced pundits that Bill Shorten was in trouble.

No wonder that Labor threw so much into the campaign – not just television ads, but a cyclone of robo-calls in the last weeks.

While superficially the result is not bad news for Abbott, the same applies in reverse. That Labor was able to pull the result back with their campaign says that he is vulnerable.

Labor's campaign was dishonest – it concentrated on "cuts", which had not occurred, or in the case of a Medicare "co-payment", were not even in contemplation (although the Liberal candidate helped them out with some unwary comments on the last).

In fact, given that the biggest swings against Glasson were in lower income areas, as well as the hospital votes, the "co-payment" may well have been the decisive issue.

If Abbott goes into the next election with the suspicion that there are more cuts to come, then Bill Shorten may prove to be just as effective an opposition leader as Abbott was.

On the evidence, it will not matter what Abbott actually intends to do – he appears to be vulnerable to scare campaigns on what he "might" do.