Labor will need to take a long hard look at the way the party ran its federal election campaign, one of its strategists says.
Bruce Hawker believes majority government will be a "real stretch" for Labor.
"I do think Labor's in a position to form a minority government," Mr Hawker told Network Ten on Sunday.
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He predicted the three independents re-elected to parliament - Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Bob Katter - would probably form a bloc, focussed on securing a better deal for the bush from the major parties.
Likely new independent MP Andrew Wilkie, previously a member of the Australian Greens, would be less enthusiastic about working with the coalition.
Mr Hawker said Labor needed to "take a long hard" look at its election campaign, noting the impact of the party's dumping of former prime minister Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard on voter support for Labor.
"There are a large number of people, particularly in Queensland, who are very unhappy with the manner in which the prime minister was removed."
"We have to take that on board."
Shorten: Leaks hurt our campaign
Meanwhile, parliamentary secretary Bill Shorten, one of the Labor powerbrokers behind the dumping of Kevin Rudd for Ms Gillard, said the leaks in the second and third weeks of the campaign "sucked a lot of the oxygen" out of the campaign debate.
He also blamed Coalition "attack ads" especially in Queensland, and to a lesser extent in NSW, trying to associate federal Labor with the fortunes of unpopular state governments.
"States issues and the leaks made it very hard for us to do any better than we did," Mr Shorten told ABC Television.
'Coalition will struggle to strike a deal'
Shorten also predicted that the Coalition will struggle to strike a deal with the independents.
Bad blood between The Nationals and the three country-based independents in federal parliament will make it impossible for the Coalition to form government, Shorten says.
"The National party has spent the whole parliamentary time knocking the independents and vice versa," he told ABC Television on Sunday.
"The idea of (Nationals leader) Warren Truss and (Independent) Bob Katter sitting down and breaking bread, while they might have to on the odd issue, there's no love lost there."
Mr Shorten refused to blame the party's decision to dump former prime minister Kevin Rudd for Julia Gillard for Labor's performance on Saturday.
"Labor's losses were not uniform across Australia," he said, adding regional factors played a very big role.
"I think what happened last night is that the Liberal-National party won a proxy state election in Queensland and NSW."
