The most animated reaction of the evening came as Tony Abbott appeared on the giant screen - and unsurprisingly, given this was Labor's election-night function, it wasn't altogether welcoming.
"He's personally responsible for reinvigorating the ALP, you know," said Michael Beahan, almost approvingly, as all around, booing broke out.
"So many people joined the party when Abbott became prime minister." 
Beahan, a Labor senator for Western Australia from 1987 till 1996, was president of the Senate in the mid-1990s. He lives in Brunswick in Melbourne's inner north these days and has been campaigning - successfully, as it turned out - for Labor's Peter Khalil in the seat of Wills.
Like many of those attending the Labor function at the Moonee Valley Racing Club in Bill Shorten's electorate of Maribyrnong, Beahan was a little ambivalent as the election results rolled in from throughout Australia.
Satisfied that Labor had picked up seats, less so that the party would not win outright.
"I never really expected we'd win, but I expected we'd win a few seats, and that's the way it's turning out," he said.
It looked, everyone agreed, as if there would be a hung parliament.
"The worst part of a hung parliament, or even if we get close, is that Turnbull will be captive of the right," he said.
Shorten had not turned up at his own function at the time of writing. He would not appear, it was agreed all round, until there was a clear result, and that did not look at all possible.
By 9.30pm, the Liberal/National Party Coalition appeared to have won 73 seats, Labor had 67 and five had been given to "others".
A minimum 76 seats had to be won for a result. Every commentator was predicting "this will be a long night".
The function, thus, was still a desultory affair.
Earlier, Shorten had given the most cryptic of hints that he believed it was still possible to come from behind and pull off a famous win.
"Remember 1982," offered Shorten as he prepared to burst his way through the crush of media and voters to cast his vote at the Moonee Ponds West Primary School late in the afternoon.
There were puzzled looks all round. But if you had a mind for history around these parts and a liking for the punt, you might have discerned a political leader's wild best last hope.
Plenty of commentators had already voted Shorten and Labor out of the winning stall, despite not a vote having been counted and public polling showing the race was still too close to call.
But what of 1982? Why, that was the year a race commentator got things dreadfully wrong as the field thundered around the last turn at Moonee Valley in the Cox Plate.
"Kingston Town can't win," cried the doyen of race callers of the time, Bill Collins.
Kingston Town was one of the greatest horses to run in Australia, and he'd already won the Cox Plate in 1980 and 1981.
And despite Collins' declaration, the gelding was only a few heads out of the running. Kingston Town was also a thoroughbred that wouldn't give up. You could have heard the roar of the Moonee Valley crowd from Mount Dandenong as the champion shot to the lead and took his third Cox Plate in three years. Alas for Shorten. He and his party were doing better than expected as election night plugged on, but looked more than likely to fall just short.