Western Australia's beleaguered premier Alan Carpenter revealed last night that he began negotiations months ago to bring the state Nationals into a plan to share government.
The claim was immediately confirmed by WA Nationals leader Brendon Grylls, who recalled a conversation with Mr Carpenter before the election campaign began.
Mr Carpenter told ABC television's The 7.30 Report that the plan would be in the best interests of his state.
"I want to bring in the Nats," he said.
Mr Grylls said a similar arrangement already worked well in South Australia where Nationals member Karlene Maywald joined the Labor ministry in 2004. She is now Minister for Water Security.
Mr Grylls said he was aware there would be strong opposition to any accommodation with Labor from some of his conservative constituents, but he was honour bound to keep his promise to support whichever major party backed his policy of investing at least 25pc of royalties from the State's resources back into the areas from which they came.
That would be worth around $700 million on top of current budget allocations to those areas.
Both sides of politics in WA have rushed to endorse the plan.
With thousands of votes still to be counted and several seats undecided, Saturday's cliffhanger WA election left the Nationals with four, and possibly five, lower house seats, likely to be the balance of power.
The outcome may not be known for a week or more.
Neither of the major parties is likely to win the 30 seats they need to govern in the 59-seat Legislative Assembly.
Mr Grylls has invited Mr Carpenter and Opposition Leader Colin Barnett to make him an offer.
All parties have met and Mr Grylls is awaiting written submissions from them. He will take the offers to a state council meeting on Sunday.
Federal Nationals leader Warren Truss warned Mr Grylls not to trust Labor and said he hoped Mr Grylls could reach an agreement with the Liberals.
Mr Barnett said WA voters had seen the danger of concentrating power in the hands of one party across the nation and the 6pc swing against Labor had shown that voters realised it was important to break the ALP's coast-to-coast stranglehold.
He said it was important for Australia, as a democracy, to have at least one Liberal government and hopefully more.
"I may be a lone voice if I get there, but I hope to be joined by others pretty soon," Mr Barnett said.
During the election campaign Mr Barnett rejected the royalties plan, but changed tack yesterday.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, a former WA state secretary, conceived another possible outcome yesterday.
He said Labor might be able to win 28 seats and then govern with the support of two independents.
Mr Truss conceded that the relationship between the coalition partners in WA "had not been all that harmonious" and Mr Barnett did not want to talk to the Nationals before the election.
Federal Opposition Deputy Leader Julie Bishop said it would be very odd if the Nationals returned Labor to power.
She predicted the most likely result would be a Liberal/Nationals alliance.