National newspaper The Australian has this live blog on the elections.
Advertisement
Opposition leader Bill Shorten told reporters in Brisbane Turnbull is considering calling a snap election to “sort out his own problems” due to the instability in the Liberal party and the “extreme parties now in the Senate”.
“The Australian people have voted, and we respect the result”, Turnbull told reporters in Sydney on Tuesday, conceding there was a high level of disillusionment with the government, politics and the major political parties among voters. Hanson used her first press conference as senator-elect on Monday to repeat warnings that Australia was being “swamped by Asians”.
“Do you want to see terrorism on our streets here?”
She said she was not in favour of returning to a White Australia policy, but a return to the old-fashioned values that made the nation great.
Turnbull’s conservative coalition secured 68 seats, opposition Labor 67, with 10 seats in doubt, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The country was facing the prospect of a dreaded hung parliament after Saturday’s elections, which failed to deliver an immediate victor.
But Mr Turnbull, who became prime minister in September after ousting his colleague Tony Abbott in a party room vote, said he remained confident of forming a majority government.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA-With Australia’s government in chaos amid a dramatic national election that failed to deliver an immediate victor, the country’s opposition leader called on Monday for the prime minister to resign, dubbing him “the David Cameron of the southern hemisphere”.
Labor leader Bill Shorten.
At least 76 seats in the lower chamber are needed to form a government without the need of post-election coalition.
With the result of 13 seats still in doubt, political pundits were predicting one of two main scenarios: the coalition scrapes across the line by picking up nine or more of the undecided seats, or it fails to reach 76 and has a hung parliament where neither side holds power.
After years of political turmoil, Australians head to the polls with leaders of the nation’s major parties each promising to bring stability to a government that has always been mired in chaos.
Fitch said it “views Australia’s overall credit profile as still consistent with a AAA rating, but political gridlock that leads to a sustained widening of the deficit would put downward pressure on the rating, particularly if the economic environment deteriorates”.
“We have to do more to re affirm the faith of the Australian people in our commitment to health and to Medicare”.
“The count is continuing and we remain confident that we will secure enough seats to have a majority in the parliament but all the votes have been cast, that’s good news, and it’s now simply a matter to count them”, he said.
It has since resumed, but the Electoral Commission has warned it could take “up to a month” for the rest of the vote to be finalised.
Senator Cory Bernardi, from the right-wing of the ruling Liberal Party, said that Mr Turnbull and campaign strategists “need to be held to account”.
He said the Government has suffered a swing against it, but the Labour Party has also recorded its second lowest primary vote in its history.
Advertisement
“There is enormous disappointment with the way the government has been working”, McGowan said.
