Though the final makeup of Parliament’s upper house is unlikely to be known for weeks, no party will win a majority of seats.
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Mr Turnbull became the nation’s fourth Prime Minister since 2013 when he rolled Liberal leader Tony Abbott in a party vote last September.
John Key, right, says he hopes to work more closely with Malcolm Turnbull. “And as I said, I wish Malcolm Turnbull well in what the future holds”, he said.
Meanwhile, New Senate crossbenchers Pauline Hanson and Derryn Hinch have been offered Treasury briefings, but they differ over whether Malcolm Turnbull has a mandate.
That prompted opposition leader Bill Shorten to formally concede the race on Sunday, which in turn triggered Turnbull to announce that the coalition had won a second three-year term.
“It is clear that Mr Turnbull and his coalition will form a government”, its leader, Bill Shorten, told a news conference. The prime minister can’t afford to put a foot wrong now.
The new Turnbull government is expected to be sworn in after its negotiations on a Coalition agreement with the Nationals.
Asked whether he backed the suggestion, Turnbull said “the answer to your question is yes, but there’s a lot more to look at as well”.
He said electronic polls have “been a passion of mine, or an interest of mine for a long time” directing particular praise to the NSW electoral commission’s efforts in the space.
Turnbull said he also wanted to investigate the regulation of “robocalls” and text messages sent out by political parties during election campaigns.
These communication techniques operated in a legal vacuum, he said, adding that they did not carry party authorisation and could be misleading and deceptive to vulnerable electors.
He told reporters that he was balancing his granddaughter Isla on his hip when he took Mr Shorten’s call earlier on Sunday.
A poll last month by the Lowy Institute for International Policy showed Australians are split on whether Mr Rudd would be a good secretary-general, with 46 per cent saying he would and 49 per cent saying he would not. He said he had spoken to Turnbull on Sunday to congratulate him on his victory.
“I think we should be able to find out who won and who lost in a quicker time than we have seen”.
He said the government should consider re-examining its superannuation changes to ensure they are not retrospective.
The coalition went into the election with 90 seats in the House, compared with Labor’s 55.
It means Mr Turnbull has scraped together a majority government and will no longer need to do deals with Lower House crossbenchers.
But after more than a million postal votes were counted, the ruling coalition pulled marginally ahead.
Vote counting continues in the electorates of Cowan, Herbert, Hindmarsh, Flynn and Capricornia with the LNP forecasted to win the latter two.
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76 seats are needed to form a government without the need of post-election coalition. The Nationals are in a fight to retain two seats still in doubt. Bill believes that the act of counting paper ballots is to blame for the delay and that Australia should embrace electronic voting.
