“It is clear that Mr Turnbull and his coalition will form a government”, Shorten said in a news conference in Melbourne.
Advertisement
In the 150-seat House of Representatives, the lower house, the Australian Electoral Commission is now projecting that the Coalition will likely hold 76 seats-a majority of just one-though it might still be forced to rule as a minority government.
“Earlier today [Labor leader] Bill Shorten called me and congratulated me on being re-elected as prime minister”, Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.
“We’re a grown up democracy, it shouldn’t be taking eight days to find out who’s won and who’s lost”, Shorten said while conceding the election on Sunday, a week after polls closed.
Within the fractious Coalition, the Liberal Party has probably won only 45 seats, however, down from 58; and the Queensland-based Liberal National Party (LNP) 21, down from 22; while the rural-based National Party likely to have 10, up from 9 in the previous parliament.
The Coalition parties won 26 of the 76 seats, while Labor won 23, the Greens three, NXT two, and the anti-immigrant One Nation Party got one seat.
The coalition entered the campaign with 90 seats, a majority of 15 in the 150-seat lower chamber, the House of Representatives.
The AEC said that it did not have the internal capacity to implement e-voting on a large scale and would have to work with industry.
Amidst the rancour and heated denunciations last week, former prime minister John Howard offered a much cooler assessment of the government’s performance and Turnbull’s leadership.
Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday returned to the capital, Canberra to decide on his cabinet ministers for the 45th Parliament, after he secured victory in the 2016 federal election.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten conceded defeat on Sunday.
“Yes, this is something we must look at”, he said.
Malcolm Turnbull has promised to legislate for a plebiscite to be held on the issue by the end of the year, but Labor says it’s a waste of $160 million. “We’ve gone through this election with fiercely fought arguments, issues of policy, issues of principle and we’ve done so peacefully and constructively”.
“It is a precondition for Mr Turnbull forming a government that he concludes a Coalition agreement with the National Party, that the National Party ticks off on Mr Turnbull’s government, but it is important these arrangements are not secret”.
But Turnbull’s party coup replicated similar putsches inside the Labor Party when it was in office before 2013 and meant that Australia had its fifth prime minister since 2007.
“As I have said, I wish Malcolm Turnbull well with what the future holds, but we also have a mandate to stand up for Medicare, to make sure schools are properly funded and to make sure that we prioritise Australian jobs amongst platform of the fair go all round, putting people first”.
Advertisement
However, the chairman of the New South Wales Parliament’s Joint Committee on Electoral Matters, Jai Rowell, said NSW was a world leader when it came to electronic voting.
