Labor campaigned hard on the claim the Coalition would privatise Medicare if re-elected, despite the Coalition repeatedly ruling it out.
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“In terms of stability in politics I think there is a very strong desire from the public to have that, and they don’t want three prime ministers in three years, or six prime ministers in six years”, he said.
Australian National University political science professor Ian McAllister told CNN another election within a year was possible if neither major party could form a stable government. Our own included. We note that.
“We need to listen very carefully to the concerns of the Australian people expressed through this election, and look at how we are going to address those concerns”.
“Irrespective of the political composition of any new government, we would lower the rating if the parliamentary gridlock on the budget continues and Australia’s budgetary performance does not improve broadly as we expected a year ago”, Standard & Poor’s said.
On Monday, Labour leader Bill Shorten urged the prime minister to resign, saying: “Mr Turnbull clearly doesn’t know what he is doing”.
On Tuesday, election officials began the task of counting more than a million postal votes, according to the Australian Electoral Commission, including for a handful of crucial seats which may decide who forms the next national government.
Nine seats remain in doubt: Capricornia, Cowan, Forde, Herbert, Hindmarsh where Labor leads, Chisholm, Dunkley, Gilmore where the coalition is ahead, and Grey where the Nick Xenophon Team is in front.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insists the long count is not unprecedented.
Conservative Senator Cory Bernardi has called for a debate about Turnbull’s leaderships as key independents who could hold the balance of power refuse to commit to either the coalition or Labor.
“This hasn’t been an outcome that we wanted but it’s not the end of the world and people shouldn’t start slitting their throats – certainly not Liberals”, he said.
He said the Liberal Party was a broad church, which had always at its best when it kept its conservative and liberal traditions in some kind of balance.
Post-election polling undertaken by ReachTEL for the progressively aligned Australia Institute found the slimmest of majorities (47 per cent to 46.3) want negotiations with the crossbenchers to culminate in a minority government if that is what is needed – despite much demonising of the very notion of minority government by the Coalition in the lead-up to the election. But early signs are that the Senate will be even more unwieldy for whichever party takes government.
Another 61 per cent think the plan should either be blocked or amended to apply to small business only, effectively dooming the major aspect of the policy and the part most likely to deliver any growth dividend – small though that may be.
The counting will resume today as Australia waits to find out who will be in charge after neither party secured a majority in the general election.
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Speaking to reporters outside his Sydney home, he said ‘the count is continuing, we remain confident we will secure enough seats to have a majority in the parliament’.
