The electoral commission put the coalition ahead in 74 seats, Labor in 71, and the minor parties and independents in five.
Advertisement
Independent MPs Cathy McGowan, Andrew Wilkie and Bob Katter have chose to support the government on supply and confidence issues.
Labor Leader Bill Shorten on Friday also said he believed Mr Turnbull was set to be returned to the Prime Minister’s office but he hit out at the Liberal leader as a man without substance.
“After the longest campaign in 50 years, this could well be one of the shortest parliaments in 50 years”.
The uncertainty follows national polls on Saturday, with early counts giving neither of the two major parties enough seats to govern.
“My focus now turns to doing what I can to help settle the situation down and foster stable government”, Andrew Wilkie, one of the independents said, while stressing he would retain his right to vote independently in parliament.
“We will form a majority government in our own right but I am talking to the crossbenchers as I would do regardless of what our own numbers in the House amounted to”.
“You’d say that we are an election-winning machine in the Liberal Party”. “The Coalition will have more seats than Labor”.
“Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and I have agreed that while maintaining my complete independence, I am prepared to contribute to the stability of a 45th Parliament by continuing with my past practice of supporting the Government of the day on supply and matters of confidence”. When Mr Turnbull became prime minister last September in an internal Liberal Party coup, he was Australia’s fourth prime minister in just over two years.
Australia’s conservative government remained hopeful on Wednesday of clinging to power after weekend elections turned too close to call.
Senator Nick Xenophon, who is positioning himself as the new parliamentary kingmaker, has signalled that he is prepared to enter some form of minority government agreement with either Turnbull or Shorten.
That point was rammed home by Labor leader Bill Shorten, who acknowledged the coalition would most likely win, but “with a diminished authority, diminished mandate and a very divided political party”.
Meanwhile, ratings agency Standard and Poor’s warned the federal government on Friday that it had no time to waste and must begin repairing the budget, and that there was no more room for “slippage” or deferring the projected return to surplus in 2020-21.
Turnbull’s ruling Liberal/National coalition will hold at least 73 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Antony Green said as counting continued.
The National Party, the junior coalition partner, is demanding a greater say in a future government given its strong electoral performance.
“We hope that a final result in the narrowly contested seats will be available in coming days”, Brandis said.
Advertisement
“Malcolm Turnbull left me with the distinct impression he was very honest about developing infrastructure.it seems to me that he realises they’ve been going in the wrong direction”, Katter said of their discussion in Brisbane on Thursday.
