Turnbull ousted Abbott in a leadership vote among Liberal Party politicians in September 2015, promising to be more popular and stable than his predecessor.
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In Australia, vote counting resumed for Parliament elections today, but a victor is not expected to be announced for several days.
Delivering a unified government may be tough.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has ignored calls to resign after a poor result for his Liberal/National Coalition government, who had been expected to retain a majority. Turnbull was pinning his hopes on mail-in and early ballots that traditionally favor the conservatives. Before that, the last hung parliament was in 1940.
Labor Leader Bill Shorten has accused the prime minister of putting Australia’s triple-A credit rating at risk by delivering instability after a deadlocked federal election.
Political analysts say one reason is Shorten’s transformation into a stronger candidate in an election focused squarely on the economy.
“Absolutely full responsibility for the campaign – the Australian people have voted, and we respect the result”, Mr Turnbull said, flanked by Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce.
“Mr. Turnbull’s economic program, such as it was, has been rejected by the people of Australia”.
With Brexit throwing global markets into turmoil and the Australian election non-outcome, a Trump victory in the United States would be the final nail in the coffin for investor confidence.
Crossbench and independent MPs could prove kingmakers in that scenario, and the Prime Minister confirmed he had opened lines of communication with them.
A downgrade would mirror what happened in Britain in the days after its decision to exit the European Union, due to the economic uncertainties.
Australians, the evidence suggests, would prefer that the parties negotiate their way to a workable solution using the Parliament they have been dealt.
“We have to do more to reaffirm the faith of the Australian people in our commitment to health and to Medicare”. If no alliance can be forged, the government could end up calling yet another election – a possibility sure to frustrate politically tired Australians who have endured five changes of prime ministers in as many years.
Saturday’s election reflects to a lesser extent the unhappiness with mainstream political parties that has sent a populist shiver through Western Europe and the U.S. The primary vote for the coalition and Labor fell to its lowest level since 1943.
“The speed of politics has definitely increased”, Smith said.
The new makeup of the Senate could result in further legislative limbo. But even if he manages to form government, there is no guarantee the new Senate will be more amenable.
They are likely to include two to four members of One Nation, an anti-immigration party led by Senator-elect Pauline Hanson.
Xenophon had been his party’s lone senator for South Australia state.
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With vote counting still continuing, the AEC has calculated the two-party preferred figures for the House of Representatives at 49.78% to the LNP and 50.22% to the ALP. Hanson’s party has had no representative in Parliament since she was voted out in 1998. “But there is one thing for sure – the Labor Party is back”. There were eight crossbenchers. It now faces the prospect of a hung parliament or a government with such a slim majority it will not have a mandate to implement economic reform.
