Turnbull’s decision to call a double dissolution election – in which both houses of parliament are dissolved and re-elected – is seen as a huge political gamble.
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“The governor-general has accepted my advice to dissolve both houses of parliament effective tomorrow…and call the election on July 2”, Turnbull said in televised a press conference after visiting Peter Cosgrove approximately an hour earlier.
Mr Turnbull says the government’s election campaign will focus on the economic plan Treasurer Scott Morrison announced in his budget last week.
Australia’s prime minister has confirmed the country’s worst kept secret and called a federal election for July 2.
Both Mr Turnbull and Mr Shorten followed themes of jobs and growth and education and health funding respectively following the double dissolution election announcement on Sunday.
Labor leader Bill Shorten has been quick to paint mr Turnbull, a multi-millionaire lawyer and former tech entrepreneur, and the coalition as friends of big business.
“This election is a contest between Labor putting people first and a Liberal Party looking after vested interests and the top end of town”, Shorten said in his Twitter account.
LABOR is maintaining its lead of 51 per cent to the coalition’s 49 per cent in two-party preferred terms, the latest Newspoll shows.
“We live in an era when the scale and pace of economic change is unprecedented through all of human history”, Mr Turnbull told reporters after setting the election in motion. “But we must embark on these times, embrace these opportunities, meet these challenges, with a plan and we have laid out a clear economic plan to enable us to succeed”, said Turnbull, who heads a Liberal-National coalition. “Now he has a brushed climate change out of his presentation altogether”, said Shorten, who, even as underdog, has outplayed Turnbull on the politics and policy for most of 2016. The opposition, with much work still to do, were lively and laughing, clearly enjoying themselves as they joked and hooted and hollered and howled down the government’s talk about the budget.
But the Labor opposition has refused to back the plan.
The change of prime ministers immediately boosted the government’s standing in opinion polls, but recent polls suggest the government is now running neck-and-neck with Labor.
Asked about the polls today, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull noted that his government had eight weeks to make its case to the Australian people.
The Prime Minister stressed the Coalition’s record on border protection, its plan to build new 12 submarines and navy frigates as part of its defence industry investment plan, the importance of science and innovation, and the need to pass laws to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission in his re-election pitch.
“I will fight this election on schools and education”.
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Labor’s anaemic primary support is the opposition’s most persistent worry as it languishes at a meagre 33 per cent, which is 7 points lower than its peak in January past year, and equal with the level secured by Labor in 2013 when it lost to Tony Abbott in a landslide.
