Parties are required to hold at least 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives to form a majority government, and the coalition has not yet reached that number.
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“When you’ve got five doubtful (seats), the coalition could get to 77 but 75 is more likely”.
Earlier on Friday, Industry Minister Christopher Pyne declared the coalition had won and was an “election-winning machine”.
M alcolm Turnbull has said he is “very confident” of achieving a majority as the Coalition becomes the firm favourite to form government.
Australia’s Liberal-led government tightened its slim grip on power today as it increased its narrow lead in election vote counting.
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”.
The term “modern economics” is a reference to Liberal Party leader Turnbull’s rhetoric about “the modern, dynamic, 21st-century economy Australia needs”, which Economou said would have alienated the average person, who relies on government support for education and health.
With five seats still too close to call, Green said he was “absolutely certain” that the government would win more seats than the opposition Labor Party and could get to the 76 needed to claim victory.
MALCOLM Turnbull has secured his first tenure as an elected prime minister, amid calls for the introduction of electronic voting to relegate prolonged vote counts to history.
Mr Turnbull has received the backing of at least three independent MPs and is nearly certain to remain as Prime Minister even if there is a hung Parliament.
The Coalition faces many difficulties if it goes on to form government, the most pressing of which involves the lack of broad-based parliamentary support for key elements of its budget and election manifesto.
“But we will be campaign-ready from this day onwards”, he said.
Mr Shorten said it was likely in coming days the Coalition would gain the numbers to form government.
Mr Turnbull, however, will realistically only scrape through with the slimmest of margins and faces an even more hostile Upper House Senate, making it hard for him to pass planned economic reforms.
“The Australian people expect all sides of politics to work.in the interest of the people, not just themselves”, he said.
He also wants the government to consider giving the auditor-general powers to monitor the effectiveness of government spending and programs – “including the billions of dollars the commonwealth provides to the states”, he said.
“I believe that the government has won the election absolutely”.
The seat count so far is 73 for the coalition, 66 Labor, one Greens, four independent and six in doubt: Capricornia, Cowan, Forde, Herbert, Hindmarsh and Flynn.
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Labor’s Cathy O’Toole led Ewen Jones by 318 votes on Saturday afternoon but postal votes could push him ahead.
