Voters went to the polls on Saturday in the country’s first-ever double-dissolution election, where all the seats in both the lower and upper houses of parliament were contested at the same time.
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Australia’s embattled Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday faced open recriminations within his party and calls by the opposition to resign following a dismal election result which could leave the nation with a hung Parliament.
The ABC’s election analyst Antony Green predicts the coalition will definitely get 73 seats, though it remains unclear whether it will reach 76, the broadcaster reported.
Weary Australians have watched as internal party squabbling and fears over flagging poll ratings have prompted five changes of prime minister in as many years.
Despite a strong swing against his coalition, Turnbull insisted he would still be able to form a majority government.
After the election, crossbench and independent MPs have emerged as kingmakers.
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’.
The latest projections by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation shifted two seats into the government’s column, giving Turnbull’s Liberal-National coalition 70 out of 150 lower house seats, and the centre-left Labor opposition 67.
“Mr Turnbull clearly doesn’t know what he is doing”.
Small parties are also likely to do well in the Senate, with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation on track to win between two and four seats, marking the return of the right-wing anti-immigration activist to parliament after an nearly 20-year absence. “Quite frankly I think he should quit”, Shorten, 49, said.
“I take full responsibility for the campaign”, he said, adding that “there are lessons to be learnt from this election”.
With nearly 80% of the vote counted, 10 seats remain in doubt, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s (ABC) analysis. “He has delivered instability.The bloke is not up to the job”.
Shorten’s Labor Party, which sits in the center-left of the political spectrum, is now leading the polls.
“Whichever party forms the government, the lack of a strong majority (or maybe governing from minority) is likely to make a reform agenda more hard”, Paul Bloxham, HSBC’s chief economist for Australia and New Zealand, summed up. Six seats have gone to independent/minor parties and six remain in doubt.
The Australian Electoral Commission is keeping tally of the voting.
Senator Cory Bernardi, from the right-wing of the ruling Liberal Party, said that Mr Turnbull and campaign strategists “need to be held to account”.
“There is enormous disappointment with the way the government has been working”, McGowan said.
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“I don’t know whether any of them will formally downgrade Australia’s rating, or put Australia on a’negative watch’, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them does”, he told the Australian Financial Review. Instead, it left Turnbull’s authority in tatters less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup with a promise of stable government.
