Labor leader Bill Shorten yesterday asked the prime minister to quit, saying, “Mr Turnbull clearly doesn’t know what he is doing”.
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As of Wednesday, Australian Broadcasting Corp. election analysts – considered among the most reliable – were predicting that the coalition had 70 seats, Labor 67 and the minor parties and independents were leading in five seats in the House of Representatives.
“Whilst counting has not concluded in a number of very close seats, it is clear that Mr Turnbull and his Coalition will form a government”, he told reporters in Melbourne.
Australia’s prime minister said on Sunday that his conservative coalition government was re-elected for a second three-year term, after a chaotic national election that left the country in a state of political paralysis for more than a week while officials scrambled to sort out who had won the tight race.
New Zealand’s leader said he had been in regular contact with Turnbull since the cliffhanger election, which was held eight days ago.
“Almost all the political parties have undoubtedly ignored regional Australia and just as surely it was one of the many factors in people’s minds when voting last Saturday”, Mr Wilkie said.
“You have to say that we are an election-winning machine in the Liberal Party”, Mr Pyne told the media, expecting some seats still in doubt to fall its way.
“But I am of course talking to the cross benchers as well, as I would do regardless of what our own numbers in the house amounted to”, he said.
Treasurer Scott Morrison said he thought the coalition would ultimately be able to form a majority government once all the votes were counted.
Standard and Poor’s cut Australia’s credit rating outlook to negative from stable on Thursday, threatening a downgrade of its coveted triple A status, over fears.
Turnbull became the nation’s fourth prime minister since 2013 when he rolled Liberal leader Tony Abbott in a party vote last September.
The coalition is likely to hold 76 seats in the 150-seat lower house, as postal votes and recounts of existing votes have favoured Liberal and Nationals candidates over Labor. The Coalition is on track to win 73 seats and the Labor opposition 66, while there are five independents and six seats undecided.
Shorten said he accepted Turnbull had a mandate to pursue the policies he took to the election.
With these public undertakings the Governor-General can be satisfied that Mr Turnbull will deliver workable government even if the final count in doubtful seats leaves it in minority.
Katter is the only independent or minor party lawmaker called crossbenchers because they sit between the major parties in Parliament to declare support for a major party.
But he acknowledged that the government needed to “listen very carefully to the concerns of the Australian people expressed through this election”.
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“Friends, after the longest campaign in 50 years, this could well be one of the shortest Parliaments in 50 years”, he said.
