AUSTRALIA faces a hung parliament followed by several days of horse-trading as counting continues after Saturday’s federal election. It will be Australia’s first hung parliament since the second World War.
Four seats were still in doubt yesterday after a swing of more than 5 per cent against the incumbent Labor Party. With postal votes still to be counted in the coming days, it is likely the Liberal-National coalition will end up with 73 of the parliament’s 150 seats. Labor is likely to have 72 seats (a loss of 11).
The Greens will have one and there will be four independents.
The swing against Labor was worst in Queensland (9.4 per cent) and New South Wales (6.9 per cent). Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia all swung to Labor.
A minority Liberal-National coalition government looks to be the most likely outcome as the support of three conservative independents (who are all former members of the National Party) would give them the 76 votes needed.
The Green MP and an independent who is a former Green candidate are likely to support Labor leader Julia Gillard as prime minister, but that would still leave Labor two votes short of retaining power.
Ms Gillard said she would “continue to lead the government and provide strong and stable government until the outcome of the election is clearly known”.
But Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott said the coalition was “back in business” and that “the government has lost is legitimacy”.
Mr Abbott also referred to the fact that Ms Gillard became prime minister just two months ago when she successfully challenged Kevin Rudd for the Labor leadership.
“This election has to some extent at least been a referendum on the political execution of a prime minister,” said Mr Abbott.
One of the ousted Labor candidates, Maxine McKew, who defeated then prime minister John Howard in the 2007 election, criticised her party’s election campaign.
“There are some very big questions for the Labor Party given what has happened,” she said. “We shouldn’t be on a knife-edge tonight and we shouldn’t be losing colleagues all over the country.”
Leader of the Greens Bob Brown said his party’s results were its best ever. The Greens senate vote increased from 5 to 14 per cent, giving it the balance of power in the upper house.
“It looks like we’ll have nine senators in the new parliament, a party room of 10 [including one lower house seat],” he said. “From where I sit, that’s a greenslide.”
Senator Brown has vowed to work responsibly with whichever party forms a government, saying: “Whether it’s an Abbott or a Gillard government, we will work with that government, that’s what the people will have voted for.”
Deborah O’Neill, whose parents came from Kilkenny and Cork, bucked the swing against Labor to win the New South Wales Central Coast seat of Robertson.
Ms O’Neill, a university lecturer and former Sydney representative in the Rose of Tralee contest, thanked her supporters. “This was a seat that was probably written off [for Labor] a long time ago so I’m appreciative of people’s votes,” she said.
In the Western Australia seat of Hasluck, Liberal Ken Wyatt has been elected as the first Aboriginal member of the lower house. In Queensland, the coalition’s Wyatt Roy, aged 20, has become the youngest person ever elected to parliament in Australia.
Overall, 5.65 per cent of votes were spoiled, up from 3.95 per cent spoiled at the 2007 election.