CANBERRA – Three Australian deputies who may hold the balance of power met yesterday in Canberra to discuss whether they will back prime minister Julia Gillard or opposition leader Tony Abbott to form a government.
“It’s not about red team or blue team; it’s about parliament and it’s about the future of this nation,” Robert Oakeshott said before meeting with colleagues Tony Windsor and Bob Katter.
Mr Abbott’s opposition Liberal-National coalition led Labor by 72 seats to 70, four short of a majority, according to the election commission’s website. Three seats are too close to call, with counting of up to a million postal votes set to begin today.
The outcome will determine whether Australian mining companies pay a new profit tax and how to provide internet access to the country’s rural population.
Mr Katter said Mr Abbott’s broadband plan seemed to have “an awful lot of private ownership associated with it, and you can’t go down that path”.
Mr Oakeshott (40) was elected as a Nationals member of the New South Wales parliament in 1996 and became an independent in 2003. In 2008 he won a national seat in Lyne, which runs along the state’s coast. Mr Windsor (59) has a farm in his New South Wales constituency and has also said he wants improved internet services.
Green candidate Adam Bandt won a seat and said he would support Labor, while his leader, Australian senator Bob Brown, wants to negotiate with both sides. – ( Washington Post/Bloomberg)