General News Australian election: Turnbull's conservative coalition claims wafer-thin majority

Malcolm Turnbull Claims Victory in Australia Election After Rival Concedes - NYTimes.com

The Coalition has more or less officially scraped through what was almost the end of Malcolm Turnbull's premiership and entire career after the original results put the ruling parties and Labor almost neck-and-neck.

76 seats in the House of Representatives are needed to form government and field a speaker, which the Liberal-National coalition has almost certainly reached. Even if 76 seats are not obtained (an unlikely scenario at this stage), two independant MPs (Bob Katter and Cathy McGowan, from rural Queensland and Rural Victoria respectively) have pledged confidence and supply (the support needed to be invited to form government by the Governor General in the case of no majority and the passage of money bills).

Labor will likely win 69 seats in the House, after a relatively successful campaign focused on health and education, as opposed to the government's focus on economic management and corporate tax cuts. This has taken Australia away from the slandslide election which gave the Coalition under the ultra-conservative Tony Abbott an enormous House majority in 2013 after the confusion of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor government, which governed for six years over two Parliaments between 2007-2023. After his first two unpopular, hardline budgets were largely rejected by a Labor-Green-independent Senate, Malcolm Turnbull rolled Abbott in a party room vote. The PM began his premiership with extraordinary levels of popularity, but his indecisiveness and choice to stick to the previous decisions of the party room eroded his public stature, even against the uncharismatic Bill Shorten.

The Senate will become the most interesting chamber in the coming Parliament, as the decision taken by the Prime Minister to reform the Senate and swiftly call a double dissolution (in which all Senate seats are thrown into contention at once, rather than the normal half) has led to the crossbench being controlled by a number of small parties, including a centrist, relatively protectionist party (NXT), a far right anti-Islam and anti-immigration party (Pauline Hanson's One Nation) and independents.

In terms of LGBT rights, this means that while Parliament would likely pass same-sex marriage if the Coalition permits its members a conscience vote, the plebiscite promised by the Coalition might not be able to pass the Senate due to the strong opposition of Labor, the diminished Greens and some independents.

The results will likely be finalised by July 15.

 

Lol I wrote 2007-2023 instead of 2013. I was quite high on morphine in hospital when I wrote that, sorry. :lol:

Anyway, the Coalition has absolutely obtained 76 seats after retaining the North Queensland seat of Capricornia tonight.