Wilkie has said he will only vote in support of a no-confidence motion on the floor of the Parliament if there is a compelling reason.
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The coalition has won 71 seats in the 150-member lower house to Labor’s 67, with independents and minor parties on five and seven districts still in doubt, according to a projection by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. with 81 percent of the vote counted.
There it is, that Malcolm Turnbull smugness is back.
For now, there appears to be little appetite for another change of leadership, which would result in the fifth change of prime minister in six years. The opposition Labor Party had 66 seats. There are 10 seats now in doubt. The official vote count will continue into next week and the Australian Electoral Commission won’t declare a definitive tally before July 15, the deadline for postal votes to be received.
That point was rammed home by Labor leader Bill Shorten, who acknowledged the coalition would most likely win, but “with a diminished authority, diminished mandate and a very divided political party”.
In recent days he has met independents who could bolster his numbers in the House, including colourful Queenslander Bob Katter, who has offered his support. It’s starting to look realistic, but still not certain. The ruling Coalition could yet win a slim majority but is expected to end up with fewer than 76 seats, which will leave it – or even Labor – scrambling for the support of the independents.
But the PM is still preparing for a hung parliament, yesterday using time in his Sydney office to meet with potential kingmaker Nick Xenophon. “He is out talking to the independents today”.
“Prime Minister, a coffee spill is good luck in Greece”, a fellow patron said.
While he stopped short of officially conceding, Mr Shorten predicted another trip to the polls within the next year. We didn’t expose their record on border protection as we could have. “But we will be campaign-ready from this day onwards”.
But he acknowledged that the government needed to “listen very carefully to the concerns of the Australian people expressed through this election”.
He said he agreed to support the government because he did not believe the opposition centre-left Labor Party could form a minority government and he did not want to force Australians to go back to the polls.
But Mr Shorten is unlikely to lose his job. Predictions for the seats of Grey and Petrie were updated last night as LNP and Liberal wins last night. It could easily happen again. Sitting MP Luke Simpkins picked up 62 per cent of them in 2013.
“These are the people who feel exposed by or vulnerable to modern economics and voted Labor in the Lower House and for the socially conservative, popular right in the Upper House”, Economou told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday. “They liked Tony Abbott in many ways”.
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But the NXT is more likely to claim just one place after claiming the South Australian rural seat of Mayo that was previously considered a safe Liberal electorate but was lost by disgraced former cabinet minister Jamie Briggs.
