Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained power by a tiny, one-seat majority yesterday after winning the backing of two key independent members of parliament (MPs) following inconclusive polls.
The country’s first woman leader, who took power in a party revolt just 10 weeks ago, scraped over the line to form a fragile minority government with support from the “kingmakers,” after 17 days of frantic negotiations.
“I will ... give confidence and supply to government, and in effect that means confidence and supply in Julia Gillard,” said independent Rob Oakeshott, the last MP to declare his support.
PHOTO: AFP
“Unless, and I emphasise unless, exceptional circumstances determine otherwise,” he added, warning he could vote against Gillard’s Labor Party in the event of any maladministration or corruption.
In a day of high drama, Oakeshott and Tony Windsor both backed Gillard while a third “kingmaker,” cowboy hat-wearing maverick Bob Katter, broke from their informal grouping to support conservative leader Tony Abbott.
The nail-biting climax caps more than two weeks of furious horse-trading after Aug. 21 elections produced the first hung parliament in 70 years, extending a period of unusual political upheaval.
Gillard ended with 76 seats in the 150-seat parliament, with Abbott’s Liberal/National coalition on 74, the closest possible margin.
“It’s like a [Aussie rules] football match that’s decided by one point. I think the loser is unlucky and the winner is very lucky,” said Australian National University political scientist John Warhurst. “It could have gone either way, in the end I suppose it still could have gone either way right up to the very end.”
Gillard staged a shock party revolt against elected, former prime minister Kevin Rudd in June and announced polls just three weeks later, hoping to ride a wave of public support.
However, her anticipated honeymoon period failed to materialize as many voters rejected both main parties and turned to the environment-focused Greens, which enjoyed a record ballot share.
The knife-edge campaign, election and its aftermath have kept Australia’s government in limbo for nearly two months, in the worst political crisis since the queen’s representative sacked an elected prime minister in 1975.
The kingmakers had given few signals of which way they would fall, leaving Australia’s political and media establishment on tenterhooks.
The negotiations moved up a gear in the past 24 hours with Oakeshott meeting Abbott six times on Monday and receiving a package from one of the leaders early yesterday — while he was in the toilet.
“Quite frankly I was in the toilet when the other one dropped into my office and dropped some paperwork off,” Oakeshott said.
The obscure independents, suddenly handed a starring role in the political drama, on Monday announced parliamentary reforms agreed by both sides including having an independent speaker, rather than a member of the ruling party.
Both Oakeshott and Windsor said their main priority was picking the side most likely to provide a stable government capable of seeing out its three-year term and strongly backed Labor plans for a national broadband network.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of