A jubilant Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday vowed to get straight back to work after a shock election victory by his conservative government that has left bewildered voters wondering how they were taken by surprise.
The opposition Labor Party, meanwhile, began another bout of post-election soul searching while starting the task of finding a new leader, after Bill Shorten stepped down following Saturday’s emphatic defeat in a poll many had seen as unlosable for his party.
The center-left Labor, which has governed Australia for only 38 of its 118 years as a federation, was rated an overwhelming favorite in opinion polls and with odds-makers to topple the conservative Liberal-National coalition government after its six years in power.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Instead, Morrison — who became prime minister in August last year when a contentious internal party vote dumped then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull as its leader — swept the coalition to victory with what is likely to be an increased representation in the federal parliament.
The result is much the same as the last election, which delivered the government a single-seat majority in 2016. Since then, public expectations have taken a roller coaster ride based on the media’s reporting of polls.
Opinion polling has been a factor in conservative and Labor governments ousting four of their own prime ministers in the past decade, most recently elevating Morrison to prime minister.
Stewart Jackson, a Sydney University political scientist, said the polls that had put Labor ahead of the government for the past two years were too consistent for too long to be credible.
“That indicates ‘herding,’ where the pollsters themselves are getting results that they don’t think are right and are adjusting them,” he said. “Because statistically, polls should never come up like that.”
Australia has made voting compulsory, so pollsters’ surveys of Australians’ party preferences usually come close to the election result.
With just over 75 percent of votes counted by yesterday evening, the coalition had won 73 of the 76 seats needed to form a majority government, Australian Broadcasting Corp calculations showed.
With seven seats still undecided, the coalition was expected to make further gains by the end of counting.
The government had gone into the election as a minority government, with just 73 seats. Labor was holding 65 seats, with independents and minor parties claiming six.
The possibility remains that the coalition will again have to govern in the minority, relying on agreements with independent and minor party lawmakers to transact government business.
Speaking before attending church in his electorate in southern Sydney yesterday morning, Morrison thanked Australians for returning him to office.
“I give thanks to live in the greatest country in all the world,” he said. “Thanks again to all Australians all across the country.”
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