Australians yesterday awoke to a new prime minister in Anthony Albanese, the center-left Labor Party leader whose ascension to the nation’s top job from being raised in social housing by a single mother on a disability pension was said to reflect the country’s changed fabric.
With counting set to continue for many days as postal votes are tallied, one prospect that emerged was that Albanese might need to be sworn in as acting prime minister to attend tomorrow’s Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) summit in Tokyo with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Biden, asked about his message for Albanese just before he departed South Korea yesterday to head to Tokyo, said: “I’m looking forward to seeing him and the Quad matters.”
Photo: Reuters
Biden also said he had called Albanese.
Albanese, speaking to reporters yesterday morning, merely said he would be among “five people who’ll be sworn in tomorrow [Monday]” before attending the Quad meeting, then returning to Australia on Wednesday when “we’ll get down to business.”
The Labor Party has proposed to establish a Pacific defense school to train neighboring armies in response to China’s potential military presence on the Solomon Islands on Australia’s doorstep.
The election delivered a clear rebuke to Australia’s traditional two-party system, both to Labor and the heavily defeated conservative coalition led by the Liberal Party’s outgoing Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
The major parties bled votes to fringe parties and independents, including in many seats considered Labor or coalition strongholds.
Needing 76 seats in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, to govern in its own right, Labor was yesterday being called the winner in 71, with 67 percent of votes counted, Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
The Liberal-National coalition was ahead in just 52 — drastically down from its bare-majority 76 in the 2019 poll.
While Labor would form either a majority or minority government, both major parties lost ground, with support for the coalition dropping by more than 6 percent from the 2019 election, and Labor’s vote falling by about 1.2 percent as of yesterday.
Albanese vowed to bring Australians together, increase investment in social services and “end the climate wars.”
Speaking to reporters in his electorate, he evoked a more cooperative approach to parliamentary business — possibly unavoidable if Labor cannot form a majority government — and described his victory as “a really big moment.”
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