Early voting in Australia’s federal election began yesterday, with the opposition party hoping the first ballots would reflect its lead over the government in opinion polls.
Voters began casting their ballots at 550 voting stations around the country as two new opinion polls showed the center-left Labor Party opposition had extended its lead over Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition.
Voting is compulsory in Australia and almost 17 million adults in a population of 26 million people are expected to vote. Pre-poll voting is available to those unable to vote on May 21 for reasons including work or travel. People conscious of the risks of COVID-19 are expected to vote early to avoid the larger crowds at polling booths on May 21.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese said government lawmakers were discouraging electors from voting early in the hope that Labor’s lead would evaporate before election day.
“The bells are tolling for the Morrison government because early voting starts today,” Albanese said. “We want people to participate in our democracy and to vote whenever is convenient.”
Morrison said many voters had yet to decide which candidate they will support.
“As Australians are going to those polls, they’re really starting to focus on the choice that they have to make, and it’s a choice between strength, a strong economy and a weaker one under Labor,” Morrison said.
Morrison called the election for the last date available to him to maximize the time he had to discredit Albanese as a potential government leader. Using the same tactic in 2019, Morrison defied most opinion polls by leading his coalition to a narrow victory.
His coalition is now seeking a rare fourth three-year term.
More than 40 percent of votes were cast before the 2019 election date, and that proportion is expected to increase in the current election.
Many observers say the government’s popularity has been harmed by the Australian central bank’s decision last week to raise interest rates for the first time in 11 years to curb inflation. It was the first time that the Reserve Bank of Australia has lifted the cash rate during an election campaign.
Some polls are suggesting a rare hung parliament that would lead to Morrison or Albanese forming a minority government with the support of unaligned lawmakers.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS