Sydney: Australians awoke Sunday to a new prime minister in Anthony Albanese, the centre-left Labour 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 changed fabric of the country today.
The 59-year-old career politician, who has described himself as the only candidate with a “non-Anglo Celtic name” to run for prime minister in the 121 years the office has existed, referred to his humble upbringing in the inner-Sydney suburb of Camperdown while thanking electors for making him the country’s 31st leader.
“It says a lot about our great country that a son of a single mom who was a disability pensioner, who grew up in public housing down the road in Camperdown, can stand before you tonight as Australia’s prime minister,” Albanese told jubilant supporters after tipping Scott Morrison out of office to end nine years of conservative rule.
“Every parent wants more for the next generation than they had. My mother dreamt of a better life for me. And I hope that my journey in life inspires Australians to reach for the stars,” he said.
But it remained unclear whether Albanese’s party could form a majority government or have to rely on the support of an increased number of independents and minor party lawmakers who won seats in Saturday’s election, in results analysts described as extremely complicated, and which also mirrored the face of modern Australia.
With counting set to continue for many days as postal votes are tallied, one prospect that emerged was that Albanese may need to be sworn in as acting prime minister — possibly as early as Sunday — to attend Tuesday’s Quad summit in Tokyo with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The election delivered a clear rebuke to Australia’s traditional two-party system, both to Labour and the heavily defeated conservative coalition led by the Liberal party’s outgoing Prime Minister Morrison. The major parties bled votes to fringe parties and independents, including in many seats considered Labour or coalition strongholds.
Needing 76 seats in the lower Parliamentary chamber, the House of Representatives, to govern in their own right, Labour on Sunday morning had won 72, with 66.3% of votes counted, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The Liberal-National coalition had secured just 50 — drastically down from its bare-majority 76 in the 2019 poll, in what analysts called a fierce rejection of Morrison and his team’s handling of many issues in its three-year term including climate, COVID-19, women’s rights, political integrity and natural disasters such as bushfires and floods.
A total of 15 seats had been declared for independents or minor party candidates. Of these, three were from the environment-centric Green party and 12 were non-aligned politicians, with up to nine of those so-called teal independents.
In a new wave in Australian politics, the teal independents are marketed as a greener shade than the Liberal Party’s traditional blue colour and want stronger government action on reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions than either the government or Labour are proposing.
Most of their successful candidates are women, their success seen partly as a repudiation of Morrison for his handling of gender issues including sex scandals that have rocked Parliament during his latest three-year term.
While Labour will form either a majority or minority government, both major parties lost ground, with support for the coalition dropping by more than 6% from the 2019 election, and Labour’s vote falling by around 1.2% as of Sunday morning.
Albanese vowed to bring Australians together in a government of unity, to increase investment in social services and to “end the climate wars.”
“My Labour team will work every day to bring Australians together. And I will lead a government worthy of the people of Australia,” he said.
Albanese, who revealed in a 2016 interview he had tracked down his biological father in Italy in 2009, four years before his death, said his surname and that of new government Senate leader Penny Wong, who is of Chinese ancestry, reflected modern, multi-cultural Australia.
“I think it’s good…Someone with a non-Anglo Celtic surname is the leader in the House of Representatives and that someone with a surname like Wong is the leader of the government in the Senate,” he said.
With a time imperative ahead of Tuesday’s Quad summit, Australian National University constitutional law expert Professor Donald Rothwell predicted Albanese could be sworn in as acting prime minister in order to represent the country at the Tokyo meeting.
Rothwell said Australia’s Governor General, the representative of Australia’s ultimate head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, would not yet be prepared to swear in Albanese as prime minister given Labour was yet to attain a clear majority.
“My view is that the Governor General would only be prepared to swear in Albanese as Acting PM’ until such time as the results are much clearer,” Rothwell said in a press release.
Labour has promised more financial assistance and a robust social safety net as Australia grapples with the highest inflation since 2001 and soaring housing prices.
The party also plans to increase minimum wages, and on the foreign policy front it proposed to establish a Pacific defence school to train neighbouring armies in response to China’s potential military presence on the Solomon Islands on Australia’s doorstep.
It also wants to tackle climate change with a more ambitious 43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050.
Morrison, who became prime minister after an internal party coup in 2018, said he would stand down as Liberal leader. His popularity had waned dramatically since his surprise 2019 election victory, including after taking a vacation in Hawaii during Australia’s ravaging bushfires in the summer of 2019-20 and more lately amid the Solomon Islands’ strategic alliance with China.
Still, the former tourism marketing executive struck a defiant tone in conceding defeat.
“We hand over this country as a government in a stronger position than when we inherited it when we came to government (in 2013),” Morrison told a gathering of Liberal supporters in Sydney.
AP
