Gillard, Abbott Begin Second Week of Courting Independents After Deadlock
Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Jacob Ramsay, a senior analyst at Control Risks Group, talks about Australia's deadlocked election. Four independent lawmakers return to the Australian capital of Canberra today for a second week of talks as Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott compete to form government. With 80 percent of the vote counted, the coalition holds 73 seats to Labor’s 72, according to the Australian Electoral Commission’s website as of 8:07 a.m. Ramsay talks from Singapore with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television. (Source: Bloomberg)
Four independent lawmakers return to the Australian capital of Canberra today for a second week of talks as Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition leader Tony Abbott compete to form government after a deadlocked election.
“We’ve got a really difficult decision to make this week,” Robert Oakeshott, one of the independents, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio before the talks today.
With 80 percent of the vote counted, the coalition holds 73 seats to Labor’s 72, according to the Australian Electoral Commission’s website as of 8:07 a.m. Gillard and Abbott are trying to win support to raise their tally to the 76 seats needed to govern in the 150-member House of Representatives.
Oakeshott and fellow independents Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and Andrew Wilkie are yet to reveal whether they’ll help Gillard’s Labor Party or Abbott’s Liberal-National coalition form government after neither side won an absolute majority at the Aug. 21 ballot, leaving Gillard’s planned mining tax and the expansion of national Internet services in jeopardy.
Greens lawmaker Adam Bandt has declared a preference for a Gillard government.
An opinion survey published in the Australian newspaper on Aug. 28 showed voters who elected Windsor, Katter and Oakeshott in their rural electoral division want them to back Abbott’s coalition. The three country lawmakers may come to different conclusions about who to support, Windsor said yesterday.
The cost of election promises, which are key to who can best manage the A$1.2 trillion ($1.08 trillion) economy, and parliamentary reform will be discussed before a draft agreement can be made on “confidence and supply on the floor of the house,” Oakeshott said today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Marion Rae in Canberra at mrae3@bloomberg.net
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