Australia conservatives snatch election in a surprise victory
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s center-right government clung to power Saturday in a surprise victory, with voters backing its stewardship of a slowing economy for another three years and rejecting the opposition’s progressive agenda.
Despite trailing in opinion polls for years, Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National coalition closed the gap with a relentless attack on Labor’s pledge to take tougher action on climate change and strip tax perks from wealthy Australians.
For Labor leader Bill Shorten, the loss is akin to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 failure to win the U.S. presidency.
“I have always believed in miracles,” Morrison, 51, told supporters in Sydney, flanked by his daughters, Abbey, 11, and Lily, 9, who were conceived naturally after 14 years of in vitro fertilization had failed. His wife, Jenny Morrison, suffered endometriosis. “Tonight we’ve been delivered another one.”
Shorten, 52, ran on Australia’s most progressive agenda in decades, including tax cuts for low-income workers, increases to the minimum wage, sweeping emissions curbs and scaling back concessions for property and stock market investors. That presented a big target for Morrison, with blanket TV ads warning Shorten was “the Bill Australia can’t afford.”
The government also ran on its record of economic management, across-theboard tax cuts and a return to a budget surplus. In the final week, it announced support for first-home buyers, mixing that carrot with the stick of warnings that Labor’s proposal to curtail tax breaks for property investment would send prices tumbling.
Shorten had earlier conceded defeat as the coalition came close to a majority in the 151-seat House of Representatives, where parties need a majority to form a government.
Vote counting was to continue Sunday.