Australia’s ruling coalition scored a surprising election victory.

Prime minister rebuffs challenge from opposition

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s ruling conservative coalition won a surprise victory in the country’s general election Saturday, defying opinion polls that had tipped the center-left opposition party to oust it from power and promising an end to the revolving door of national leaders.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison compared his Liberal Party’s victory for a third three-year term to the births of 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.

“I have always believed in miracles,” Morrison, 51, told a jubilant Sydney crowd as he claimed victory.

“I’m standing with the three biggest miracles in my life here tonight, and tonight we’ve been delivered another one,” he said, embraced by his wife and daughters.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten 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.

“I’m disappointed for people who depend upon Labor, but I’m glad that we argued what was right, not what was easy,” Shorten told his supporters.

Shorten would have become Australia’s sixth prime minister in as many years. He said he no longer would lead Labor after six years at the helm.

The tight race raised the prospect of the coalition forming a minority government. The conservatives became a rare minority government after they dumped Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister for Morrison in an internal power struggle last August. The government lost two seats and its single-seat majority in the bloodletting that followed.

Opinion polls before Saturday’s election suggested that the coalition would lose and that Morrison would have had one of the shortest tenures as prime minister in the 118year history of the Australian federation.

Morrison focused his campaigning on polling that showed while Labor was more popular than the government, the prime minister was more popular than Shorten.

Morrison is the conservatives’ third prime minister since they were elected in 2013.

Tony Abbott, who became the first of those three prime ministers in the 2013 election, conceded defeat in the Sydney seat he has held since 1994.

Polling suggested climate change was a major issue in that seat for voters. As prime minister in 2014, Abbott repealed a carbon tax introduced by a Labor government. Abbott was replaced by Turnbull the next year because of poor opinion polling, but he remained a government lawmaker.

Scott Morrison