Shorten set to be new Aussie PM
SYDNEY: Australia looks set to change prime minister again on Saturday, but this time via the ballot box — after a nasty campaign marked by shrill rhetoric, climate rows and growing anger with mainstream career politicians.
The centre-left Labour party had led the polls for months and is tipped to squeak over the finishing line, making Bill Shorten the sixth prime minister sworn into office in a decade.
Out on the campaign trail, candidates have been egged, abused and a slew have resigned for racist, sexist and otherwise jawdropping social media posts.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison — who came to office less than a year ago via a party coup — has campaigned virtually solo. Many members of his cabinet have either quit or were so politically toxic he kept them away from the cameras.
Final polls put Shorten, a former union boss, and his allies around one-to-two percentage points ahead of governing Liberal coalition, but on track to secure the first centre-left parliamentary majority in six years.
An upset is still possible. Like elsewhere in the West, Australians hit with rising living costs, growing inequality and wrenching social change appear fed up with left-right contests featuring career politicians.
The election has seen a surge in support for outsiders, who range from green-minded conservatives to populists to far-right extremists.
They include Clive Palmer, a brash millionaire echoing Donald Trump and vowing to “Make Australia Great”, who looks set to win a Senate seat after a highspending campaign.
The outsiders carry clout because of Australia’s compulsory ranked voting system and could decide the balance of power.
Shorten’s approval rating stands at a meagre 39 per cent, behind Morrison’s less-than-stellar 44 per cent, according to a Newspoll survey released on Monday.
In a final pitch to voters this week, the 51-year-old — who is backed by mogul Rupert Murdoch’s fiercely conservative media — warned that Labour’s economic policies would put up rents, raise taxes, kill thousands of jobs and lower house prices.
Shorten has vowed to limit tax breaks for the rich and promised to raise public spending on everything from cancer treatment to sports changing rooms.
His hopes of becoming prime minister may hinge on results in Queensland and his home state of Victoria — where Labour’s lead has proved more resilient and where climate change has been a important issue.
From cosmopolitan Melbourne to dusty drought-stricken Outback homesteads, the government’s climate scepticism has proven a risky electoral gamble.
“The coalition’s reluctance on climate change is seen increasingly by younger voters as part of its lack of vision,” Australian National University senior fellow Mark Kenny said.