Australia heads for hung parliament

AUSTRALIAN prime minister Malcolm Turnbull faces a fight to stay in office after a general election which seems likely to produce a hung parliament.

Initial results have left the country facing days or possibly weeks of uncertainty.

With one million postal votes still to be counted last night, the race to govern between the Labour Party and Mr Turnbull’s defending Liberal (Conservative) Party was too close to call. The Liberals had won 71 seats to Labour’s 64.

When Mr Turnbull called the election he was confident his party would win. As the stalemate emerged, the 61-year-old said: ‘We can have every confidence that we will form a coalition majority government.’

But respected TV political commentator Laurie Oakes said the election had been ‘a disaster for the prime minister’.

Questions were being asked whether Mr Turnbull should remain his party’s leader, whatever the outcome of the election.

His plan for jobs and growth failed to resonate, probably because it was built on tax cuts for business and ‘trickle down economics’.

Labour leader Bill Shorten, 49, told his cheering supporters: ‘There is one thing for sure – the Labour Party is back.’