Australia Finally Has A Government As Malcolm Turnbull Claims Victory
But the Governor-General is in France so he can't actually swear in the PM.
It’s finally over. A week after Australians cast their votes, the country’s longest election campaign in 50 years has come to end. Labor leader Bill Shorten rang Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday to congratulate him on winning the 2016 federal election. Shorten publicly conceded defeat at a press conference where he acknowledged the Coalition government had a “mandate” to pursue its political agenda.
Today I called Mr Turnbull to congratulate him. Although counting goes on, it’s clear he will form either a minority or majority government.
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) July 10, 2016
Shortly after Shorten’s concession Malcolm Turnbull emerged to claim victory. Even though the results in a few close seats are yet to be finalised, by Friday it became clear that the Coalition would likely secure a majority in the House of Representatives. The government is on track to be re-elected with a narrow majority of 1-3 seats, while votes will continue to be counted in the remaining close races next week.
Congratulations to @TurnbullMalcolm & Coalition team on being given the opportunity to continue to implement our plan for a better future. — Tony Nutt (@tony_nutt) July 10, 2016
Politicians and political commentators alike have been venting their frustrations this week at the Australian Electoral Commission for taking so long to count the results. The delay in declaring the result has led to both Bill Shorten and Malcolm publicly stating today that they will work together to investigate options for electronic voting, something widely used in the United States.
Electronic voting is a controversial issue given the likely need to involve private companies and the lack of transparency around its operation. It seems like the only people who really want to know the results more quickly are politicians, desperate to find out whether they still have a job. Most Australians seemed pretty relaxed about the fact that we had no idea who our government was going to be.
So what’s next? In order for Malcolm Turnbull to formally be reappointed Prime Minister he needs to be sworn in by the Governor-General. The only problem is the Governor-General is currently in France celebrating Bastille Day, so Turnbull will have to wait for his return before he starts running the show again.
As a quick aside, it’s pretty funny the Governor-General, who is the official representative of the Queen, is celebrating Bastille Day. Bastille Day is a celebration of the start of the 1789 French revolution which resulted in the declaration of a French Republic and the execution of the king.
So basically Australia has a slight delay in officially appointing our Prime Minister, because our system of constitutional monarchy means the Queen’s representative has to swear them in, but the Queen’s rep is too busy celebrating the brutal deposition of the French monarchy back in the 1700’s. There’s never been a more exciting time to be an Australian who thinks our monarchist system of government is a bit outdated and shit.
Wait. The Governor General decided to go to France… meanwhile Australia doesn’t have a Government.
— Jamie Cummins (@jc_cummins) July 10, 2016
Even though we know who is going to form government the election isn’t completely over. In addition to counting the final House of Representatives seats, the Senate count still needs to be finalised and that will probably take a few weeks. We know that Turnbull will have to deal with a pretty messy Senate, including Pauline Hanson and likely two more One Nation Senators, but we don’t know the final configuration yet.
The challenging Senate means it will be hard for the Coalition to prosecute it’s election campaign policies of business tax cuts, among other things, so it looks like we’re headed for a pretty chaotic term of government. Congratulations Malcolm! You lost a bunch of seats and we got Pauline Hanson, but good effort otherwise.