Labor, Coalition, Abbott, Gillard

Labor fights back in preference vote count | News.com.au

JULIA Gillard has said she can offer both reform and stability if she is retained as Prime Minister, as Labor fights back to the front on a crucial vote count.

Yesterday, as the Independents converged on Canberra for formal talks, counting showed the Coalition edging ahead of Labor on the two-party-preferred count, which Ms Gillard has highlighted as a key factor in determining which party had the mandate to form a minority government.

By late last night, with more than 80 per cent counted, the Coalition was ahead by 1909 votes after the AEC removed eight seats from its two-party count on the basis that the major parties did not run first and second.

By 11am AEST, that had narrowed to just over 1000 votes and shortly after noon, Labor had pulled back to a 1500-vote lead. In a stunning measure of the closeness of the election, the Australian Electoral Commission website had the parties locked at 50.01 per cent for Labor to 49.99 per cent for the Coalition with close to 11 million votes counted.


Labor's fightback will be a relief to Ms Gillard, who addressed the National Press Club in Canberra this afternoon.

She has dismissed the AEC count while the eight seats remain omitted: "This flurry of excitement is misunderstanding what is going on," she has said.

Stability and reform

She has said Labor is best able to forge ahead with "stability and continuity" in minority government, rejecting calls for a fresh election. "The Australian people voted for this parliament - our job is to make it work," she has said.

She has said Australians want more "scrutiny and accountability" of government, calling the possibility of lasting reform a "great opportunity of Australia's current political landscape". She has said the new Parliament will be a "forum to find common ground" and to deliver a new deal for regional Australia.

But she has not promised an end to focus groups, saying "every political party has them". "The vice is when a political party says it will form its manifesto based entirely on the focus groups. I did not do that," she has said.

She has insisted she did not road test her campaign commitments to education and employment and "I am deeply unconcerned" what a focus group would make of it.

'New politics'

A "new brand of politics" has been a high priority for the three Independents - all from regional electorates - whose support will determine who forms the next government. They have said there is no rush for them to make a decision, but Ms Gillard has said she knows many voters feel the clock is ticking.

"I appreciate the Australian people want a resolution to this election. They want to know who their next government will be," she has said, adding that she "stands ready to form government", promising to "renew our system ... (and) renovate our tradition of reform to deliver lasting and durable improvements to our democracy".

The changes to parliament floated so far include time limits to answers in Question Time, more freedom for backbenchers to put forward legislation, a more independent speaker and greater oversight roles for committees of MPs in the lower house.

The Independents have their demands to the leaders, but what policies should be deal-breakers? What should be top of the to-do list? Have your say: what are your demands to them?

More than a week after the election, the Coalition has 73 House of Representatives seats, Labor 72, with four independents and one Green - although the Green MP has said he would support Labor. Seventy-six seats are required to form government.

Mandate

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who is holding a shadow cabinet meeting in Canberra, has said the Labor caretaker government has no legitimacy. "We are no longer an opposition. We may very well be a government in waiting. The caretaker government has no mandate, it has no legitimacy," he has said.

After the election produced the nation's first hung parliament since World War II, the Prime Minister asserted Labor had a right to govern on the basis that it won more of the two-party-preferred vote than the Coalition.

Last Monday Ms Gillard, pointing to Labor's lead, urged Mr Abbott to accept its importance. "It is clear that the government has attracted the majority share of the two-party-preferred vote," Ms Gillard said. "What that means is that the majority of Australians wanted a Labor government."

Earlier, when the Coalition enjoyed its preferences lead, Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson said it was too early for the Coalition to claim a win. "For the Coalition to claim victory on the two-party preferred vote on the basis of 2000 votes when there's hundred of thousands, if not more, votes yet to be counted is not correct," he said on Sky News.

But Coalition MP Sophie Mirabella said Labor's shot at power was evaporating. "If Ms Gillard's main moral pillar of seeking to form government was that she was ahead on the two-party preferred vote, then that has dissipated," she has said.

Last night the Coalition had extended its lead on primary votes to more than 618,000.