Queensland Liberal MP Karen Andrews has told Seven’s Sunrise that it is “very clear” that Peter Dutton will take on the opposition’s leadership and that Susan Ley will be his deputy.
The outgoing environment minister will join Dutton, who Andrews says will likely run unopposed for the leadership of the Liberal party:
Peter Dutton will be elected as the unopposed leader, and Susan Lee will likely become the deputy leader.
It is very important that they work across the party and with whoever goes into the shadow ministry to ensure that we are all part of the party’s leadership.
Because no single person can get this right.
We need to ensure that we are working across a range of areas with a full range of people with very different skill sets.
Newly installed Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is a “little more confident today” that the Labor party can form a majority in parliament, as the vote count shows multiple seats going down to the wire.
Speaking on ABC News Breakfast, Chalmers hoped Labour could win Brisbane and get up to 77 seats.
I’m a little more confident today than earlier in the week. I speak to people who follow this very closely, and we have a strong chance of a majority.
I want to see Madonna Jarret up in Brisbane, someone I greatly respect for greatly respect 77, and I have Brisbane included in that pile because she’ll be an outstanding contributor.
We’re pretty confident about McNamara. We think we’ll get majority but that’s not yet entitled to rely on ass,ure.
Dave Sharma says voters didn’t think Coalition was ‘serious’ about climate change.
Dave Sharma, who lost his once safe Liberal seat of Wentworth to independent Allegra Spender, has told ABC’s RN Breakfast that the teal independents “positioned themselves quite cleverly”.
Sharma said Spender had picked up protest votes against Scott Morrison from traditional Liberal voters and regular Labor and Greens voters.
Sharma said many in his former electorate deeply disliked Morrison, saying they believed he was too religious. They didn’t like that he once carried coal into parliament, and they didn’t think he was sincere about climate change:
Undoubtedly, the prime minister had lost some prestige and credit over the last few years. I think frustrations with the government are growing as they tend to accumulate after being in power for as long as we have been.
The teal candidates position themselves quite cleverly, I think, as a repository for anti-government protest votes without being a Labour/Greens vote. I think that was the secret in seats like mine.
Sharma added that he couldn’t convince constituents in the electorate of his party’s climate agenda, saying that many thought the party didn’t take the issue seriously:
It’s not our policy. I think the policies could do with improvement, but it’s a lack of sincerity in our commitment.
Until I was blue in the face, I could tell people how much I would reduce emissions by 2050. How much money we’re investing in renewable energy … but people just thought we weren’t serious about it because of our history on this issue.
And because of the rhetoric that people in the Coalition continued to use on the issue that suggested they thought the whole thing was a bit of a joke.
Updated at 17.50 EDT
On the vote count, AAP is reporting that Labor is ahead of the Greens in the seat of Brisbane by a tiny 34 votes, in a seat previously held by the LNP.
Postal votes, still being counted, favor Labor candidate Madonna Jarrett over her Greens rival Stephen Bates.
As of yesterday afternoon, former minister Michael Sukkar led the contest for the Victorian seat of Deakin by 74 votes against Labor hopeful Matt Gregg.
Former NSW minister and Liberal candidate for Gilmore Andrew Constance are 105 votes ahead of sitting Labor MP Fiona Phillips.
In the Senate, the Coalition is on track to hold 30 seats, and Labor 25, in the 76-seat chamber from July.
Updated at 17.42 EDT
Good morning, Mostafa Rachwani with you this morning, the fourth after the election.
We expect prime minister Anthony Albanese to return to Australia today after meeting world leaders in Tokyo.
Albanese urged China to lift sanctions on Australia, adding that climate change remains the No one challenge facing Pacific Island nations.
As the vote count continues, he is expected to finalize his frontbench today, with Guardian Australia putting Labor on 73 seats so far, needing three more to form a majority.
Elsewhere, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that some Liberal MPs feared their government was in trouble as far back as September and pushed for Josh Frydenberg to challenge Scott Morrison’s leadership. The report says the coup failed when Frydenberg declared his loyalty to Morrison.
And late yesterday, senior NSW police announced they had “cut the head off the snake” of a drug syndicate in Sydney, making 18 arrests and seizing 34 mobile phones during 29 raids in south-west Sydney. We will keep our eyes on Covid numbers and all the swirling reactions to the election, so stay tuned.
