Australians vote in election with high prices, shortage of housing being major issues
Melbourne (AP): Australians voted in Australia's general election on Saturday as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his rival Peter Dutton continued campaigning along the east coast.
Voting will continue until 6:00 pm.
Dutton, who is opposition leader, wants to become the first political leader to oust a first-term government since 1931, when Australians were reeling from the Great Depression.
Asked if he believed his conservative coalition could win the election, Dutton told reporters in Melbourne: “Absolutely, I do.”
“There are a lot of quiet Australians out there who may not be telling their neighbours how they're voting but I think they're going to go into the polling booth and say: You know what, I'm not going to reward Anthony Albanese for the last three years,'” Dutton told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Albanese was measured about his centre-left Labor Party's chances of securing a second three-year term.
“We take absolutely nothing for granted until the results are in,” Albanese told Nine Network television in Melbourne.
Albanese stands to become the first Australian prime minister to win successive elections in 21 years.
The election is taking place against a backdrop of what both sides of politics describe as a cost of living crisis.
Housing prices and rents have soar as builders have gone broke amid rapid inflation.
Annual inflation peaked at 7.8% a year after Labour was elected in 2022. The central bank's benchmark interest rate rose from a record low 0.1% to 0.35% two weeks before the government changed. The rate has been raised a dozen times since then, peaking at 4.35% in November 2023.
The central bank reduced the rate by a quarter percentage point in February to 4.1% in an indication that the worst of the financial hardship had passed. The rate is widely expected to be cut again at the bank's next board meeting on May 20 due to international economic uncertainty generated by US President Donald Trump's tariff policies.
Going into the election, Labour held a narrow majority of 78 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties form governments. There will be 150 seats in the next parliament due to redistributions.
Dutton's conservative alliance of parties known as the Liberal-National Coalition held 53 seats in the last parliament, and a record-high 19 lawmakers were not aligned to either the government or the opposition.
Monash University political scientist Zareh Ghazarian said the major parties were gaining a smaller proportion of the votes at each election in recent decades, which was benefitting independent candidates and those representing minor parties.
If the trend of votes shifting away from major parties that was evident at the 2022 election continued at Saturday's election, the result could be a rare minority government.
There was a minority government during World War II and the next was during a three-year term after the 2010 election.
“This election's going to be a real test of whether what we saw in 2022 is a sign of things to come, or whether the '22 election was just a one-off flash in the pan,” Ghazarian said.
Party leaders usually concede defeat and claim victory on election day. But in the last minority government, key independent lawmakers announced they would support a Labour administration 17 days after the polls closed.
Both campaigns have focused on Australia's changing demographics. The election is the first in Australia in which Baby Boomers, born between born between the end of World War II and 1964, are outnumbered by younger voters.
Both campaigns promised policies to help first-home buyers buy into a property market that is too expensive for many.
A major point of difference is energy. The opposition has promised to build seven government-funded nuclear power plants across Australia that would begin generating electricity from 2035.
Gas-fired electricity would fill the gap between aging coal-fired plants closing and nuclear generators taking their place.
Labour plans to have 82% of Australia's energy grid powered by renewables including solar and wind turbines by 2030 and to rely less on gas.
On the eve of the election, Albanese received the endorsement of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who said the Labour leader “did more to secure my freedom than any other politician or public figure,” including the late Pope Francis.
The remarks, posted to the social platform X by Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton, were his first on Australian domestic matters since he was released from a British prison last June and returned to his homeland after a plea deal that ended US prosecutors' attempts to extradite him for publishing military secrets.
Albanese “stood up to” the US over the case, Assange said, and his government had “proven itself unusually capable of rescuing Australians caught up in sensitive political situations”.
The endorsement was unusual from Assange, who has been scathing about Australian politicians. Albanese on Friday night downplayed the endorsement, saying it was “a matter for Mr Assange” and that it was “a good thing” the WikiLeaks founder was now able to be with his family.
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
