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Australian independent backs Labor minority government

GUARDIAN Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:51:10 GMT

Julia Gillard could return to power after one of three independent MPs holding key to next government announces support The Australian prime minister, Julia Gillard, today edged closer to retaining power when an independent MP said he would back her centre-left Labor party to form the country's first minority government in almost seven decades. A bloc of three independents will now decide whether Labor governs for a second three-year term or a conservative Liberal party-led coalition forms the next administration after the August 21 elections failed to deliver a majority for any party. The conservative coalition needs the backing of all three independents to reach a 76-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives, while Labor needs only two. Independent Andrew Wilkie, who has negotiated outside the bloc of three, announced his backing for Labor at Parliament House after meetings with Gillard and the Liberal leader, Tony Abbott. "I have judged that it is in fact the ALP [Labor] that best meets my criteria that the next government must be stable, must be competent and must be ethical," he told reporters. Wilkie said he expected his fellow independents would be more likely to support Labor after figures showed the coalition had overstated savings from their election promises by billions of dollars. Abbott said the coalition had the best economic credentials to govern despite the figures, which were released by the independents yesterday. Senior Liberal MPs have stuck by their figures and explained that the discrepancies with official calculations by government ministries were "a difference of opinion" on methodology and underlying assumptions such as future interest rates. Abbott said the discrepancies did not compromise his negotiations with the three independents. "There are a whole lot of issues in play here and an, at times, arcane argument about costings is by no means the most important," Abbott said. "The bottom line is that there are two competing economic records here." He said that Labor had inherited $60bn (£35bn) in assets when it was elected in 2007, which it turned into a $90bn debt through economic stimulus spending. The three independents had requested briefings from Treasury and Finance ministry bureaucrats on confidential estimates of competing election pledges. They said the questions of which party had the best economic blueprint, and which might have misled voters, were key factors in deciding whether to back a Liberal-led coalition or a Labor government. The independents released Treasury documents contradicting Abbott's claim that Australia's bottom line would be $11.5bn better under the conservative coalition in three years, when both sides of the political divide have promised to return the budget to surplus. The Treasury found the improvement could be as little as $900m. Australia Julia Gillard guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds