Australia PM Malcolm Turnbull claims elections victory despite ongoing vote count

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today declared victory for his conservative coalition in the closely fought general election after opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten conceded defeat.

Turnbull later welcomed Shorten’s offer to find “common ground”, underlining the need for “goodwill in this new parliament”. The ABC predicts Labor will win 69 districts, with the remaining five going to independents or minor parties.

Senator Sinodinos, whose views are in lock-step with the Prime Minister and Treasurer Scott Morrison, said he did not believe the super changes “had the impact in the election that some people seek to assert”. Turnbull promised a plebiscite on gay marriage later this year if elected and had said he wanted it done as soon as possible.

Either way, the election has raised questions about Turnbull’s leadership, and left him without a strong mandate for much-needed economic and fiscal reforms.

“I wish Turnbull well in what the future holds”.

Turnbull cited the fact that the Coalition had received 800,000 more first preference votes than Labor, led in two-party preferred terms and had won more seats, despite the results not having been finalised.

Mr Shorten said the Government had won the election – but not the argument.

Mr Shorten, who had previously indicated he would not concede until the Coalition officially won 76 seats, said he could not be prouder of Labor.

Even if Turnbull manages to cling to power, he faces a slew of new challenges. The government went into the election with a comfortable majority of 90 seats and few had predicted it would suffer such steep losses.

Australia’s politics have in recent years been dogged with a “revolving door” of prime ministers.

Then there’s the issue of the fragmented Senate. Though the final makeup of Parliament’s upper house is unlikely to be known for weeks, no party will win a majority of seats.

However, a patchwork Senate with minor party and independent members holding the balance of power is likely to frustrate his efforts to get laws passed without deals.

On Thursday ratings agency Standard & Poor’s lowered Australia’s credit rating outlook from stable to negative, warning the country could lose its AAA rating unless it undertook budget fix.

“I expect them to do nothing less than keep their promises to the Australian people”, he said.

Labor vowed not to unduly disrupt the new parliament, although it and several independents oppose much of the coalition’s jobs and growth agenda, from how to return to budget surplus to a proposal for a A$50-billion ($38 billion) corporate tax break. That is one area in which he and Turnbull are aligned; the prime minister has long advocated for a move to electronic voting.