Australia Hands Election Win to Liberal Premier Who Decries ‘American-Style Politics’ in Echo of Canadian Vote

MELBOURNE, Australia — In an election that echoed Canada’s embrace of its Liberal party as a bulwark against President Trump’s rhetoric, Australians on Saturday handed the country’s Labor party a victory at the polls.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has become the first Australian prime minister to win a second consecutive three-year term in 21 years.Opposition leader Peter Dutton, who had faced mockery as “DOGE-y Dutton” in a reference to Elon Musk’s campaign to cut government waste and fraud, conceded defeat in Saturday’s election, saying, “We didn’t do well enough during this campaign, that much is obvious tonight, and I accept full responsibility for that.”“Earlier on, I called the prime minister to congratulate him on his success tonight. It’s an historic occasion for the Labor Party and we recognise that,” he added.The Australian Electoral Commission’s projections gave Mr. Albanese’s ruling center-left Labor Party 70 seats and the conservative opposition coalition 24 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties need a majority to form governments. Unaligned minor parties and independent candidates appeared likely to win 13 seats.An Australian Broadcasting Corporation election analyst, Antony Green, predicted Labor would win 76 seats, the coalition 36 and unaligned lawmakers 13. Mr. Green said Labor would form a majority or minority government and that the coalition had no hope of forming even a minority government.A surfer walks past a polling booth at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, May 3, 2025. AP/Mark BakerEnergy policy and inflation have been major issues in the campaign, with both sides agreeing the country faces a cost of living crisis.Mr. Dutton’s conservative Liberal Party blames government waste for fueling inflation and increasing interest rates, and has pledged to ax more than one in five public service jobs to reduce government spending.While both say the country should reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Mr. Dutton argues that relying on more nuclear power instead of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind turbines would deliver less expensive electricity.The ruling center-left Labor Party has accused Mr. Dutton’s party of mimicking President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency and argued that Mr. Dutton’s administration would slash services to pay for its nuclear ambitions.“We’ve seen the attempt to run American-style politics here of division and pitting Australians against each other and I think that’s not the Australian way,” Mr. Albanese said.Mr. Albanese also noted that his government had improved relations with Communist China, which removed a series of official and unofficial trade barriers that had cost Australian exporters $13 billion a year since Labor came to power in 2022.In Canada, the Liberal party chief, Prime Minister Mark Carney, cruised to victory in elections this week in a vote that reflected a resurgence of patriotic pride after Mr. Trump’s calls to make the country the “51st state.”

Australia Hands Election Win to Liberal Premier Who Decries ‘American-Style Politics’ in Echo of Canadian Vote

Australia Hands Election Win to Liberal Premier Who Decries ‘American-Style Politics’ in Echo of Canadian Vote

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