- In short: Tasmanian Labor leader Rebecca White says it will be up to the Liberal Party to try to negotiate with the new crossbench and form a government.
- The Liberals need 18 votes in the lower house to govern but will finish with between 14 and 16 seats — meaning they will likely need the help of the Jacqui Lambie Network and the independents.
- What's next? Rebecca White's leadership position will automatically become vacant but she has not indicated if she will put her hand up for it again.
Perhaps whoever they vote in as the next leader will be able to negotiate with the cross bench for supply and demand and will not be encumbered to the promise that White made of that making deals to form minority government.
dillekant@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
Pretty scummy. We elect representatives and they have a duty to try and form a government. If they don’t want to form government then vacate the slot.
MHLoppy@fedia.io 7 months ago
[Based on ABC's calls] They would've needed the support of every other non-Coalition member to successfully form a minority government, which they might have considered untenable.
dillekant@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
To maybe make my point clear: The Greens didn’t “concede”, and neither did JLN. Labor appears to be stating (although the auto-summary below seems to throw some grey area in here) that they’re just not interested in a minority government, and I just don’t think that’s what the voters wanted them to do here.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 7 months ago
Yeah if you’re going only on the seats that have been officially called so far on the ABC, it looks premature. Labor + Greens have more seats than LNP. But dig in more and the likely winners of spots not yet called, and it paints a very different picture. Heaps more LNP is likely, and it’s just a question of which ones get in.