Australians have clearly given the Tories their day off. After nine years in power, the liberal-national coalition suffered a crushing defeat in the legislative elections on Saturday 21 May. The outgoing head of government, Scott Morrison, will leave his place to the leader of the Labor Party, Anthony Albanese, who was to officially take office on Monday 23 May.
“It says a lot about our great country that the son of a single mother who was on disability pension, having grown up in social housing (…), may stand before you as Prime Minister, he declared on the evening of his victory, visibly moved. My mother dreamed of a better life for me. And I hope my journey will encourage Australians to aim for the stars. »
In front of his jubilant supporters, the 59-year-old elected first promised “an economy at the service of the people”, while the country’s annual inflation rate reached 5.1% during the first quarter of 2022, a twenty-year high. This context had imposed purchasing power as one of the main themes of the electoral campaign. To support the population, Mr. Albanese intends to index the minimum wage to inflation, but also to lower the cost of crèches, medicines and even education. A Member of Parliament since 1996, he has also pledged to accede to one of the main demands of the Aborigines: to organize a constitutional referendum in order to establish a representative body to advise Parliament on laws affecting indigenous peoples. Finally, on the front of climate change, he intends to put an end to a decade of immobility.
“Environmental issues were not at the heart of the debates, but they played a decisive role in the outcome of these elections. The Conservatives have lost several constituencies in large urban centers, where voters have turned their backs in favor of independent candidates who are very mobilized on these issues,” analyzes Haydon Manning, professor of political science at Flinders University in Adelaide.
Because more than a victory for the Labor Party, which is not guaranteed to obtain an absolute majority in the House of Representatives when all the votes have been counted – a process that is usually long due to postal votes -, this ballot marks the unprecedented success of the “small” vsandidats, and more particularly of a group nicknamed the “teal independents” (in reference to the “teal blue” color of their electoral material), essentially women, highly qualified, advocating the defense of the environment, gender equality and the fight against corruption. In affluent constituencies where the majority of voters are liberals and progressives, they have been overwhelmingly popular. “I have the impression that these deputies are closer to us and to our concerns”, explains Nick Shaw, a train driver from Sydney, leaving a polling station in the metropolis. A few steps from him, Sean Nimmo, trader, gave his voice to the Greens, also in strong progress. “I no longer want new coal mines, I no longer want us to set a bad example in the fight against global warming”, strikes the thirty-something.
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