Conservatives to govern Australia after sweep at the polls

Tony Abbott’s conservative coalition will govern Australia again after six years in the opposition, thanks to the crushing defeat it inflicted on the Labor Party in Saturday’s general elections.

“From today I declare Australia is under new management and Australia is now open for business,” a euphoric Abbott said at a luxury hotel in Sidney, surrounded by some 800 supporters. “And I can inform you,” he said, “that the Australian Labor Party vote is at the lowest level in more than 100 years.”

He promised that his government will be competent and trustworthy, will methodically fulfill its commitments, and above all, “will not let you down.”

According to figures from the Australian Election Commission, the conservative coalition will win at least 88 of the 150 seats in the lower house of Parliament, more than the 76 seats needed to form a government, while Labor is left with around 56 lawmakers.

The crushing defeat put an end to the Labor Party government, which shielded Australia from the international financial crisis, but disappointed citizens with infighting that tarnished its administration and dimmed its popularity.

Labor came to power in 2007 led by Kevin Rudd, but because of an internal crisis in 2010 he was replaced by Julia Gillard. Rudd was reinstated earlier this year in what was viewed in Australia as a desperate ploy to fight off the conservative challenge from Abbott.

That internal political crisis was taken advantage of by the conservative LiberalNational Party coalition, which at all times acted as a united bloc and fought fiercely against the unpopular government taxes on the mining industry and on polluting emissions.

The future prime minister, Tony Abbott, is a onetime boxer, seminarian and journalist, as well as a pragmatic, pugnacious politician who condemns aborton, premarital sex, the legalization of samesex marriages, and denies climate change.

Abbott will take over a country that has had a strong economy and sustained growth for more than 20 years, an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, 2.4 percent inflation, and the highest credit rating by the three principal rating agencies.

But he also inherits a nation facing a decline in the mining bonanza, which helped it dodge the global financial crisis, and a sizeable deficit.

For that reason, the new government promises to focus on achieving a surplus very soon and saving some $36.7 billion over the next four years.