AUSTRALIA: Anti-Marriage Conservative Tony Abbott Elected
Prime Minister
The same-sex marriage movement suffered a blow in
Australia today when Tony Abbott was
elected prime minister in a vote
that news outlets are calling "decisive" and "a landslide."
Abbott, a former boxer, Rhodes
scholar and trainee priest, promised to restore political stability, cut taxes
and crack down on asylum seekers arriving by boat. But it was frustration with
Labor's leadership turmoil that cost the government dearly at the polls. Labor
dumped Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2010, for Australia's first female prime
minister Julia Gillard, only to reinstate Rudd as leader in June 2013 in a
desperate bid to stay in power. "This was an election that was lost by the
government more than one that was won by the opposition," former Labor prime
minister Bob Hawke told Sky News. Election officials said with about 65
percent of the vote counted, Abbott's Liberal-National Party coalition had won
around 54 percent of the national vote, and projected it would win at least 77
seats in the 150-seat parliament.
Sitting Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd had promised to introduce marriage equality legislation within 100
days of his new term.
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