Election survey points to Australian cliffhanger

SYDNEY: Australia’s leaders made last-gasp pitches on Friday to woo voters on the eve of elections as polls pointed to a cliffhanger and the media swung behind “reformer” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Liberal Turnbull and Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten both campaigned in Sydney on their final day on the hustings as a poll in The Sydney Morning Herald showed them locked in a dead heat on a two-party basis.
But the survey of 1,377 people also said that when all candidates were included, 27 percent planned to vote for the Greens or other minor parties and independents, raising the prospect of a hung parliament where no side commands a majority in the 150-seat lower house.
Turnbull, who has capitalized on the instability sparked by Britain’s decision to exit the European Union, said the uncertainty of a hung parliament would be a disaster as he appealed for voters not to go down that road.
“We have seen that film before. It’s not a pretty one,” he said, referring to the 2010 elections where a similar scenario occurred after Julia Gillard failed to win majority rule.
“Right now, Australia needs strong majority government, a clear national economic plan. That’s the economic leadership only the coalition can deliver.”
He added that the alternative was “chaos, uncertainty, dysfunction, higher deficits, higher debt, higher taxes, less investment, less jobs.”
“That’s what Labor and the Greens and independents are offering,” he said.
Economic management has been a key election battleground with last week’s shock decision by Britain stoking anxiety about pressures facing Australia’s economy.