Canberra: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday that his government’s first priority would be delivering its election promise to cut every Australian’s higher education student debt by 20 per cent, followed by establishing a federal environmental protection agency and taking action to build more housing.
Albanese made the remarks at a press conference at Parliament House after he returned to Canberra following his ruling center-left Labor Party’s landslide win in Saturday’s General Election.
He also announced that his first overseas trip in his second term as Prime Minister would be to Indonesia.
Albanese’s first bilateral visit as Prime Minister in 2022 was also to Indonesia, two weeks after that year’s election.
He said he has also accepted an invitation from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to attend the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Alberta in June.
Albanese said that he has spoken to several world leaders since Saturday’s election, including US President Donald Trump earlier on Monday with whom he discussed tariffs, Xinhua news agency reported.
With votes continuing to be counted, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has declared Labour the winner in 85 of the 150 seats that comprise the lower house of the federal parliament and says that Labour candidates are leading the count in another seven seats.
A haul of 92 lower house seats for Labour would represent the most won by either major party since the conservative Coalition won 94 seats in 1996 and would mark the third time in Australian history that a party has won more than 90 seats.
Labour has also made gains in the 76-seat Senate and is on track to hold at least 27 seats in the upper house, which is traditionally more fragmented than the lower house, up from 24 prior to the election.
It means that the Labour government will be able to pass legislation through the upper house with the support of the left-wing Greens — currently on track to hold 11 Senate seats — and one independent, and will not need the support of the opposition Coalition.
(IANS)
