SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was sworn in for a second term on Tuesday (May 13), alongside his ministers, after a landslide win at a national election he said had returned the largest centre-left Labor government since federation in 1901.
Albanese’s Labor Party rode a voter backlash against global instability caused by United States President Donald Trump’s policies to a come-from-behind victory on May 3.
The opposition conservative Liberal Party, whose leader Peter Dutton lost his seat at the election, selected Sussan Ley as its new leader on Tuesday, a party spokeswoman told reporters.
Ley will become the first woman leader of the federal Liberal Party, which lost city seats in Sydney and Melbourne to women who ran as independent candidates with policies supporting climate change and gender equality in the last two elections.
“Australia spoke very clearly to the Liberal Party,” Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds told reporters on Tuesday after Ley’s win.
The Australian Electoral Commission is yet to finalise vote counting in several seats, although Labor has claimed at least 92 seats out of the 150-seat House of Representatives.
It was the largest Labor caucus since Australia was formed by the federation of six former British colonies in 1901, Albanese said on Monday.
