‘It’s all my fault’: Australian PM Turnbull accepts blame for poor poll showing

Embattled Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has defended his performance after widespread calls for his resignation. In his first public comments since Sunday, he said he took full responsibility for his coalition’s campaign and that he was still confident of winning a majority. Electoral officials began counting 1.5 million postal and absentee votes that will be crucial to the result of Saturday’s election, which is still seen as too close to call. That process is likely to carry on for days, possibly weeks, leaving Australia in a political vacuum after Turnbull’s gamble in calling an early election backfired badly with a much bigger swing than expected against his conservative coalition.

There is no doubt that there is a level of disillusionment with politics, with government and with the major parties.

Malcolm Turnbull

“We need to listen very carefully to concerns of the Australian people expressed through this election,” he said. Turnbull’s Liberal-National coalition has so far secured 68 lower house seats and the center-left Labor opposition 67, according to projections by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, both short of the 76 seats needed to form a majority government in the House of Representatives. Ten seats remain in doubt. Former prime minister John Howard, a hugely influential figure in conservative politics, joined Attorney-General George Brandis and Treasurer Scott Morrison in urging unity behind Turnbull. “This hasn’t been an outcome we wanted but it’s not the end of the world. People shouldn’t start slitting their throats, certainly not Liberals,” Howard told reporters.

I really think Malcolm Turnbull … has done a grave disservice to this country and he has given us instability.

Bill Shorten

Malcolm Turnbull