Melbourne: Australia’s re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday was greeted by well-wishers at a Sydney cafe and said the country had voted for unity over division.
Albanese’s center-left Labor Party won an emphatic victory in elections on Saturday. As vote counting continued, the government was on track to win at least 85 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties need a majority to form an administration.
Labor held 78 seats in the previous Parliament, and gaining seats in a second term is rare in Australian politics.
“The Australian people voted for unity rather than division,” Albanese told reporters in the crowded cafe in inner-suburban Leichhardt where he and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, gathered with colleagues and supporters for coffee.
“We’ll be a disciplined, orderly government in our second term, just like we have been in our first,” he added.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the government’s top economic minister, explained the election result as voters seeking stability after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff disruptions to the global economy.
“This was beyond even our most optimistic expectations,” Chalmers told Australian Broadcasting Corp. of the election result.