Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls May 21 election - GulfToday

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls for elections on May 21

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks during a press conference. File photo

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison called federal elections for May 21 on Sunday, launching a come-from-behind battle to stay in power after three years rocked by floods, bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Morrison's conservative government is struggling to woo Australia's 17 million voters, lagging behind the opposition Labour party in a string of opinion polls despite presiding over a rebounding economy with a 13-year-low jobless rate of four per cent.


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"It's a choice between a strong future and an uncertain one. It's a choice between a government you know and a Labor opposition that you don't," Morrison told a news conference in Canberra.

Polls show much of the electorate distrusts the 53-year-old leader, who fashions himself as a typical Australian family man and is unafraid of advertising his Pentecostal Christian faith.

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Leader of the opposition Labour Party Anthony Albanese speaks to the media in Sydney, on Sunday. AP

Aiming to end nine years of Liberal-National Party rule is 59-year-old Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese.

The opposition leader started the six-week race to the poll pushing a message of optimism before highlighting bruising attacks on Morrison's character emanating from his own government.

"He's running in an election campaign, whereby his deputy prime minister has said he's a hypocrite and a liar," Albanese told media in Sydney.

"We can and we must do better. The pandemic has given us the opportunity to imagine a better future and Labor has the policies and plans to shape that future."

A recent Newspoll survey showed Labor leading the coalition 54 per cent to 46 per cent on a two-party basis.

Morrison and Albanese were in a statistical tie as preferred prime minister for the next three-year term.

Agence France-Presse

 

 

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