Australian Parliament sits for first time since election


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia's Parliament met Tuesday for the first time since the conservative government narrowly won an election almost two months ago and as an opinion poll showed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's popularity falling.

Lawmakers were sworn in after the election on July 2 left Turnbull's coalition with 76 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives.

A Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper on Tuesday showed that Turnbull's popularity had sunk to its lowest point since he ousted the polarizing Tony Abbott as prime minister a year ago in a ballot of lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Party.

Although more respondents prefer Turnbull as prime minister than they would opposition leader Bill Shorten, Turnbull's lead — 43 percent to 32 percent — is the narrowest since he took the top job.

The government remained neck and neck with the center-left Labor Party with 50 percent support for each. The government won a second three-year term with 50.4 percent of the vote.

The poll was a national weekend survey of 1,696 voters. It had a 2.4 percentage point margin of error.

The government has said that its priority would be to reign in the national deficit, but that task has been made difficult by its reduced majority in the House of Representatives and the fact it has only a minority in the Senate.

At an Aboriginal welcoming ceremony at Parliament House early Tuesday, Turnbull called for a new era of political cooperation.

"So let us continue the 45th Parliament in the way we begin it today — with mutual respect, goodwill and a shared commitment to advance Australia and all Australians," Turnbull said.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Most recent World stories

Related topics

World
ROD McGUIRK
    KSL.com Beyond Series

    KSL Weather Forecast

    KSL Weather Forecast
    Play button