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                    Opposition Set to Win Australia Election

   by VOA News

   Early unofficial election results in Australia appear to hand a victory
   to Tony Abbott's opposition Liberal-National Party, ending Prime
   Minister Kevin Rudd's Labor Party's six-year hold on government
   leadership.
   An early Sky News exit poll, released before voting was to end
   Saturday, forecast the Liberal-Nationals winning 97 seats in the
   150-seat House of Representatives, giving Abbott's coalition 53 percent
   of the vote to Labor's 47 percent.
   The election comes just three months after Mr. Rudd ousted Australia's
   first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, in a party leadership
   challenge to try to help position Labor better for a national vote.
   The national campaign has been dominated by concerns about the economy,
   asylum seekers and climate change.
   Unemployment in Australia has been creeping upwards, and both parties
   have tried to convince voters that they can guarantee future economic
   prosperity.
   Both candidates have also proposed tough immigration policies to
   discourage asylum seekers from sailing into Australian waters to claim
   shelter.
   Mr. Abbott has promised that his government's first action will be to
   repeal an unpopular tax on the country's biggest polluters, which he
   blames for pushing up domestic power bills.
   Voting in Australia is compulsory.  More than 14 million people are
   listed on electoral rolls, but authorities estimate about a half
   million 18- to 24-year-old Australians have never registered to vote,
   suggesting widespread apathy among young people about domestic
   politics.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/australia-election/1745136.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/australia-election/1745136.html