Australia’s Tasmania on track for minority government after poll

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SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s island state of Tasmania appeared on Sunday to be heading for a minority government as vote counting continued after an election that did not produce a clear winner.

The conservative Liberal government was on track to win more seats than the main Labor opposition in the new parliament but would probably fall short of a majority after Saturday’s election, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. projected.

The Liberals’ strong performance under Jeremy Rockliff, premier since 2022, follows a heavy defeat suffered at May’s national election, which returned Anthony Albanese-led Labor for a second term with an increased majority.

Saturday’s vote showed Tasmanians have “no confidence in the Labor party to form government and they have voted to reendorse our Liberal government,” Rockliff said in televised remarks from the state capital of Hobart.

The result for Labor, on track to win nine seats of a possible 35, was shaping as the party’s worst-ever result in Tasmania, the Guardian Australia newspaper said.

On Sunday, state Labor leader Dean Winter said the result was disappointing for the party, but he did not concede defeat.

The election was triggered by a no-confidence vote against Rockliff initiated by Labor on concerns about public debt and plans to privatise assets.

It came less than two years after the state’s most recent poll, in which a majority eluded the Liberals.

The only Australian state to elect its lower house on the basis of proportional representation, Tasmania has a long history of minority governments.

Wilderness or protected areas make up 40% of the island, which is 445 km (275 miles) away from Melbourne, usually requiring a flight of an hour, or a ferry crossing 10 times longer, to cover the distance.

(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Clarence Fernandez)