Polls show Australia’s prime minister race too close to call

Global Business

Polls show Australia's prime minister race too close to call

In Australia, most polls show the race for prime minister is too close to call less than 24 hours before election day. Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor Leader Bill Shorten spent the final day of the campaign pitching for last minute support.

CCTV’s Greg Navarro has more from Sydney.

On the last full day of a non-stop 8 week campaign, Turbull appeared upbeat and confident in Sydney.

He was also quick to remind voters of what he said would be the consequences if his gamble to call an early election and dissolve both houses of parliament backfired.

“The alternative is the chaos, the instability, the uncertainty of a Labor, Greens, Independent alliance,” Turnbull said.

Shorten seemed a bit more subdued, but no less confident as supporters greeted him in Sydney.

“I’m determined to win the election tomorrow,” Shorten said.

Analysts said Shorten’s rise as a more refined and formidable candidate has helped to make the race closer than initially expected.

“He got quite feisty, was prepared to be quite clear about the positions he was taking which changed people’s perceptions of him from oh he’s quite lackluster and we remember the zingers from last year to someone who is prepared to take it up to the prime minister,” Steward Jackson, lecturer at the University of Sydney, said.

Turnbull wrestled his party’s leadership from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott last year.

The successful investment banker and venture capitalist has tried to distance himself from his opponent by largely focusing on one issue: the economy.

“The volatile issues that we’ve seen in previous campaigns, for example immigration, the way that has been used in a political way – that’s off the agenda, there is no disagreement about our engagement with Asia, it’s not even really a matter of degrees, it’s Asia is our future, in terms of foreign policy more generally there is no substantive disagreement,” Bligh Grant, senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney.

Britain’s vote to exit the EU could very well be one of the biggets boosts for Turnbull, since the race is strongly focused on the economy.

Turnbull has repeatedly reminded voters of the need for stability in uncertain economic times.

“However, we’ve managed to go through a whole series of prime ministers of the last 3 election cycles — one more probably won’t make any difference,” Jackson said.

Australians have endured 5 prime minister changes since 2007, most involved parties ousting their leaders.

This election represents the first time since 2013 that voters get to choose.