Australia polls on July 2, keen contest likely

English

Full salaries will still be Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday that he was likely to visit Governor-General Peter Cosgrove this weekend to lock down the date and officially start the election campaign. A heartening historical fact for Turnbull is that no Australian federal government has lost power after a single three-year term since the tumultuous early years of the Great Depression. But Australia is now in an extraordinary era of political volatility as it grapples to diversify an economy that thrived on a mining boom that has gone bust.

If the opposition centerleft Labor Party wins the election, it will mean Australia’s fifth change of Prime Minister in six years.

Turnbull replaced his unpopular predecessor Tony Abbott in a leadership ballot of lawmakers in the ruling center-right Liberal Party in September, only two years after the coalition government was elected. Recent polls suggest it will be a neck and neck race.