Australian PM basks in win, vows ‘orderly’ government

SYDNEY (AFP/RSS): Australia’s left-leaning Prime Minister Anthony Albanese basked Sunday in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil.

Residents clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee Jodie Haydon visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and TV journalists.

Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt.

“We will be a disciplined, orderly government in our second term,” Albanese said, after scooping ice cream for journalists in a cafe he used to visit with his late mother.

“We’ll work hard each and every day,” he promised, but took a quick break first for a Sunday afternoon visit to a craft brewery, Willie the Boatman, that serves “Albo Pale Ale”.

Dutton, a hard-nosed former policeman — who critics tagged “Trump-lite” for policies that included slashing the civil service — endured the rare humiliation of losing his own seat.

US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, and the chaos they unleashed, may not have been the biggest factor in the Labor Party victory — but analysts said they helped.