Independents attacked over their support for Labor

MP Robert Oakeshott. Photo / Getty Images

Australia has emerged relieved, but divided and sceptical, from the 17-day limbo that ended when independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott nudged Prime Minister Julia Gillard back into power.

Windsor and Oakeshott have been attacked for the decision by many within their conservative electorates - which overwhelmingly rejected Labor and the Greens - and by senior members of the rural based Nationals, the junior Coalition partner. The two New South Wales MPs had earlier been members of the party.

Liberal Senator George Brandis told ABC Radio that the Government had as much legitimacy as the Pakistani cricket team.

No formal polls have yet emerged, but internet polling has shown conflicting views: on the Age website respondents supported the independents' choice by 53 per cent to 47 per cent, but Daily Telegraph respondents rejected it by 73 per cent to 22 per cent. But the response in another Age internet poll said only 26 per cent believed the decision would deliver stable government, while 20 per cent thought "maybe", and 54 per cent expected instability.

Describing the result as a stunning outcome for Gillard, the Australian said that while a minority Government represented a considerable challenge for Australia, it was not necessarily a negative.

The Sydney Morning Herald said Labor had been given a second chance to show some spine, and the Canberra Times said it came as no surprise the independents saw Gillard as a better prospect for stable, progressive government - but that she had no room for complacency.

The Australian Financial Review saw the result as "the worst possible outcome for Australia - a Government with a weak mandate, uncertain of getting any legislation apart from supply bills through the House of Representatives, and subject to a Greens veto in the Senate". Sydney's Daily Telegraph said the only certainty to emerge from the election was further dramatic uncertainty, while News Ltd Melbourne stablemate the Herald Sun said that despite present relief, "there is an apprehension this seemingly fragile Government is unlikely to serve a full term".

Commentators were divided.

"Persuading a coalition of Greens and four different independents that her consensus style could produce stability as well as outcomes for their constituents, in a situation where Labor won less primary votes, is a stunning achievement," the Australian Financial Review's Laura Tingle wrote.

But News Ltd columnist Andrew Bolt disagreed: "This was the worst way for Labor to win, and the best way for Tony Abbott to lose it. What a discreditable end to 17 days of largely pointless political haggling," he wrote.