Independents say stability top of wish list

CANBERRA - Caretaker Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott are clamouring to become Australia's peacemakers as stability and the ability to survive a full three-year term become the central deciders in the race to form government.

Both are preparing political balance sheets for the independents who will determine who will take office in the hung parliament inflicted by the weekend's election, but who have yet to give any indication of which side they might support.

Their numbers late yesterday appeared to have increased to four, with the Electoral Commission's preliminary results for the Tasmanian electorate of Denison handing the former Labor seat to independent Andrew Wilkie.

If confirmed by the final count, Wilkie will join Queenslander Bob Katter and New South Welshmen Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor on the crossbenches, and in the tiny club whose backing will push either Labor or the Coalition across the line.

New West Australian Nationals MP Tony Crook is nominally independent and will not join the formal Liberal-Nationals Coalition, but is unlikely to support the Government - especially as Gillard has already ruled out any changes to the mining tax that has alienated conservative parties and voters in WA.

The Greens also have their first federal MP, Melbourne barrister Adam Bandt, who has said he will back Labor.

Yesterday afternoon the Electoral Commission said that with about 78.5 per cent of primary votes counted and the two-party preferred vote three-quarters completed, Labor had won 71 seats, and the Coalition - including Crook - 72, with two seats still in doubt.

The final outcome is not expected to be known until next week, and the three re-elected independents said as they prepared for their first face-to-face meeting since the election in Canberra yesterday that real negotiations with the two major parties would not begin until the result was clear.

The three have agreed to form a common approach in the negotiations, and have placed stability and parliamentary reforms at the top of their agenda.

These would include a larger role for minor players, and greater freedom for MPs to introduce private members' bills.

Abbott yesterday indicated he was prepared to re-shape Parliament and move towards a less confrontational system, despite his reputation as one of the most aggressive debaters in the House of Representatives.

"Only the Coalition is capable of offering the country a consultative and collegial political culture," Abbott said yesterday. "I think we can have a kinder, gentler polity."

Abbott also attacked Gillard's potential to form a stable Government, describing the infighting that has already surfaced since the election as a "developing civil war", and warning that victory for Gillard would in effect mean a Labor-Greens coalition.

Gillard said Labor had won a majority of the national vote on a two-party preferred basis and that the party had a track record of working with the Greens, who will hold the balance of power in the new Senate.

Promising no secret deals and regular public updates on her talks with the independents, Gillard said the key questions were, first, which party was best able to form a stable and effective government in the national interest and, second, which party could get legislation passed.

"I would say that it is the (Labor) Government that is best able to undertake those tasks," she said.

At the minimum, the successful party will need to win the guarantee of the independents not to block supply, and to vote against motions of no confidence in the Government.

While deals will be offered, the independents have said their negotiations would not be a bidding war and the emphasis would be on stability and good governance.

But rural and regional interests will inevitably be courted by the major parties, especially in areas such as broadband - in which Labor has a lead - health and infrastructure.

The independents have said that previous support for Government measures opposed by the Coalition did not indicate any leaning towards Labor.

On the other hand, their former ties to the Nationals and electorates that voted overwhelmingly against Labor did not imply support for the Opposition.

Windsor described the Nationals as a "cancer", and Katter dismissed suggestions of automatic support for the Coalition: "After (its) record of destruction and persecution of my area, please excuse me for reacting with extreme anger to such a proposition".

STATE OF PLAY
* Labor: 71 seats
* Coalition: 72
* Independent: 3
* Greens: 1
* Doubtful: 2 - Hasluck (sitting Labor MP trails by 317); Dunkley (sitting Liberal MP leads by 497 votes).

- AAP