Australia’s Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese was sworn in as the country’s 31st prime minister on Monday even as the counting of votes continued.
The swearing in was conducted ahead of a Quad summit taking place in Tokyo with US president Joe Biden, which Mr Albanese is attending.
The prime minister was sworn in by Australia’s governor-general David Hurley in national capital Canberra, even though it remains unclear whether Labor will form a majority or govern with the support of crossbenchers.
“I look forward to leading a government that makes Australians proud, a government that doesn’t seek to divide, that doesn’t seek to have wedges but seeks to bring people together,” said Mr Albanese after taking charge as prime minister.
The centre-left Labor Party remains four seats short of a majority of 76 in the 151 seats lower house with about a dozen races too close to call.
Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles and three key ministers – Penny Wong in charge of foreign affairs, Jim Chalmers as treasurer and Katy Gallagher for finance – were also sworn in on Monday.
The Labor party’s campaign largely focused on Mr Albanese’s working-class credentials as a boy raised in public housing by a single mother on a disability pension.
Labor is set to return to power after nine years in the opposition as a wave of unprecedented support for the Greens party and climate-focused independents, mostly women, helped end almost a decade-long rule of Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition.
Soon after the swearing in, the prime minister left for Tokyo to attend the Quad security meeting scheduled for 24 May.
Australia, along with India, the US and Japan is a member of the informal group that Washington promotes as a potential bulwark against China’s increasing political, commercial and military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Ahead of the summit, the newly elected prime minister said the country’s relationship with China would remain “a difficult one”.
“This visit aligns with what the Albanese Government sees as the three pillars of Australia’s foreign policy: our alliance with the United States, our engagement with the region, and our support for multilateral forums,” Mr Albanese said in a statement.
Additional reporting by agencies
