2024-04-07 14:16:27
WORLD
Australia’s new prime minister was sworn in minutes before leaving for Japan, where he will meet with the leaders of the United States, Japan and India.
Center-left leader Anthony Albanese was sworn in this Monday (05/23/2022) as Australia’s new prime minister, hours before traveling to Tokyo for an international meeting. Albanese, who wants to increase Australia’s commitments in the fight against climate change, will participate in a summit of leaders from the United States, Japan and India in Tokyo on Tuesday. The 59-year-old new prime minister was sworn in at a brief ceremony at Government House in Canberra. “As Prime Minister, I want to bring people together and lead a government that is as brave, hard-working and caring as the Australian people. That work begins today,” Albanese said shortly after on Twitter. Also sworn in today were Jim Chalmers and Kathy Gallagher as Treasury and Finance Ministers, respectively; as well as Penny Wong as head of Foreign Affairs and Richard Marles as head of the Employment portfolio and deputy prime minister of Australia. The inauguration will allow Albanese and Wong to travel this afternoon to Tokyo for the QUAD summit in which the American president, Joe Biden, as well as the prime ministers of Japan, Fumio Kishida, will participate; and that of India, Narendra Modi. During Albanese’s trip to Tokyo between today and Wednesday, Marles will act as interim president of Australia and the other ministers who were sworn in will be in charge of all Executive portfolios until the composition of the new Government is determined at the end of the week. . The Australian Electoral Commission grants this Monday, in the absence of final results, 75 seats to Labor – close to the 76 that grant an absolute majority -, compared to some 58 that Scott Morrison’s Liberal-National coalition would have obtained. The Center Alliance formation and the far-right Katter Party would also have one seat each. Labor’s potential allies would be among the independents, with agendas closely linked to actions against the climate crisis, who would have ten seats, and the Green Party, which can obtain up to five seats. About six of the 151 seats that make up the House of Representatives that were elected in these elections are yet to be defined, along with 40 of the 76 members of the Senate, whose final results may take days due to the complex system of electoral preferences.