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SYDNEY : Australia's conservative leader Tony Abbott told three minority MPs who will decide if he should become prime minister that he was offering a "fresh start" in an 11th-hour plea for their support.
Last month's inconclusive elections left both Abbott and Prime Minister Julia Gillard short of the 76 seats needed to claim victory, and the question of who will govern rests with three independent rural lawmakers.
The undecided trio -- Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and outspoken maverick Bob Katter -- are due to make their decision within days, and Gillard boosted her case Sunday by signing off on a request for political reforms.
But a defiant Abbott warned the men that a vote for Gillard's ruling Labor party was "endorsing factional warlordism and... incompetence", referring to Gillard's ruthless axing of former PM Kevin Rudd shortly before the polls.
"Fourteen million Australians have given the (opposition Liberal/National) coalition the most seats and the most votes," Abbott wrote in an open letter published by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
"But the election now turns on the decision of just three independent MPs."
Abbott touted his party as more sympathetic to the needs of people in rural electorates, despite reports that Windsor backed Labor's plan for a National Broadband Network to connect the country's areas to high-speed Internet.
He said: "Australia is far more likely to get a fresh start from a new government than from a Labor Party that's humble only because it has no choice."
But Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said Abbott was trying to bully the independents, and said they were "people of integrity" who would make a decision in the national interest.
"The coalition has become increasingly shrill, has increasingly gone from a position of talking about parliament being a more gentle place and there being more co-operation, to one of almost trying to intimidate people into making a decision in their favour," Albanese told commercial television.
He also accused Abbott's side of "dragging its feet" on the reforms, agreed to by Gillard, which include time limits on questions and answers in parliament and 24 hours' notice of a no-confidence vote.
Put forward as a condition of Oakeshott's backing, the reforms also guarantee that the independents will only support a no-confidence motion against the government under "extraordinary circumstances".
The coalition objects to a number of the measures and is yet to give them the green light.
Abbott staged a dramatic comeback at the polls and needs three seats to fall over the line; Gillard has won over the lone Greens lawmaker, Adam Bandt, and another independent, Andrew Wilkie, and needs just two.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said 76 seats would provide only "fragile" support and it would be preferable to have 77, but the public had spoken and it was now up to lawmakers to deliver stable government with the numbers it had.
Katter told Dow Jones Newswires they were down to "last-minute negotiations", while Windsor said it would "all be over" by Tuesday.
- AFP/ir
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