Power in Australia's biggest state on knife-edge after poll
Posted: 07 September 2008 1442 hrs

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SYDNEY: Government in resource-rich Western Australia state, the driver of the national economy, remained on a knife-edge Sunday after no political party secured a majority in elections, officials said.

No one has declared victory in the poll, which threatens to break Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's centre-left Labor Party's stranglehold on power in all states and territories and could influence the future of uranium exports.

Both the ruling Labor Party and the opposition Liberal Party appear to have won 24 seats each in the 59-seat Western Australian parliament, leaving the National Party with the balance of power, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.

While the National Party is traditionally more likely to form a coalition government with the Liberals, the National's state leader Brendon Grylls said Sunday he was open to negotiations with both parties.

"The Nationals can work with anybody," he told ABC.

Labor Premier Alan Carpenter, who has vowed to enshrine a ban on mining yellowcake in law if he is re-elected, said it could take some time for the outcome of the election to be determined.

But the opposition conservative Liberal Party said voters had clearly rejected the Labor government, with swings of up to 6.0 per cent in some seats away from Carpenter's administration.

"They (voters) have created the situation where we could - could - form a government," opposition Liberal leader Colin Barnett said late Saturday.

"That is what I believe the people of this state want to happen."

If Carpenter loses government he would be the first state Labor leader to do so in a decade and the first since Rudd swept long-time Liberal leader John Howard from federal office in November 2007.

With its vast iron ore, natural gas and other mineral deposits, Western Australia's coffers are benefitting from massive demand for raw materials and energy from rapidly industrialising Asia.

- AFP/yb