Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbott swept to a landslide victory over Kevin Rudd’s disjointed Labor Party at the weekend with a raft of policies intended to invigorate Australia’s manufacturing industry.
During the Labor Party’s six years in power, Australia’s economy avoided the disasters of the Global Financial Crisis due to its thriving mining business but with international investment beginning to wane and other global economies beginning to recover, some thought the so-called ‘Mining Boom’ was over.
However, Mr Abbott’s party has long since maintained that Labor policies – particularly the Carbon Tax – hampered the mining and construction industries’ ability to expand.
The then-governing Labor Party had been fraught with infighting and a lack of cohesion in the run up to the election – even replacing Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd as prime minister – so it came as little surprise that Mr Abbott’s Liberal-National Party coalition swept to an overwhelming majority.
Mr Abbott – now Prime Minister-elect – had promised to scrap the Carbon Tax as one of his first acts in office:
‘People expect the day after an election an incoming government will be getting down to business. That’s what I’ll be doing today’, said the prime minister-elect.
Mr Abbott’s spokesperson and possible future minister, Andrew Robb, said an Abbott-led government would spell excellent news for Australian mining, construction and employment: ‘As of today, the mining boom will be rebooted. We will restore an appetite for risk and investment.’