Australia’s shadow foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has rebuked Donald Trump, without naming him, after the US president falsely claimed victory in the 2020 election and flagged supreme court action to truncate the count.
Wong on Wednesday night local time declared American voters “deserve to have their voices heard”.
The Morrison government is yet to comment on Trump’s pre-emptive victory declaration with the count still in progress, but Wong took to Twitter to argue democratic processes needed to run their course.
“Americans have voted in historic numbers in this election,” the Labor senator said.
“They deserve to have their voices heard. The democratic process must be respected, even when it takes time. It’s in Australia’s interest that America remains a credible, stable democracy.”
While there was no official comment from the Coalition government, Liberal backbencher and former diplomat Dave Sharma expressed a similar view to Wong.
“Above all else, being a democratic leader means respecting the verdict of the voters, the sanctity of the process, and facilitating a peaceful transfer of power when needed,” Sharma said. “Patience and humility are both necessary virtues”.
The former Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, also called for the count to continue.
Count every vote.
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) November 4, 2020
The Greens expressed concern about the extraordinary events that played out on Wednesday night Australia time. “Trump is trying to steal the US election,” said the Victorian senator Janet Rice.
“Scott Morrison must not recognise Trump’s premature claim of victory. Australia must wait until the voices of the American people are heard and stand by our democratic values”.
The alarm in Australia followed Trump telling reporters: “We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.”
In a short statement just after 2am on Wednesday Washington time, Trump made a baseless allegation of electoral fraud and told reporters: “We want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we’ll be going to the US supreme court.”
“We want all voting to stop. We don’t want to find any ballots at four o’clock in the morning and add those to the list. To me this is a very sad moment. We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned we already have.”
The Biden campaign subsequently described Trump’s intervention as “outrageous, unprecedented and incorrect”.
