The cabinet secretary, Arthur Sinodinos, has claimed the Coalition has a mandate to implement the 2016 budget, but has left the door open to revisiting policies including health cuts and superannuation changes.
On ABC’s Insiders Sinodinos said the Coalition would form government and was “on course” for a majority.
But signs of internal dissent and a hostile Senate already indicate the government may have to rethink key planks of the 2016 budget.
The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, warned the government should not have a “tin ear” about issues that cost the Coalition support, including superannuation changes.
Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, has warned Malcolm Turnbull should drop the retrospective $500,000 limit on non-concessional super contributions, arguing there is “no way this will get through the party room in its present form”.
Other measures the Coalition may be forced to reconsider due to a hostile Senate include its $48bn company tax cut plan. A senior frontbench minister has already conceded it does not have the numbers to pass a bill to restore a tougher building industry regulator, which triggered the double-dissolution election.
The Coalition has definitely won 73 seats, including Gilmore, and is leading by more than 1,000 votes in Forde, for a likely minimum of 74 seats.
Sinodinos said the Coalition was also likely to win Capricornia and Flynn, where they hold slim leads of 148 and 266 votes.
“Let’s wait for the final count. But we’ve won this election, I believe we are the government, and I think that’s a good thing for Australia.”
Sinodinos noted the Coalition was leading the two-party preferred vote and dismissed the “idea that there’s no mandate for everybody” as something that “just confuses the public even further”.
“We have a mandate and I believe we should put up the budget as it is,” he said.
Asked about controversial superannuation reforms and the possibility of unfreezing the GP rebate freeze, Sinodinos said the policies were a matter for cabinet and the expenditure review committee.
“I will continue to argue the importance and the merit of those superannuation changes,” he said.
The Coalition policy places a $500,000 lifetime cap for non-concessional superannuation contributions backdated to 2007 and taxes accounts over $1.6m at 15%.
Sinodinos rejected the idea the superannuation reforms was “quite the make-or-break issue that some people seek to make it”, citing swings towards the government in some safe Liberal seats despite anger over the changes.
He conceded the measures may have impacted morale and enthusiasm in the campaign but said they contributed to budget repair and placed a burden on those who were better able to contribute than vulnerable Australians.
It comes after Victorian Liberal secretary, Michael Kroger, criticised the Coalition’s messages on economic leadership by raising and then dismissing economic reforms before the 2016 budget.
Kroger told Melbourne’s Joy FM the government didn’t “take control of economic leadership in the country” between September, when Turnbull became prime minister, and May, when the budget was delivered.
“In that period ... we were putting things on and off the table, the electorate formed the conclusion well if you fellas – if you people don’t know what we should be doing, that’s a problem,” he said.
Asked how the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, would approach the new parliament, Sinodinos predicted he would “destabilise because he’s got Anthony Albanese breathing down his neck”.
At Labor’s first caucus meeting since the election on Friday, Shorten said the Coalition is likely to “scrape over the line” to form government but predicted Australians would be back at the polls within a year owing to Turnbull’s lack of authority.
Sinodinos said: “He’s predicting an election within a year because he wants to keep his troops on their toes and locked in behind him, because he knows the longer this parliament goes the more likely it is that he will lose his job.”
The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has also tried to stoke leadership tensions in the Labor party, urging shadow infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese to show “ticker” and challenge Shorten.
“If you’re going to make a run for it, Albo, now’s the time to do it, old boy, otherwise you’re out of the game,” said Joyce.
Joyce praised the Nationals’ election campaign, which would see it increase its parliamentary representation if it holds the seats of Flynn and Capricornia.
Joyce talked up the party’s grassroots campaigning efforts and noted “there was no messianic figure that was going to carry [Nationals MPs] across the line”.
Counting Gilmore and Forde as likely wins for the Coalition, it still needs to win two of the remaining undecided seats to form majority government:
- Flynn – LNP leads by 266 votes
- Capricornia – LNP leads by 148
- Cowan - Labor leads by 462
- Herbert – Labor leads by 302
- Hindmarsh – Labor leads by 247
