Leaders' charm offensive to end Australian poll deadlock

AUSTRALIA'S two main political parties are fiercely courting a handful of independent MPs after this weekend's general election left the country facing its first hung parliament in decades.

Prime minister Julia Gillard, who remains caretaker leader, said it was clear no party had won a majority of parliamentary seats in Saturday's poll that delivered an extraordinary voter backlash against her centre-left Labour Party after a single three-year term.

Labour haemorrhaged votes to the Greens as the government was punished for shelving plans to charge major polluting industries for every ton of carbon gas that they emit.

Ms Gillard and Tony Abbott, leader of the conservative Liberal Party, said they had initiated talks with three independents in the House of Representatives as well as the Greens party in a bid to secure their votes in the House of Representatives. Neither revealed what they were prepared to offer in the confidential negotiations.

Both Labour and the Liberal-led coalition conceded that neither is likely to hold the 76 seats needed to form a government in the 150-seat lower chamber.

"It's my intention to negotiate in good faith an effective agreement to form government," Ms Gillard said.

She suggested Labour would be better able to get its legislative agenda through the Senate, where major parties rarely hold majorities. The Greens' record support in the polls increased the party's Senate seats from five to nine, giving them the leverage to become kingmaker in deciding which major party controls that chamber.

"The question is: Which party is better able to form a stable and effective government in the national interest?" Ms Gillard said.

But Mr Abbott, who doubts the science behind climate change and rules out taxing polluters for greenhouse gas emissions, said Labour was unstable even with a clear majority.

Bitter recriminations within Labour over the election result have begun, with at least one MP who lost her seat blaming her colleagues' dumping of former prime minister Kevin Rudd for Ms Gillard. Some MPs have blamed the result on a series of damaging media leaks against Ms Gillard during the election which are suspected to be the work of Rudd loyalists.

"Any Labour government will be chronically divided and dysfunctional," Mr Abbott said.

Independent MP Tony Windsor said he planned to talk with fellow independents Bob Katter and Rob Oakeshot to decide whether to negotiate a power deal with the major parties as a group or individually.

They were the only independents in the last parliament and are former members of the Nationals party, a coalition partner of the Liberals. But all have said they are open to supporting a Labour minority government.

"Whichever side it is, we need to have some maintenance of stability so that the government can work," Mr Windsor said.

"We might end up back at the polls," he added, referring to the possibility of another election if a pact cannot be negotiated.

All three independents have made a key issue of boosting the poor telecommunications services in rural Australia. Labour went to the polls promising an AU$43 billion high-speed optical fibre national broadband network. The Liberals had promised a smaller, slower AU$6bn network using a range of technologies.

Greens party leader Bob Brown said no agreement had been reached after a "cordial" conversation with Ms Gillard, who was seeking the support of newly elected Greens MP Adam Brandt.

No Australian government has had to rely on the support of independent MPs to rule since 1943.

The final election results are expected to be the closest since 1961, when a Liberal government retained power with a single seat, and might not be known for a week.

With more than 78 percent of the vote counted, the Australian Electoral Commission said Labour had won 70 seats and the Liberal coalition 72. Most analysts agree that the coalition is likely to finish with 73, one seat ahead of Labour.