Independents put Gillard into Australia's top job

CANBERRA - Julia Gillard has finally been confirmed as Australia's first elected female Prime Minister, more than two weeks after an election that has now given her a razor-thin majority with no certainty of policy support.

The decision of New South Wales' country independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott to defy their conservative rural voters and back Labor gave Gillard the 76 votes on confidence and supply she needed to form a new Government.

She had previously won the support of Melbourne Greens MP Adam Bandt and Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie.

Queensland independent Bob Katter broke from the ranks of the "three amigos" to hand his backing to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, joining the promise of the confidence and supply votes of West Australian Nationals MP Tony Crook, who has said he also intends to sit on the crossbenches.

Gillard welcomed the decision of Windsor and Oakeshott and said Labor was prepared to govern for the next three years in the best interests of the Australian people.

"If we fail in this solemn responsibility, we will be judged harshly when we next face the Australian people at the next election," she said.

But her job will be hard and delicately balanced: Windsor and Oakeshott both emphasised that their decision did not give Labor any mandate and that their support could not be taken for granted.

They also warned that their support was conditional on Government probity.

Windsor said that while he would back Gillard on votes of confidence and supply, he reserved the right to represent his constituents in any vote, and to move any no-confidence motions in the Government as he saw fit.

Oakeshott, who has been offered an unspecified senior position - presumably either as Speaker of the House or a ministry - said he would similarly support the Government except in "exceptional circumstances".

These could include maladministration or corruption, or the Government reneging on the regional package promised as part of the deal that won his support.

Gillard's conditional majority will require careful management and the development of new skills that no federal government has had to use since the last, brief, hung parliament 70 years ago.

She has also to face a Senate in which the balance of power will continue to be held jointly by the Greens, Family First Senator Steve Fielding and independent Nick Xenophon until the new members take their seats next July, handing control to nine Greens senators.

Gillard's ability to govern will not be properly tested until the new Parliament sits, which will depend on the completion of counting by the Electoral Commission, the official declaration of all 150 Lower House seats, and the issuing of writs. The deadline is October 27.

Gillard's position will be confirmed when she is supported on the floor of the House.

But it will be a Government that will need to elevate regional issues to a priority equivalent to such key national policies as education, broadband and climate change, both to fulfil commitments to the independents and to ensure support does not flow back to Abbott.

Abbott, whose surprise campaign came within a whisker of a historic dumping of a first-term Administration, had played heavily on the powerful conservative leanings of the three independents' rural voters.

Katter was finally swung to Abbott's side by his opposition to Labor's mining tax and the likelihood of some form of carbon taxation, as well as his anger at the coup that swept former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from power.

"I was extremely angry and so was my state," he said.

Katter said he would have no trouble in working with a Gillard Government, but in the end "I went for my tribe, my homeland".

Windsor and Oakeshott went to Labor because of their belief that Gillard could offer a more stable Government, and Labor's national broadband network and approach to climate change, which will be pushed back up the political agenda.

Gillard also confirmed a package of local, regional and national promises.

The package included parliamentary reforms that would among other measures give independents and private members' bills more prominence and help lessen the grip of the two-party system.

Gillard promised to give regional Australia "its fair share".

She said: "In total this means, for regional Australia, they can look forward to benefits in the order of A$9.9 billion ($12.5 billion)."

Labor will dedicate A$800 million to a priority regional infrastructure programme, while A$573 million of the regional infrastructure fund will be spent with the guidance of regional development officers.

Gillard said those commitments came on top of programmes outlined during the election campaign.

Oakeshott said: "This is going to be a cracking Parliament. It's going to be beautiful in its ugliness."

- ADDITIONAL REPORTING: AAP