ANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is expected to form a new minority government on Tuesday with the backing of three kingmaker independents, ending two weeks of uncertainty. Independent Tony Windsor said the impasse should end on Tuesday morning, but there was still a risk the independent MPs could split, delivering a deadlock of 75 votes apiece in the 150-seat lower house and the prospect of another election. "People may be leaning one way, but they may have to come back the other way to get some stability into the system," Windsor told national radio on Monday before last-minute talks with rival leaders at Canberra's parliament house. Labor's Gillard and conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott have been desperately wooing the independents for their support for a minority government since August 21 elections delivered the country's first hung parliament since World War Two. Several newspapers on Monday said unnamed conservatives were expecting Gillard to win over at least two independents to form a minority government holding 76 seats. Bookmakers are also tipping a Gillard Labor government. Gillard currently has 74 seats to Abbott's 73 after a fourth independent last week sided with Labor, but Abbott could still form a government if the three uncommitted independents back him. Labor has promised a controversial mining profits tax and a $38 billion broadband project if it wins, as well a carbon price to curb one of the world's highest per-capita levels of emissions. The conservatives oppose all three policies. "They are pretty significant issues with significant amounts of money wrapped up in all three of those policies, so I think a lot more certainty on the government side and those policy fronts will be welcomed by business leaders," said Stephen Halmarick, Head of Investment Markets Research with Colonial First State.
