A civil war developing inside the Labor Party is highly unlikely to produce stable and competent government, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
Mr Abbott said he would do everything he reasonably could to ensure Australia avoided that.
"That's what the people expect and that's what Australia needs," he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
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Neither the coalition or Labor is likely to have the 76 lower house seats needed to form government in their own right.
Instead a minority government would need the support of four, possibly five, crossbenchers including an Australian Greens MP.
The negotiating process would take time, Mr Abbott said.
"I want to make the point that a government which was incompetent and unstable before an election when it had a majority is highly unlikely to be stable and competent after an election when it doesn't have a majority," he said.
That was particularly the case "given the civil war which has now broken out inside the Labor Party".
