Australia PM Gets Down To Work On Fourth Term

Australia's conservative china Bounce House Inflatable Prime Minister John Howard, handed the most powerful mandate in a generation, got down to work on Monday with reform of telecommunications, labour and media laws high on his agenda.

Howard's Liberal/National coalition crushed centre-left opposition Labor in Saturday's election to win its fourth term and looks set to control both houses of parliament.

"Howard's reform mandate," The Australian newspaper said in a front-page headline.

The coalition government is likely to have 87 seats in the 150-seat lower house of parliament, up from 82 after it 2001 election win. Labor will likely drop back four to 60.

But the biggest surprise was the government's performance in the Senate that could give it control of the upper house, the first time in more than two decades, if it wins 39 seats.

"It was across the board a stronger result than I had dared hope for and I am very grateful and certainly very conscious of the enormous opportunity that it presents to us, but we will be sensible -- we're not going to do anything rash and provocative," Howard told Australian radio on Monday.

"We clearly will have 38 (Senate seats). I'm not certain that our prospects of getting 39 in our own right are all that great. I think that is verging on wishful thinking. If we do have 38 then we will try and talk to the others and see if we can't encourage at least one person to support some of our measures."

The Senate has previously blocked key legislation such as the government's planned privatisation of Australia's dominant phone company, Telstra Corp. Ltd.

Telstra shares started at A$4.83 ($3.57), up from Friday's close of A$4.71, when Australia's stock market opened on Monday.