Source : the age
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Monday starts as Sunday ended, with a handful of candidates and MPs still sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for about a dozen tight electorates to be called.
There is no such hope for Peter Dutton, whose Liberal Party has already started the search for a new leader after he lost his seat of Dickson to Labor’s Ali France. While the Coalition starts to dissect the implications of their landslide loss, Labor will continue celebrating a historic victory.
Here’s what else you need to know as we start the day:
- Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce is preparing for surgery for prostate cancer after retaining his New England seat.
- Sussan Ley starts the week as acting opposition leader – and she’s believed to be one of three MPs already campaigning for the top job.
- As counting continued last night in the Victorian seat of Goldstein, Liberal candidate Tim Wilson said he was “incredibly optimistic” about dethroning teal independent Zoe Daniel.
- Anthony Albanese was out and about in his Grayndler electorate yesterday to share the spoils of victory, but it’s back to business today.
- Treasurer Jim Chalmers wouldn’t be drawn on his leadership ambitions after backing Albanese for a third consecutive election.
- Nationals leader David Littleproud said he didn’t think nuclear was the killer blow for the Coalition. Instead, he blamed the loss on Labor’s success at destroying Dutton’s character.
- Mark Speakman, the Liberal opposition leader in NSW, urged his party to reach out to women and migrant voters as he vowed to stick to the “sensible centre” of politics.
- Labor’s Ali France, who ousted Dutton from his Brisbane seat of Dickson, revealed what Dutton said during his concession call.
Find out about every seat that has changed hands and those that remain too close to call here.
Preferencing One Nation was a bad idea, says Liberal Andrew Bragg, noting that elections are won on the centre not the far-right or far-left.
Bragg also told ABC Radio National the party’s position on winding back work from home for the APS was a poor policy.
“Work from home is a good example of fundamentally misreading the Australian society more broadly, you know, picking on issues which may be focused on one particular minority group,” he said.
“I just don’t think that’s the way that Australians want to see their politicians talk, their leaders focus. I think we have a healthy live and let live ethos in this country, and we have diversity, and generally speaking, that’s what most Australians are comfortable with. They don’t want to see division.
“And so I think it’s very important that we focus on the economic issues and that we avoid these cultural issues at all costs.”
Bragg also criticised the party preferencing One Nation.
“I don’t think preferencing One Nation is a good idea for the Liberal Party. I think John Howard was absolutely right about that. It’s a very bad optical position for our party, and I think it looks as if we were not learning the lesson that we need to recapture the centre,” he said.
“Elections in Australia are won in the centre. It’s very clear that the pathway for the Liberal Party going forward is to ensure that we have clear and differentiated, ambitious economic policy and that we have an inclusive social agenda.”
Policy and avoiding culture wars are key to winning back votes, says Liberal senator Andrew Bragg.
Bragg, one of the few moderates left in the party, told ABC Radio National there was not enough ambition for economic policy but refused to weigh in on whether internal party processes were part of the problem.
Senator Andrew Bragg.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
“We didn’t do enough on the economy, and I don’t think we did enough to capture the centre of the Australian public’s support. And I think ultimately that’s where the campaign went wrong,” he said.
“Ultimately, you’ve got to give people something to vote for. And I think traditionally, people have voted for the Liberal Party for a better life, a better economy, and I don’t think [there were] enough strong economic policies to win the day.”
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek joined Joyce on Sunrise earlier this morning, where she told host Natalie Barr that Labor would be “straight back to work” after enjoying a landslide victory on Saturday night.
“We will be straight back to work to make sure that we are absolutely focused on bringing down the cost of living, reducing those pressures on people,” Plibersek said.
Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“Longer term, we really want to make sure we return people’s faith in us. We’ll continue to work to make sure that we’ve got great services that people can rely on, and that we deal with the international challenges that we’ve got.”
Albanese will resume work in Canberra this week, with legislation to cut student debt by 20 per cent expected to be the first piece of legislation introduced to the next parliament.
Liberal senator Hollie Hughes has ripped into shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, saying he is incapable of leading the party and that he failed to deliver any economic narrative to their election campaign.
This masthead first revealed the extraordinary row between Hughes and Taylor in June 2024 when she accused him of bumping her down the Senate ticket.
Referencing this incident, Hughes quipped that it would not serve him well as he would not get her vote when he runs for party leadership.
“I have concerns about his capability. I feel that we had zero economic policy to sell. I don’t know what he’s been doing for three years. There was no tax policy, there was no economic narrative, and the fact that we’re in a massive cost-of-living crisis, and Jim Chalmers has basically skated through unscathed,” she told ABC Radio National.
Hollie Hughes in a Senate estimates hearing earlier this year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Hughes said this was a widely held view across the party and even Labor MPs questioned her on why Taylor was not effectively attacking Chalmers when the economy was in a bad state.
“Jim has had zero, you know, challenges put up to him. Now, whether that was Angus thinking that his role was to try and go up against Albanese in an early bid for leadership. I have no idea,” she said.
“To be the opposition leader, you need to be very capable in the media. You need to be able to sell a message. You need to be able to put the narrative together, and you need to be able to bring the team together.
“I have concerns about his capabilities, but that is shared by a huge number of my colleagues, and frustration that they didn’t have economic narratives that they could push and sell during the election. And, you know, going from shadow treasurer to opposition leader, I’m not quite sure that’s going to change.”
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has said he is feeling well ahead of his prostate cancer surgery later today.
Joyce told Seven’s Sunrise he chose to keep his cancer diagnosis secret to avoid a “big circus” during an election campaign.
Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said he was preparing for surgery following his prostate cancer diagnosis.Credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
“I feel fine, and I suppose that’s the problem with prostate cancer,” Joyce said.
“I’m lucky; it’s early stages, and I have something to do about it … literally straight after this program I’m going in the car … going straight down the road and straight into surgery.”
Joyce comfortably held his regional NSW seat of New England on Saturday.
So Anthony Albanese and Labor are back for a second term in government – they have a big majority and an even bigger mandate.
That means that every pledge the prime minister, his frontbenchers and Labor’s newest members in the House of Representatives made during the budget and the campaign can be considered a deliverable.
We have recapped everything Albanese and Labor promised you in the lead-up to Saturday’s election – and when you can expect some of the key pledges to be delivered.
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has spoken with Albanese to congratulate him on his re-election and affirm the strength of the UK-Australia alliance.
The leaders discussed economic ties, global security and their shared support for Ukraine, as well as a renewed focus on defence collaboration under the AUKUS pact, as Starmer confirmed plans to deepen co-operation on the trilateral submarine program.
Albanese and Starmer meeting in Rio de Janeiro in November during the G20 summit.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“The prime minister said he looked forward to working closely with Prime Minister Albanese in the years ahead, particularly through stronger trade and security partnerships,” a Number 10 spokesman said. “He has asked his AUKUS adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, to travel to Australia in the coming weeks.”
Albanese and Starmer have enjoyed a close relationship during the past two years and share a commitment to regional stability, economic resilience and strategic defence co-operation.
Albanese has been in contact with several world leaders since his election win, including Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto. He also spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Labor figures yesterday played down the prospect of sweeping changes to the federal cabinet, but expect more than a dozen new MPs to change the factional structure that decides the ministry.
Albanese promised stability during the election campaign, but he is yet to name a date to convene the caucus, given key seats remain in doubt.
However, his colleagues acknowledged tough decisions were ahead regarding the ministry.
You can read more from David Crowe and James Massola here.
Albanese out and about in Leichhardt in his electorate of Grayndler yesterday.Credit: Steven Siewert.
Dutton had lost his seat of Dickson even before the polls opened on Saturday.
The former opposition leader held his outer Brisbane electorate of 24 years by just 1.7 per cent going into the election. Labor targeted the seat in its election campaign, with Albanese visiting the electorate twice to support candidate Ali France.
Then more than half the voters of Dickson cast a pre-poll vote. The swing to France among those 44,000 ballots was 7 per cent, giving her a near-insurmountable advantage over Dutton before officials had even laid out the pencils for in-day voters, writes Shane Wright in this look at the key booths that swung it for Labor.
Dutton after conceding defeat to Labor and in his seat of Dickson at the W Hotel on Saturday night. Credit: James Brickwood
Barely a day after Peter Dutton’s shattering election loss, there’s a widely developing view that nothing in his political career quite became him like the leaving of it.
The grace of his concession speech, his acknowledgment of the pride Anthony Albanese’s mother would have taken in her son’s historic victory, the recognition of victorious opponent Ali France’s tragic loss last year of her eldest boy Henry, and the willingness to accept responsibility without trying to lay blame elsewhere, all spoke to some largeness of spirit that Dutton appeared to lack through most of his time as opposition leader.
Perhaps if he’d let the armour plating crack a little earlier, he might not have fallen so hard, writes Deborah Snow in this excellent analysis.
Peter Dutton with his wife, Kirilly, and sons after addressing an election night function in Brisbane.Credit: James Brickwood
