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Peter Dutton reminded voters time and time again that John Howard was his political hero.
In the end, his departure from federal politics was much like Howard's.
Dumped from his own electorate as voters repudiated his party at the ballot box, but unlike Howard — who was prime minister for 11 years, the second-longest in Australian political history — for Dutton the prime ministership was never to be.
Dutton hoped to re-write the history books in leading the Liberals to win back government after just one term in opposition. They would have been the first party to do so in almost 100 years.
Ultimately, he joins the history books for another reason — the first opposition leader to lose their seat.
Even before the Coalition's disastrous campaign was over, the recriminations had started.
The Liberals are now seeking a new leader, having again wiped out leading lights whose political careers have been abruptly brought to an end — at least for now.
Would-be leaders lost to Liberal rout
The Liberal scrap heap of possible leaders lost to elections will grow further.
Having lost the likes of Josh Frydenberg from once safe seats in 2022, Melburnian Keith Wolahan, whose seat of Menzies notionally moved to Labor after the boundaries changed, is on track to lose after just one term in office.
Zoe McKenzie, who replaced former health minister Greg Hunt in Flinders at the last election, is at risk of joining Wolahan.
Shadow cabinet minister David Coleman and Michael Sukkar and outer frontbenchers James Stevens and Luke Howarth have lost their seats.
The Coalition will have less than half the parliamentary seats of the government. Within the opposition, Nationals will make up a greater proportion of the Coalition, with its leader David Littleproud already vowing to retain the contentious nuclear power policy.
The situation leaves four likely candidates to replace Dutton as Liberal and opposition leader, three of whom come from regional electorates.
Deputy leader Sussan Ley, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, immigration spokesman Dan Tehan and defence spokesman Andrew Hastie are all under consideration.
Ley's support within the party room remains unclear, while Taylor could face opposition for his role as architect of the Liberals' economic and tax policies.
Having survived a battle against independent Alex Dyson in Wannon, Tehan could emerge as the candidate with the least baggage for what will be the parliament's most thankless job.
With Dutton gone, Ley becomes acting leader. There's no shortage of irony that for a party that has so woefully struggled to recruit women and get them to vote for it, the shock result leaves an all women team (Ley in the House, Michaelia Cash and Anne Ruston in the senate) leading a decimated opposition — for now.
They'll sit opposite a majority female government where men make up the vast majority of its leadership.
Labor gains seats it didn't see coming
Treasurer Jim Chalmers couldn't believe what he was seeing as the results started coming in last night. By the morning, the Queenslander was still in shock.
His state has long offered little for federal Labor since the highs of Kevin Rudd's 2007 election.
The party is on track to more than double its Queensland representation. Granted, it starts from a low base of five MPs but the wins tell a broader story about Labor's election success.
In a cost-of-living election, the Coalition heavily targeted long-held Labor seats in the mortgage belts of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
And yet the electorates with the most indebted households saw swings to Labor, so much so that in Queensland the ALP will take not just Dutton's seat but a swathe of outer suburban seats that surround Brisbane, most of which will see more women replace men.
Migrant communities too stuck with Labor, especially those with high Chinese-Australian voters.
This demographic savaged the Coalition's electoral fortunes in 2022 and continued that trend last night, with further swings to Labor.
More broadly, there are now no lower house Coalition representatives in the ACT, Tasmania and the NT, with further losses in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney and Perth.
The ALP saw swings against cabinet ministers Tony Burke and Jason Clare, who represent safe western Sydney electorates with some of the biggest Muslim populations. Their primary votes fell below 50 per cent but each was easily re-elected on preferences.
The party performed better than expected in the NSW Hunter region, another area the Coalition talked up its chances.
The Coalition hoped to capitalise on an energy transition that was changing the nature of work in the region.
One of the shock Labor victories for the evening was in Western Australia in the seat of Moore.
Incumbent Liberal Ian Goodenough ran as an independent after losing pre-selection. While Labor's primary vote only ticked up about 1 per cent, it looks set to win the seat for the first time in almost four decades.
The party isn't without worries though.
It's under incredible pressure to retain the ACT seat of Bean, against an independent, and Victoria's Bendigo, against a National. The new WA seat of Bullwinkel
, which was a notional seat for Labor, is also on a knife's edge.
Teal wave continues to hurt Liberals
The teal independents arrived on polling day down one seat thanks to the abolition of North Sydney.
Early counting suggests the bulk have retained their seats, with Zoe Daniel's Goldstein the only seat yet to be called.
The ABC is projecting she will likely retain the seat. With three quarters of votes counted, she leads 51 per cent to 49, having received a more than 2 per cent swing against her on a two-candidate preferred basis.
The community independents will likely also add the Sydney seat of Bradfield, where Nicollete Boele in her second attempt leads 51-49 with 80 per cent of votes counted.
Complicated counts in Victoria's Flinders (held by Liberal Zoe McKenzie) and Monash (complicated by a former Liberal running as an independent), the ACT's Bean and WA's Forrest could see independents add extra seats but the result won't be known for days, if not longer.
National-turned-independent Andrew Gee looks well placed to prevent his former party from reclaiming Calare in regional NSW.
Green vote steady but seats likely going backwards
The Greens face one of the most nervous waits in the coming days.
While its vote nationally remains steady, the growth in support for Labor has cost the minor party its seats in Griffith (held by the high profile Max Chandler-Mather) and Brisbane.
Leader Adam Bandt is in the fight of his political life to retain Melbourne, while the party's fourth MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown is in with a chance to hold her outer Brisbane seat of Ryan, having won it from the Liberals in 2022.
For Greens to win those Brisbane seats, they needed to leap frog Labor and get into a two-candidate preferred battle with Liberals. While its primary vote didn't tank, the growth in Labor's vote prevented that happening in Griffith and Brisbane.
The party remains optimistic about two other seats, Richmond in NSW, which encompasses Byron Bay, and Wills, in Melbourne's inner north, but its hopes of winning Melbourne's
Macnamara, with the second highest Jewish population in the country, have been dashed.
Irrespective of its results in the lower house, it will retain balance of power in the Senate having retained all its seats in the upper house.
Senate gains give Labor a boost
The slump in the Coalition's primary vote will cost the opposition seats in the Senate, with Labor poised to snatch up to five seats in the Senate.
But the government will still need the support of the Greens, or Coalition, to pass legislation.
The biggest casualty in the upper house looks to be Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey, whose party looks likely to miss out on a NSW senate seat for the first time since 1998.
ACT independent David Pocock comfortably won re-election. Tasmanian Jacqui Lambie and One Nation's Malcolm Roberts are ahead in the early count to retain their seats as the last candidates elected in their respective states.
If the current numbers hold, Labor will become the biggest party in the Senate with up to 30 seats, three more than the Coalition on 27. The Greens will remain on 11 and the crossbench could have eight minor party and independent senators.
On the current numbers, there won't be enough crossbenchers for Labor to pass legislation without either the Greens or Coalition.
Few new results are expected today, with the electoral commission checking existing counts and relocating ballots central hubs.
While there's 18 lower house seats still in doubt and a raft of senate seats, little in the coming days will take away from a dominant landslide victory that has cemented Anthony Albanese's control of Labor. |
