Among the polite pleasures of the Westminster system of government, there is one whose rarity renders it that more enjoyable. And on Saturday night, the majority of Australia got a treat as we watched a multimillionaire former Queensland cop lose not only the election but his own seat as well. Such was the fate of Liberal opposition leader Peter Dutton, who led his party into the most disastrous result in its eighty-year history.
It was obvious that the Liberals would lose from the early stages of the campaign. But no one predicted such a landslide win for Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese. After a rocky three years in government, polls from as late as February showed that he was on the ropes. During the campaign, things turned around dramatically, and on Saturday Labor increased its slim majority in Australia’s 150-seat parliament from seventy-seven to at least eighty-five seats, its largest ever. As of Sunday night, the Coalition (of Liberals and Nationals) has thirty-nine seats, with sixteen more still too close to call.
For the hundreds of somewhat shiny Labor students queued outside Victorian Trades Hall on election night, the result was electrifying. Overjoyed that the status quo had been saved, chants of “Albo, Albo” erupted whenever a newly minted MP arrived. Each new reminder of the impending boom in Labor staffer jobs must have really turned up the mood.
For the Left, however, the election result raises a few tricky questions, especially given the cost-of-living crisis and the Greens’ relatively poor performance. Did Albanese win because Dutton lost, or is it the other way around? And to what extent did the reaction against Donald Trump help Labor’s win?
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Auteur: Zac Gillies-Palmer
