It’s from another article, but this fun bit leaped out at me:
“Three years of waiting for Labor and Anthony Albanese to fall over instead of doing serious policy work came home to roost, and the chicken concerned was very ugly.”
The Labor Party now has 90 seats. They only needed 76 to be a majority government. There are still 11 seats left to be decided.
This is a catastrophe for the Lib/NP, the Greens and the Independents. And it’s a fucking smack in the fucking face to the Murdoch Media who thought their smug fuckingness was enough to sway the Australian voters.
Fuck you Murdoch. Oh, and thank you Trump. Your odiousness wafted all the way over the big ditch. We sent your scent back. 
It’s nice to see a landslide again. Definitive results are rare as hen’s teeth these days.
To give foreigners some sense of the devastation - the Liberal / National Party coalition is down to 40 seats, versus Labor 90, with about 10 more coming down to the wire - so about a 2:1 drubbing. The Greens went down the toilet as well.
This win gives a second term for Labor, which is a big deal as we had a few decades where parties got kicked out at the next election, and leaders even more frequently. It also sets up Labor as the incumbent candidate in a big majority of seats - a really powerful and advantageous position - in the next election, making it very unlikely they can get kicked out, so a three term candidacy looks very likely.
The two main opposition party leaders - Liberals Dutton and Greens Adam Bandt - both lost their seats. Both these parties now have to choose new leaders from within the parliamentary party, and both parties have been left with a very uninspiring conga-line of chancers and people who can’t get proper jobs in the real world.
Murdoch got nothing out of this result. The people he wanted out got in with a vengeance, his puppet media was ignored and the issues they backed were resoundingly rejected by the people. And now Murdoch will need to suck up to the government to help protect his media interests from the social media predators who are busy swallowing them up, starting feet-first and have already reached the waist.
OK, lets start the clock on “a few decades” as from “The Dismissal” election of 1975
LIB 1975, 1977, 1980
LAB 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1993
LIB 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004
LAB 2007, 2010
LIB 2013, 2016, 2019
LAB 2022, 2025
So I’d make two points in rebuttal:
- There have been no single term governments in the past 50 years and
- There have been no single term governments in the past 50 years.
Now pedants could argue that those two points are exactly the same.
But methinks they are so good an argument against that they are worth saying twice.
Hens in Australia have teeth? Clearly a very different country indeed!
Well caught. It was very poorly expressed - I blame the Trump effect.
What would be enlightening is to give the leaders for each election. That’s where the blood was being let.
This is the first time since I think 2001 that a particular PM has been re-elected; up until 2022 both parties kept changing leaders between elections. Hopefully that crap has ended!
Given that John Howard was Prime Minister in 2001, and won a further election in 2004 before losing to Rudd in Dec-2007, that observation is flawed.
Also Julia Gillard was PM when she called the 2010, and was re-elected as PM.
While Scott Morrison was PM when he called the 2019 election, and also re-elected.
Now what you mean is to discount these cases on the grounds that both of those two first became Prime Ministers in mid-term party room coups, not at the prior elections which were won by Rudd and Turnbull respectively. Fair squeeze.
Albanese is the first PM since Howard to win consecutive elections,
But yes … 2010 to 2022 were halcyon days for Australian political cartoonists.
That is indeed what I was getting at, thanks for the corrections.
So, stepping back a bit from the Liberal schtupping, what about Jacinta Namjimimpa Price’s defection? Apart from being the ultimate opportunist, and perhaps having watched the iView series Total Control (thinking she might model herself upon the Alex Irving character), what the fuck is she thinking?
Good Lord woman, you almost single-handedly lost the Coalition their vote when you wore a MAGA hat to a press conference. Are you that fucking dumb?
Price won as a Country Liberal senator for Northern Territory, not for the Nationals. By convention she could caucus in either Liberal or National party room.
But she’s a bit of a lightning rod for a not insubstantial group of detractors:
She’s going to compete with Susan Ley to be deputy Liberal leader, unless Ley knocks off Angus Taylor to be Liberal leader. Let’s be frank, it’s going to be a long and thankless task.
Unless Albo wears a MAGA hat or commits a major economic own goal, it won’t be until the early 2030s before any LIB/NAT leader gets their bum anywhere near the Treasury benches. It’d be good odds that none of the current leadership contenders will be in consideration then.
Keep your eye on Tim Wilson who won back the Melbourne seat of Goldstein from the Teals and will lay low and weigh the numbers for this term.
Meanwhile in the Senate, the girls have taken over.
ALP government’s leader in the Senate is Penny Wong with Katy Gallagher.
LIB/NATs Coalition’s Senate leader is Michaelia Cash with Anne Ruston.
GRN who despite losing their leader now hold the balance of power in the upper house with Larissa Waters and Sarah Hanson Young
Like many democracies, it’s been getting harder for major parties to keep all their loyal and disloyal cats inside their tent. The graph above illustrates.
In 1975, primary votes for 3rd and minor parties were as scarce as rocking horse shit. Preference flow was barely a factor overall.
By 2004 the trend was now a central tenant of Australian politics. Preference flow and management is critical but is less certain and more fragmented.
In 2025 the collective 3rd party primary vote (33.1%) looks likely to exceed the LIB/NAT primary (32.2%). Now preference flows to LAB have provided a big, near landslide win … but with winning only 34.7% primary vote the LABs aren’t in a much better position.
There is nothing with social demography on the horizon which seems likely to reverse, or even halt that trend.
A period of hung parliaments and minority governments held by fragile coalitions seems likely, if not inevitable. Which doesn’t necessarily mean poorer governance.
This election has shown the flaws in our voting system. (Almost all voting systems have some flaws).
First - as Penultima Thule points out above - Labor won a ‘landslide’ with 34.7% of the vote, but they wound up with 62% of the seats. The Greens won nearly 12% of the vote - and won one seat out of 150. (The prevous election - 2022 - they got 12.2% of the vote - and won 9 seats). So in this election, close to 2 million people voted for the Greens as their first preference - and there is f***-all representation in Parliament.
I know the idea is ‘Vote for your Local member who you want to represent YOU!’ - but in practise a local federal member does very little - maybe hands at the awards at the local footy club, and does the occasional ‘hard-hat’ photo-op. Most local work is done by State members and councils.
We also have a ‘preferential’ voting system, which means in a close race for a seat, you need to indicate who your second choice would be - and that gets taken into account (as do all choices - sometimes there 7-8 candidates in a seat). Now that’s fine - except the major parties game this system, and hand out ‘how to vote’ cards to their supporters - in other words, don’t vote your preferences for who you want to win, put them in this order, to make sure the other main party loses. There were even case of the main parties handing out ‘How to Vote’ cards that preferenced our 2 rightwing nut farms - One Nation and Trumpets of Patriots - above the main opposition - and no one in their right mind would want them.
I know we have ‘Proportional representation’ in the Senate - but all they can do there is modify policy - there is little they can do about implementing.
I also know that if we have too many coalitions of minor and major parties forming Government, it risks turning into a giant shitfightt where nothing gets done - but I think we ned to see if there is a better system.
(Disclaimer: I voted ALP and I’m glad they won).
I volunteer for my local federal member and they work very hard at issues, whether local, state or federal. We find that when the federal MP contacts the local council about something, they pay attention and stuff gets done.
That’s certainly what the major parties claim, but does not happen in practice in general - there’s a difference between a minority government and a hung parliament. Minority governments exist in Australian states and nations all over the world, they can work fine.
And let’s not forget that any time the coalition are in power, that’s a minority government of the Liberal Party, often being wagged by the National Party tail.
Well, as you say above every electoral system has failings (whether actual or potential), indeed I believe it has been mathematically proven that must be so; it’s essentially a matter of choosing which problem you prefer. I like both compulsory voting and compulsory preferential system very much.
What better system do you suggest?
Nitpick: All voting systems have egregious flaws … just some are more egregious than others.
Well yes, but in the same election they now hold the balance of power in the Senate.
A while back there a party known as “The Democrats” who were the political receptacle of choice for protest votes ie “Keep the bastards honest”.
Worked well and the party progressively grew into a significant force … right up to the point they became a material political force … and by definition became one of the bastards.
The feral cats wouldn’t stay herded, emulated those Cats of Killkenny of lore, riven by factionalism within a very small tent.
They were deregistered as a political party in 2015. Are still around after a merger with another micro-party. They won 0.23% of the 2025 national primary vote.
The Greens gained support because there was no expectation they would need to deliver. “I voted my conscience, you can’t blame me.” But as soon as you gave them a microphone, the electorate didn’t much like the radical stuff being spouted.
The Teals (with their economic blue hue) have taken their moderate faction and there is insufficient leeway on the far left. They are, for the foreseeable future, a party of socialist protest, not a party of government.
Are you suggesting that the minor/micro parties aren’t gaming the system in the Senate?
What tinkering are you proposing? Continual incremental reform is good.
I don’t see the rationale for fundamental or even major reform.
Tying up a loose end - it annoys me when you read an evolving thread and no one does a proper close-out post to give you the punchline.
So, five weeks after the election, and a few very close-to-the-wire recounts has given us final results.
In the House of Representatives (our lower house):
- Labor - 94 seats [requires 76 to govern in majority]
- Liberal / National Party coalition - 43
- Greens - 1
- Other - 12
The Senate:
- Labour - 28
- Coalition - 27
- Greens - 11
- Party named after racist ratbag - 4
- Others - 6
There’s a few things to note. The first is the absolute thumping that the Liberals got. Its widely agreed they ultra-lost, as much or more than Labor won, due to a lack of workable policies, focussing on things that didn’t engage most voters and still having the stink of years in government, and having some truly fuckwitted reps. Their coalition partners, the Nationals, have fewer swinging seats, so the entire internal dynamic of the Coalition as the main opposition party has shifted from big partner with the urban vote / small country cousin to fairly evenly matched. They even split up for an afternoon. Their challenge is to either try to claw back to the political centre, where Australian elections are won, or to try to become the hard right party of choice.
Second thing is that the voters threw their leader, Peter Dutton out of his seat, along with the leader of the Greens. Both parties decapitated and struggling for a while now. While Labor holds the lower house comfortably they need to get support from others to get bills through the Senate.
Third is that both major parties got about a third of the vote each, down from the traditional 45% with a handful of swingers and voting for minor parties. That seems to be a permanent trend. As others have noted above its not completely translated proportionally to parliamentary seats and while Labor dominates, there are far more independents and minor parties in place now.
Best thing was that all this, including seats being decided by a handful of postal votes weeks afterwards, was done benignly and with negligible fuss, and probably a good time had by most.
Thanks for posting that!
Yes, the Libs have been almost totally driven out of metropolitan seats, IIRC they hold just 8 now. They hold none at all on Sydney’s North Shore for instance, an area they dominated since forever. One might guess there will be more 3- or even 4-cornered contests in rural and semi-rural and rural township seats.
Labor only need the Greens OR the Coalition to pass stuff in the Senate now.